Can certain frames be discovered in the Russian narrative? Has Thierry Baudet, who thinks Putin is a “beautiful guy”, made Putin’s narrative his own?
That much is certain: sometimes words also spread, forgive the metaphor, like cluster bombs over the media.
That is easy to demonstrate. Between 1970 and 1996, the word narrative appeared zero times in this newspaper. From once in 1997, via four times in 2000, we have made a big leap to the present: this year, narrative has already been featured more than thirty times. NRCsometimes even several times in one article.
Narratives are also raining on radio and TV. Putin’s false narrative, the Russian narrative, the strategic narrative, the white, dominant narrative – there is no end to it.
Japke-d. Bouma was already annoyed by it in 2020. Everyone is suddenly talking, she wrote, “about ‘narrative’, while in the past that word was only used by communication consultants and other professional perverts. guys. Stop that. Narrative is simply ‘story’ or ‘narrative’. Pfff.”
The question is whether she is still right. Everyone knows and feels about a story: in principle it can go in all directions, be nice or not, be true or not. A narrative has clear frameworks, is a straightjacket, leaves no room for nuances or doubt and is used to influence and convince others. It comes from the nursery of propaganda. At least: in this way the meaning of narrative has developed in recent years.
Is narrative an Anglicism? Yes and no. As an adjective, meaning ‘narrative, telling’, it is borrowed from French. We’ve been using it that way since the late 18th century. As a noun, for ‘story’ and in the above sense, it is a loan translation from the English narrative†
Before it was hijacked by communication consultants, narrative was especially popular with literary scholars. Among other things, they compiled overviews of “narrative fictional prose” and concerned themselves with “non-narrative forms of arrangement.”
Narrative is now a word that irritates many people. This piece arose from a cry for help from two readers who, independently of each other, announced on the same day: “The word #NARRATIVE drives me crazy!” A message about this on Twitter led to many statements of support. “Nowadays it’s a fancy word for a rock mash, if not: dick story.” “That’s the last Anglicism in parrot country.” “It is an instrument for framing.”
With framing we have arrived at a word that offers hope. Because that too could not be ignored from the media for a while. Nice cup in NRC from 2019: Baudet who frames that they frame him† Meanwhile, the frame rate has dropped significantly. With any luck, it will be the same with the annoying buzzword narrative.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 12 March 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of March 12, 2022
#nursery #propaganda