MacHill, M., Kohler, S., & Waldhauser, M. (2007). The use of narrative structures in television news: An experiment in innovative forms of journalistic presentation. European Journal of Communication, 22(2), 185-205.

MacHill, M., Kohler, S., & Waldhauser, M.

2007

MacHill, M., Kohler, S., & Waldhauser, M. (2007). The use of narrative structures in television news: An experiment in innovative forms of journalistic presentation. European Journal of Communication, 22(2), 185-205.

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The content of TV news is often not retained or understood by the audience. This article discusses a concept for increasing retention and comprehension levels relating to TV news. Results of an experimental reception analysis with 215 participants show that retention and comprehension can be improved by employing a narrative device to present TV news. Adopting a narrative form for TV news also gives a clearer distance and perspective to the news content, which has advantages for social communication.

On the basis of the differences measured it is not possible to talk of a significant connection between the narrative presentation and retention of the topic. Consequently, the connection between a narrative presentation of political news topics and the retention of important content-related details can be regarded as highly significant. Here, too, it was possible to detect a significant relationship, this time between narrative presentation and comprehension of the content. it is possible to talk of a large effect and a large explained variance in the study of comprehension performance. The strength of effect for comprehension is clearly higher than the strength of effect for retention. Our study gives initial indications that a narrative presentation has particularly strong effects in the segment of viewers up to 30 years old who have less prior information at their disposal, are less interested in the topic and overall rarely take notice of the news on the television or in newspapers.

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