Article published In:
Narrative Inquiry: Online-First ArticlesAssessing coherence and fidelity
Credibility of COVID-19 narratives
Non-fictional narratives have an open-ended character that projects roles and values to those who participate in them. Narrative participation, in turn, entails narrative assessment and identification processes, through which adherence to values and positions may fail or be achieved. In the analysis of interviews with university students across Turkey, we draw on Fisher’s narrative paradigm to focus on how our participants carry out assessments of narrative credibility. To elucidate narrative coherence and fidelity, we take inspiration from an argumentative-rhetorical perspective, and focus specifically on the relationship among the criteria identified in the literature on narrative assessment. Our study of interviewee evaluations of COVID-19 narratives confirms the use of the coherence criteria, calls into question the fidelity criteria, and highlights the relevance of identification as a basic process for fidelity assessments. We conclude by discussing our limitations and directions for further research.
Keywords: non-fictional narrative assessment, coherence, fidelity, identification, COVID-19 narratives, conspiracy theories, interviews
Article outline
- Introduction
- Narrative and argumentative perspectives
- Identification and participation in narratives
- Setting applicable criteria for narrative assessment
- Interview study
- Assessment of pandemic narratives in interviews
- Assessing narrative coherence
- Assessing narrative fidelity
- Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
References
Björninen, S.
(2019) The
rhetoric of factuality in narrative: Appeals to authority in Claas Relotius’s feature
journalism. Narrative
Inquiry,
29
(2), 352–370. 
Björninen, S., Hatavara, M., & Mäkelä, M.
(2020) Narrative
as social action: a narratological approach to story, discourse and positioning in political
storytelling. International Journal of Social Research
Methodology,
23
(4), 437–449.
Bubikova-Moan, J.
(2021) Credible
as Evidence? Multilayered Audience Reception of Narrative Arguments. Informal
Logic,
41
(2), 187–217.
Castells, M., & Cardoso, G.
(2005) The
network society: From knowledge to policy. Johns Hopkins University.
Chen, K., Zhang, J., Ao, X., & Ramdass, J.
(2022) The
burden of being certain: National identity certainty predicts support for COVID-related restrictive measures and outgroup
conspiracy beliefs. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology,
52
(6), 414–428.
Dentith, M. R.
(2014) Evidence
and conspiracy theories. In M. R. Dentith (Ed.), The
Philosophy of Conspiracy
Theories (pp. 124–143). Palgrave Macmillan.
Fairclough, I., & Fairclough, N.
(2012) Political
discourse analysis: A method for advanced
students. Routledge.
De Fina, A.
(2021) Doing
narrative analysis from a narratives-as-practices perspective. Narrative
Inquiry,
31
(1), 49–71.
Fisher, W. R.
(1984) Narration
as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communications
Monographs,
51
(1), 1–22.
Fisher, V. R.
(1987) Human
communication as narration: Toward a philosophy of reason, value, and action. University of South Carolina Press.
Fisher, W. R.
(2002) Reconfiguring
Practical Wisdom. Proceedings of International Society for the Study of Argumentation. SICSAT.
Gagliardone, I., Diepeveen, S., Findlay, K., Olaniran, S., Pohjonen, M., & Tallam, E.
(2021) Demystifying
the COVID-19 infodemic: Conspiracies, context, and the agency of users. Social Media &
Society,
7
(3), 1–16.
Hyvärinen, M.
(2020) Toward
a Theory of Counter-Narratives: Narrative Contestation, Cultural Canonicity, and
Tellability. In K. Lueg & M. W. Lundholt (Eds.), Routledge
Handbook of
Counter-Narratives (pp. 17–29). Routledge.
Innocenti, B.
(2011) A
normative pragmatic model of making fear appeals. Philosophy &
Rhetoric,
44
(3), 273–290.
Jackson, S.
(1992) Virtual
Standpoints and the Pragmatics of Conversational Argument. In F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair, & C. Willard (Eds.), Argumentation
Illuminated (pp. 260–269). SIC-SAT.
Mackenzie, S.
(2011) Dissecting
the social body: social inequality through AIDS counter-narratives. Public Understanding of
Science,
20
(4), 491–505.
McClure, K.
(2009) Resurrecting
the narrative paradigm: Identification and the case of young earth creationism. Rhetoric
Society
Quarterly,
39
(2), 189–211.
Meretoja, H.
(2020) A
dialogics of counter-narratives. In K. Lueg & M. W. Lundholt (Eds.), Routledge
handbook of
counter-narratives (pp. 30–42). Routledge.
Mohammed, D., & Rossi, M. G.
(2022) The
argumentative potential of doubt: From legitimate concerns to conspiracy theories about COVID-19
vaccines. In S. Oswald et al. (Eds.), The
Pandemic of
Argumentation (pp. 125–144). Springer Cham.
Olmos, P.
(2015) Story
credibility in narrative arguments. In F. van Eemeren & B. Garssen (Eds.), Reflections
on Theoretical Issues in Argumentation
Theory (pp. 155–167). Springer Cham.
(Ed.) (2017) Narration
as argument. Springer Cham.
Oswald, S.
(2016) Conspiracy
and bias: Argumentative features and persuasiveness of conspiracy theories. OSSA Conference Archive
168. [URL]
Paliewicz, N. S., & McHendry, G. F.
(2020) Post-dialectics
and fascistic argumentation in the global climate change debate. Argumentation and
Advocacy,
56
(3), 137–154.
Paskey, S.
(2014) The
law is made of stories: Erasing the false dichotomy between stories and legal rules. Legal
Communication &
Rhetoric,
11
1, 51–82.
Perelman, C.
(1982) The
realm of rhetoric. University of Notre Damme Press.
Pollock, J.
(1986) A
Theory of Moral
Reasoning. Ethics,
96
(3), 506–523.
Rideout, J. C.
(2008) Storytelling,
narrative rationality, and legal persuasion. Legal
Writing,
14
1, 53–78.
(2013) A
twice-told tale: Plausibility and narrative coherence in judicial storytelling. Legal
Communication &
Rhetoric,
10
1, 67–83.
Stevens, K., & Cohen, D.
(2019) The
attraction of the ideal has no traction on the real: on adversariality and roles in
argument. Argumentation &
Advocacy,
55
(1), 1–23.
Tindale, C.
(2017) Narratives
and the Concept of Argument. In P. Olmos (Ed.), Narration
as
argument (pp. 11–30). Springer Cham.
Toulmin, S.
(1958) The
Uses of Argument. Cambridge University Press.
Törrönen, J.
(2010) The
passionate text. The pending narrative as a macrostructure of persuasion. Social
Semiotics,
10
(1), 81–98.
(2021) COVID-19
as a generator of pending narratives: Developing an empirical tool to analyze narrative practices in constructing
futures. International Journal of Qualitative
Methods,
20
1, 1–10.
Üzelgün, M. A., Mohammed, D., Levinski, M., Castro, P.
(2015) Managing
disagreement through yes, but… constructions: An argumentative analysis. Discourse
Studies,
17
(4): 467–484.
Üzelgün, M. A., Fernandes-Jesus, M., & Küçükural, O.
(2022) Reception
of climate activist messages by low-carbon transition actors: argument evasion in the carbon offsetting
debate, Argumentation and
Advocacy,
58
(2), 102–122.
van den Hoven, P.
(2017) Narratives
and pragmatic arguments: Ivens’ The 400 million. In P. Olmos (Ed.), Narration
as
argument (pp. 103–121). Springer Cham.
van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., & Jackson, S.
(1993) Reconstructing
Argumentative Discourse. University of Alabama Press.
van Eemeren, F. H.
(2016) Identifying
Argumentative Patterns: A Vital Step in the Development of
Pragma-Dialectics. Argumentation,
30
1, 1–23.
Walton, D., Reed, C., & Macagno, F.
(2008) Argumentation
schemes. Cambridge University Press.