Visual Narratives in TV News: a Method for Analysis of Archival Footage

Presenter: Katarina Ristić (Global and European Studies Institute)

In this session of Digital Lab, Katarina Ristic explores the use of archival footage from the war in TV news, deliniating the method for the analysis of visual narratives and their effects on transitional justice processes. The archival footage in TV news is assumed to present the ‘reality’ of war, re-enacting the past and eliciting viewers’ emotions. The visual narratives emerging from the selection and editing of archival footage create specific meanings of the past, contributing or preventing the process of dealing with the past. In this presentation, Ristic introduces a method for the analysis of visuals, applying social semiotic multimodal analysis and drawing on structural narrative analysis. The method enables a systematic analysis of visual narratives in the archival footage, revealing the ideological work of sign-makers embedded in the visual structure.

The session takes place at the Computational Humanities Lab (P612, Paulinum) and online via Zoom.