Re-enacting the past in TV news on war crime trials: A method for analysis of visual narratives in archival footage

Abstract

This article provides a method for the analysis of the visual narratives present in the archival footage in programs of TV news, based on an analysis of TV news on war crime trials transmitted by Serbian TV stations. The archival footage in TV news presents specific claims as to an understanding of the trials, as it is assumed to present the ‘reality’ of war, re-enacting the past and eliciting viewers’ emotions. The author argues that the visual narratives emerging from the selection and editing of archival footage create specific meanings of the past, and provide a method for their analysis, applying social semiotic multimodal analysis and drawing on structural narrative analysis. The patterning of the visual narratives in the archival footage contributes to the creation of an artificial memory of war, signaling a particular version of the past within the preferred meaning of a TV news channel. The main advantage of this method is that it enables a systematic analysis of visual narratives in the archival footage, revealing the ideological work of sign-makers embedded in the visual structure.

Accused War Criminals qua Perpetrators: On the Visual Signification of Criminal Guilt

“…The methodology for the analysis of the visual narrative in TV news was developed by drawing on narrative analysis and social semiotic multimodal analysis, 29 which I have explained in detail elsewhere. 30 For the current analysis, the notions of representational, interactive, and compositional patterns of visuals are important. According to Kress and van Leeuwen, representational structures include narrative and conceptual processes.…”