National temporality and journalistic practice: Temporalising anniversary events in estonian television news

Abstract

By bringing together the theoretical approach of cultural memory studies and analysis of news discourse, this study analyses the devices and strategies anniversary news text employs in the social construction of time within the framework of national temporality. On the example of three television news stories, the analysis makes visible the complexity of temporal constructions that convey a story of the Estonian nation. Among the strategies employed in anniversary news the compression of times, as well as accentuation of duration and temporal 'turning points' are used to link together the present, the past and the future. 'Turning points' refer to beginnings and closings which mark dynamics of continuity and discontinuity of national temporality. In various types of anniversary news narrativisation of time by leaning on meaningful chronotypes and other cultural resources takes place, the syncronisation of which contributes to the construction of national temporality.