Telling the news. Narratological analysis of a modern textual practice

Abstract

With this article we want to examine the reasons why the notion of infotainment, originated by the fusion of information and entertainment, penalizes the information and determines an operation of fictionalizing of the events that the text tells. To do this, we have chosen to focus attention on some narratological principles, through which we describe that sort of information depletion that occurs every time the plot has the upper hand over the story/fabula. In fact, we believe that information, in order to be effective, must privilege direct references, since the adoption of markedly narrativised speeches attenuates the news, dissolves the evidence of the facts and creates in readers and spectators the doubt about the type of text they are faced with.