Fantasies and melodramas in television network news: The case of Three Mile Island

Abstract

Television news is a form of storytelling. The logic of the medium impels it to use melodramatic formulas as elements of news stories. Each melodrama constitutes a fantasy played with by audiences. A key question is what type of melodramatic fantasies network news offers. Network coverage of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, 1979, displayed marked differences between networks in melodramatic coverage. Four major rhetorical traditions emerged: popular sensationalist (emphasized by ABC News), informative (that of CBS News), didactic and feature stories (the last two characteristic of NBC News). The rhetorical vision implicit in each network's melodramatic coverage resulted in fantasies of subversion (ABC), affirmation (NBC), and reaffirmation (CBS).