- By Dr. Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi
- Sunday, 26 October 2014 00:00
Both the English and the Sinhala written and electronic media are inundated with speculations and narratives of the possible presidential election. The debates of a common candidate, ‘uncommon candidate’, thoughts of jumping the ship, breaking the governing coalition, unconstitutionality of a third term for the incumbent president, rivalries within the parties, accusing the left-wing parties of betrayal, NGO financial frauds, TNA’s foreign propitiations, human rights like the sword of Damocles on Sri Lanka, development saga and the litany goes on, and they are all superbly in narrative form and widely circulated among the public.
But one wonders about the truth of any of that and public find it hard as to who says the truth. Truth is the hardest and precious to be found these days, no one seems to honor or respect it any more in political discourses. The public has been made to disbelieve the narrative because they cannot any longer believe the narrator. Hence, the general public is now fixated in narratives of sometime unknown narrators, but the truth seems to remain hidden from all. This does not mean that we live in a lie but crude politics eclipses truth being part of the narrative and the narrator – hence the dilemma.
Fiction is defined as any imaginative re-creation of life in prose narrative form. All fiction is falsehood of some sort as it explains or relates events that never actually happened to people or who never existed, at least not in the style and the way portrayed in the stories. However, fiction writers astutely aim in creating ‘legitimate untruths’. Legitimization of untruth is a serious matter because they wish to demonstrate meaningful insights into the human perception or condition as in the case of current discourse on society and politics in Sri Lanka. Therefore, fiction or a fictitious narrative can be untrue in the absolute sense, but true in the universal sense. This universal sense is politicized and is being created to be believable by the media. If so, is the media capable of truth making for the intelligent public? Who is gullible in this scenario?
Public and the media
Today, the media has become unfortunately where both the narrator and the narrative is under suspicion, perhaps due to their own making. The narrator and his/her narrative are conditioned because of their affiliations to the investor, partisan loyalties, business priorities, competitive entrepreneurship, the uncouth media rivalry and the appeasement component of all things for all people like attitude. This is what at least the local media suffers currently. They may be quite independent as narrators and we must accept that the Sri Lankan media professionals maintain an exceptional prestige in comparison with their counterparts in South and South Asia at least.
However, what they lack is the way they responsibly handle the narrative which is more valuable and politically volatile in a post-war democracy like in Sri Lanka. These narrators have a dilemma between their role as a narrator and the narrative he/she wishes to convey to the public. They cannot write fiction, neither can they naval-focus on whatever that is news worthy. What is news is, ‘not that a man was bitten by a dog’, instead to report that ‘a dog was bitten by a man’. This is what makes the news a sellable product. This narrative is imaginable and what the public wants is, not just the narrative but the innovative narrator as well to be part of their debate.
The first part of the narrative in this piece of news is something regular or normal whilst the second is an extraordinary event where the public wants more details of the two main figures, the man and the dog, what happened next is reasonably sensational. The narrative-narrator correlation is to help the public to seek out for truth, because it is also possible for ‘a man to bite a dog’ which was not necessarily the truth. Hence, the narrator has a paramount duty by his/her words to make the reader a seeker of truth. Narrative then is the handmade of the path to truth and not a creator of truth, it’s the public who not only seeks it but also makes their own judgment of the narrative and the narrator on the path to truth.
Political inbetweeness
Varying political narratives sweep through the country today like wildfire, sometimes even violating public decency and ethical media reporting. Written, electronic and digital media seem to take on sensationalism rather than reasonableness. Some political debates attempt to abide by the later model while many shamelessly engage with emotive declarations and try their luridness making mountains out of molehills.
Political inbetweeness is currently being experienced and is a matter for concern even though such may not necessarily lead to political instability. There are indeed, and should be narratives of the politically significant issue of the predicted presidential election. It is a moment where all concerned are to be tested for their political acumen since the end of the war with the LTTE. In narrative analysis, politics, economics, other socio-cultural movements, pressure groups and extra parliamentary agitation are taken into consideration as they form a narrative injecting debate, discussion and dependency on the political will of a people.
However, the narrative-narrator dilemma is evident when the narrator is not able to justify the narrative with hard evidence, because today’s narrative has turned out to be tomorrow’s falsehood. Fictitious narrative debars the narrator of being truthful and faithful to ethical reporting. This is highly annunciated in most media and poses a serious threat to democracy itself. Yes, ‘freedom of expression’ but making people prisoners of conscience with sensationalism and deceitful reporting, leading them to political inbetweeness and dismay is desacralizing peoples’ will for democracy.
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But one wonders about the truth of any of that and public find it hard as to who says the truth. Truth is the hardest and precious to be found these days, no one seems to honor or respect it any more in political discourses. The public has been made to disbelieve the narrative because they cannot any longer believe the narrator. Hence, the general public is now fixated in narratives of sometime unknown narrators, but the truth seems to remain hidden from all. This does not mean that we live in a lie but crude politics eclipses truth being part of the narrative and the narrator – hence the dilemma.
Fiction is defined as any imaginative re-creation of life in prose narrative form. All fiction is falsehood of some sort as it explains or relates events that never actually happened to people or who never existed, at least not in the style and the way portrayed in the stories. However, fiction writers astutely aim in creating ‘legitimate untruths’. Legitimization of untruth is a serious matter because they wish to demonstrate meaningful insights into the human perception or condition as in the case of current discourse on society and politics in Sri Lanka. Therefore, fiction or a fictitious narrative can be untrue in the absolute sense, but true in the universal sense. This universal sense is politicized and is being created to be believable by the media. If so, is the media capable of truth making for the intelligent public? Who is gullible in this scenario?
Public and the media
Today, the media has become unfortunately where both the narrator and the narrative is under suspicion, perhaps due to their own making. The narrator and his/her narrative are conditioned because of their affiliations to the investor, partisan loyalties, business priorities, competitive entrepreneurship, the uncouth media rivalry and the appeasement component of all things for all people like attitude. This is what at least the local media suffers currently. They may be quite independent as narrators and we must accept that the Sri Lankan media professionals maintain an exceptional prestige in comparison with their counterparts in South and South Asia at least.
However, what they lack is the way they responsibly handle the narrative which is more valuable and politically volatile in a post-war democracy like in Sri Lanka. These narrators have a dilemma between their role as a narrator and the narrative he/she wishes to convey to the public. They cannot write fiction, neither can they naval-focus on whatever that is news worthy. What is news is, ‘not that a man was bitten by a dog’, instead to report that ‘a dog was bitten by a man’. This is what makes the news a sellable product. This narrative is imaginable and what the public wants is, not just the narrative but the innovative narrator as well to be part of their debate.
The first part of the narrative in this piece of news is something regular or normal whilst the second is an extraordinary event where the public wants more details of the two main figures, the man and the dog, what happened next is reasonably sensational. The narrative-narrator correlation is to help the public to seek out for truth, because it is also possible for ‘a man to bite a dog’ which was not necessarily the truth. Hence, the narrator has a paramount duty by his/her words to make the reader a seeker of truth. Narrative then is the handmade of the path to truth and not a creator of truth, it’s the public who not only seeks it but also makes their own judgment of the narrative and the narrator on the path to truth.
Political inbetweeness
Varying political narratives sweep through the country today like wildfire, sometimes even violating public decency and ethical media reporting. Written, electronic and digital media seem to take on sensationalism rather than reasonableness. Some political debates attempt to abide by the later model while many shamelessly engage with emotive declarations and try their luridness making mountains out of molehills.
Political inbetweeness is currently being experienced and is a matter for concern even though such may not necessarily lead to political instability. There are indeed, and should be narratives of the politically significant issue of the predicted presidential election. It is a moment where all concerned are to be tested for their political acumen since the end of the war with the LTTE. In narrative analysis, politics, economics, other socio-cultural movements, pressure groups and extra parliamentary agitation are taken into consideration as they form a narrative injecting debate, discussion and dependency on the political will of a people.
However, the narrative-narrator dilemma is evident when the narrator is not able to justify the narrative with hard evidence, because today’s narrative has turned out to be tomorrow’s falsehood. Fictitious narrative debars the narrator of being truthful and faithful to ethical reporting. This is highly annunciated in most media and poses a serious threat to democracy itself. Yes, ‘freedom of expression’ but making people prisoners of conscience with sensationalism and deceitful reporting, leading them to political inbetweeness and dismay is desacralizing peoples’ will for democracy.
Read 642 times
– See more at: http://www.nation.lk/edition/news-features/item/34596-narrative-narrator-dilemma.html#sthash.k6m1KFbf.dpuf