The Narrative of the Skripals Case in the "Vesti Nedeli" Television Program: an Analysis of the Story Plot

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Leila O. Algavi

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor at the Chair of Theory and History of Journalism, Faculty of Philology, People's Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

e-mail: algawy_lo@rudn.ru
Irina I. Volkova

Doctor of Philology, Professor at the Chair of Mass Communications, Faculty of Philology, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

e-mail: volkova-ii@rudn.ru
Shuanat N. Kadyrova

PhD in Philology, Senior Lecturer at the Chair of Theory and History of Journalism, Faculty of Philology, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

e-mail: kadyrova_shn@rudn.ru
Natalya E. Rastorgueva

PhD in Philology, Senior Lecturer at the Chair of Theory and History of Journalism, Faculty of Philology, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

e-mail: rastorgueva_ne@rudn.ru

Section: Television and Radio

This paper presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of data that contended in the scripts of twenty-seven episodes of the informational TV show “Vesti Nedeli” (Russia 1, 2018) The attribution is based on C. Booker's universal plots, thanks to which it was possible to reveal the narrative peculiarities of Skripal Case represented by D. Kiselev and the correspondents of his show. The reasearch made it possible to identify that a basic plot that was represented in the news narrative of Skripal Case is a tragedy with the prescribed set of the characters and the consistent unravelling of the story in actes. It has been found that at the centre of journalists' narration is no Skripals, but the United Kingdom (subject) in the context of its relationship to Russia (object). The authors allocated subject-object roles the story characters, while Teresa May marked as the tragedy's lead character.

Keywords: news story, universal plot, narrative, semantic roles, the Skripals’ poisoning
DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.3.2019.6283

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