Cultural Narrative

Last week, Children’s BBC (CBBC) posted a slideshow photo gallery called “Children of Kabul.”  The slideshow depicted various pictures of children playing in Kabul that included children flying kites, girls riding skateboards, and images of the city itself.  The images are accompanied with simple explanatory captions.  These include, “The hills of Kabul are full of children playing games”, “the Taliban…banned things like music, television and most sports,” and “they say even something as simple as skateboarding gives them a sense of freedom.”

The slideshow is an example of socio-narratology or how story structure enacts certain types of engagement (Wessels, Anderson, Durrant & Ellis, 2012).  Producers of content use the concept of socio-narratology to construct stories based on how they perceive the users of media and what kind of action or engagement they want to elicit (p. 195).

Wessels, et. al (2012)'s three concepts of socio-narratology are present in this slideshow.  The distance between the two nations of the United Kingdom and Afghanistan represent the space of appearance.  The producers compile familiar images such as skateboarding, traffic, and children playing to foster mutual understanding or what Wessels, et al. call doubling.  Finally, these elements serve to create “proper distance” so that there is enough distance to create a sense of other and an obligation for action, yet enough proximity to experience shared identity or empathy (p. 197).

While socio-narratology can be beneficial in creating mutual understanding and engagement, there is a danger, as well.  In the example of the CBBC’s Afghan Children slideshow, the imagery and positive messages used are in the context of western civilization – skateboards, television, and freedom.  Negative messages and images are taken from specifically Afghan culture – the Taliban and the local presence of warfare.  The aim here is to bridge the distance between UK children and Afghan children, to say “they are just like us.”  And in terms of humanity, yes they are.  But, the slideshow offers little in terms of real learning about Afghan culture.  “They are like us” is strictly in terms of the extent to which Afghan children are westernized.

This is an issue of literacy.  There are social benefits to socio-narratology.  But there needs to be a level of literacy through which a consumer of media can understand when mediated messages are narrowing cultural understanding rather than broadening it.

References

CBBC. (2014, March, 25). Pictures: Children of Kabul photo gallery. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/26371732

Wessels, B., Anderson, B., Durrant, A., & Ellis, J. (2012). Mediating genocide: Cultural understanding through digital and print media stories in global communication. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 8, 193-209.