A Narrative Study On The Ideological Establishment In Disastrous News Of The New York Times

Disaster is an important motif in literature and art studies, as narration ofdisasters would trigger people’s humanistic concern to the society, as well as theirin-depth thinking about life and history. Disastrous accidents, like natural calamitiesand human error accidents are emergent events and can always bring about people’surgent requirement for information, thus have high news value. At the same time,media’s narrative discourse of the disastrous accidents could lead people to ponderover the accidents or even the society. Therefore, when covering disastrous accidents,news media are doing more than just delivering information, but playing an importantrole in reconstructing the society, too. China has entered a transformation period withrapid changes, and news coverage of Chinese media has undergone severaltransformations, with more openness and more mature technical measures. However,there is much room for improvement in fierce competition of information with newand global media.The New York Times, a representative figure of quality paper and serious newsin the U.S, has good credibility and authority over the long term, holding muchworldwide sway. The disastrous news of the New York Times could reflect theopinions and attitudes of different sides on the basis of balanced discourses andjournalistic professionalism. Thus it may provide beneficial experience for thetransforming Chinese media. On the basis of profound news samples and newsnarratology theories, this dissertation will conduct a positive research on the NewYork Times’ coverage of a rail crash in Los Angeles on September,12th,2008, and tryto sum up the narrative features in narrative object, structure, perspective and thenarrators, as well as its disastrous news and its news ideology, hoping that it couldoffer insights to Chinese media in covering disastrous events and complement toChina’s ever developing news narratology research.