Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

Cabecinhas, R. & Abadia, L. (eds.) (2013)Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approachesBraga: University of MinhoISBN: 978-989-8600-04-2pp. 93 -105Hard News Cognitive Shift: from Facts to NarrativesLuiz G. MottaUniversity of Brasília, Brazilluizmottaunb@yahoo.com.brAbstractThis article discusses whether and how hard news stories represent the immediate reality.It suggests that random bits of hard information morph into episodic intrigues whenaudiences cognitively assemble a disorderly media flow of information into a chronologicalepisode. Active audiences proceed this way, it is assumed, because the narrative frame (theplot construction) is a powerful cognitive device which people naturally use to organizediffuse and confused social reality. Five preliminary hypotheses on how random hardinformation turns into subjective coherent intrigues are presented. The paper concludesthat hard news configures unstable intrigue matrixes rather than neat narratives. Thosematrixes seem to be exploratory foresights about the chaotic reality rather than tangibleimaginary stories, however.Key wordsimmediate reality; social representations; narrative frames; intrigue construction; hardnews cognitionDoes random and factual hard news configure narrative representations of the immediatereality? To what extent does the narrative canon operate as a cognitive frame inthe audience’s interpretation of hard news reports? This article discusses some preliminaryhypotheses about whether, and how random bits of descriptive hard news reports of everyday incidents may or may not constitute coherent narrative intrigues. Each hypothesis statementis followed by brief conceptual arguments which sustain it. The hypotheses are notexhaustive and are redundant to some extent, one overlapping the other. Together, theyrepresent a first attempt to systematize a preliminary cognitive theory of social representationsof the immediate reality through hard factual news reporting. The narrative paradigmis taken as a fundamental cognitive frame. The paper assumes that the narrative canon is thenatural frame news reporters (and people in general) use to perceive, describe and interpret