One of the forms of narrative that is capturing my attention, and weaving its way into my writing, is that of the public narrative. The public narrative is the evolving story of an individual that makes it into the public limelight for a particular reason. Current examples that come to mind are the local public narratives of Police Commissioner Selebi, Schabir Shaik, Jacob Zuma. There are also great examples of global narratives of George W. Bush and Tiger Woods, to name but a few.

A personal narrative is a story we construct of how we see ourselves, reality and ourselves in relation to the world. The public narrative is distinct from the personal narrative in that the story of an individual moves from being constructed by the individual towards being constructed by a large group of people who use the information they receive about the person, often through media channels, to construct the character, timeline and plot of the individual's story.

We come to participate in the formation and knowing of these public narratives primarily through newspapers, television and internet reporting. I like Booker's summation in this regard:

Through newspapers or television, our news is presented to us in the form of 'stories'. Our history books are largely made up of stories. Even much of our conversation is taken up with recounting the events of everyday life in the form of stories. These structured sequences of imagery are in fact the most natural way we know to describe almost everything which happens in our lives.

And so, this person's Story now becomes part of the public domain and takes on a life of it's own. Prior to this happening, the individual was often a relatively unknown character in the narrative landscape of a country, politics, the arts, media or academic field. The movement is also discontinuous. A public narrative may only need one event to be formed, or a culmination of events over years.

An example of a gradually developing public narrative is President Thabo Mbeki's. Over the course of decades his public narrative has developed from being that of a freedom fighter, to State President, to quiet, diplomatic leader.

What intrigues me about public narratives is how they are constructed on scant information about few temporal events that populate the narrative. This if often at its worst when there is a scandal emerging around a person. When information first breaks around the scandal, more and more information then accumulates to populate the narrative. But at no point does the lack of information in the early stages stop the narrative form taking shape. This is currently unfolding of the involvement of Police Commissioner Selebi and his involvement in the Kebble murder.

What is amazing about public narratives is their seeming fickleness which can then be balanced by a profound resilience. I wrote of how President Mbeki's narrative, in the midst of harsh criticism, had a bullet-proof nature as an alternative story was disregarded by the public, and the dominant story upheld (read it here).

The other aspect of a public narrative that is intriguing is how difficult it becomes to to discern the truth of an individual in relation to the public narrative. For example, the global narrative around George W. Bush is fragmented. It is so difficult to hear him speak, begenuinle ycurious about what he has to say, without interpreting his words through the filter of the public narrative that surrounds him of being a war monger who stumbles over his words.

And then there is the narrative surrounding golfing legend Tiger Woods. Predominantly through his own intentions, he has kept the public narrative around him and his life curbed. Nonetheless, it is a populated narrative where the story around Tiger is that he is a private genius.

There we go … just some thoughts on public narratives.