Showing versus telling: Comparing online video from newspaper and television websites

Abstract

Video has become a central part of news on the web. As an emerging form of news, news videos are appearing with varied narrative structures, styles and formats. Narrative structure is one way that journalists establish discursive authority. Because of contrasting traditions regarding visual news, newspaper videos might be expected to employ different narrative strategies. This content analysis compared the narrative structure of videos posted by newspaper websites with those posted by television organizations. It finds that form reflects contrasting traditions, with newspaper videos taking a more mimetic (showing) approach and television websites using a more diegetic (telling) narrative style.