There’s no place like home : Storytelling of war in Afghanistan and street crime ‘at home’ in the Omaha World-Herald.

Gutsche Jr, Robert (2014) There’s no place like home : Storytelling of war in Afghanistan and street crime ‘at home’ in the Omaha World-Herald. Journalism Practice, 8 (1). pp. 65-79. ISSN 1751-2794

Abstract

This narrative analysis explores the juxtaposition of local crime news in Omaha, Nebraska with coverage of local troops embedded in Afghanistan in April 2011. It argues that narrative devices such as scene-setting, characterization, sourcing, and the use of dramatic elements constructed violence abroad as heroic and expected, but disruptive and dangerous at home; these contrasts worked to sustain a dominant ideology of institutional superiority.