Narrative in the field of political communications: the approaches of most cited papers on Web of Science.

Abstract

Narrative theory as a scientific approach emerged in the field of literary studies and, at first, was used for the analysis of fiction. In the second half of the 20th century, works of poststructuralists, who perceived reality to be kind of a text, led to the spread of the narratology in the humanities: history, psychology, sociology, political and communication studies. The digital times have made narratology more popular than ever. However, in the field of Ukrainian political studies, narrative analysis is used quite rarely. Thus, this study aims to define the key characteristics of the term «narrative» and the ways of its studying in the most cited publications in the Web of Science base (in the fields of Political Studies and Communications).

Study of research in the field of narrative and political communications helps us to underline five main characteristics of a narrative. Narrative is a suitable form for making sense of reality – both in the everyday life and in the political studies. Within the latter, a dominant and alternative narratives may be differentiated, whereas a question about the ratio of official and alternative narratives remains mainly unanswered, and in the digital times in particular. Additionally a narrative have a reference possibility, thus it’s always connected to some extra-textual (or extra-narrative) features, and an audience should add some additional knowledge to interpret a story. However, a political narrative should have a factual basis and to reflect the reality (for a literature narrative it’s not obligatory). Narrative is also linear and predictable. As far as a narrative has a plot, it helps to put in in a temporal sequence some facts and events. Thus, meanings of a narrative are predestined, sometimes a narrative may be a reason for biased attitudes. And to sum up, a narrative has dramatic nature and engaging character. Thus, as a rule, an audience perceive a narrative uncritically.