The GDELT Project

Using Gemini To Explore The Narrative Undercurrents Of Television News At Scale: First Experiments

Kalev Leetaru

One of the most remarkable elements of our Gemini-powered story segmentation of television news is Gemini's incredible ability to perform rich free-form assessment of the narrative structure of each story: how the story is told. Looking through some of the Narrative Structure entries from yesterday, we can see just how powerful this narrative assessment is, contrasting a story told through "a data-driven analysis using charts and statistics" with one "drawing on expert commentary and inside information from EU officials" or one that "presents a 'claim and counter-claim' structure" vs one that "employs a testimonial and interview-driven approach", a "brief, factual report" versus "brief, enthusiastic recap", a "straightforward human-interest piece" or a "narrative follows a "who said what" structure" or "begins with a problem statement … and seeks validation from an expert". What might it look like to compile a month-long selection of these narratives and ask Gemini to dive deeply into what they can tell us about how television evening news broadcasts communicate the world's biggest stories?

Here we take all of the narrative structure analyses for the 908 stories found in the July 2025 evening news broadcasts analyzed earlier this week. We then ask Gemini 2.5 Pro to look across all of them and summarize the macro-level patterns of evening news storytelling, having it explore various dimensions. We even ask it to assume the role of a doctoral student proposing a dissertation topic, resulting in "How does the 'Macro-to-Micro Funnel' narrative pattern in evening television news influence viewers' emotional responses (empathy, anger) and contribute to affective polarization, and does the political leaning of the broadcast network moderate this effect?"

While the findings within will not surprise journalism scholars, there are some fascinating glimmers of insights in the results below and Gemini not only flags some genuinely interesting examples, but provides a framework through which a journalism scholar could use the underlying data to perform a quantitative data-driven exploration of several key journalism concepts.

Gemini's narrative assessments are incredibly rich, from the examples given above to highly specific examples like "presents a dialogue between two contrasting viewpoints (Jensen Huang's optimism vs. Dario Amodei's caution)", "the narrative begins with a direct quote from Obama outlining his criticism", "interview segment that introduces the new book and character, explores the author's creative process and the longevity of the series". Reading some of the narrative structure analyses in their entirety showcases the incredible potential of this approach to redefine how scholars can study how we communicate the news: "The narrative introduces the new AI technology with enthusiastic testimonials about its benefits. It then quickly transitions to a critical counter-argument from animal rights activists, detailing their fears of overfishing. The story concludes with a rebuttal from the technology's proponents, presenting a balanced but unresolved discussion on the impact of this innovation", "The narrative introduces President Trump's policy decision regarding Ukraine aid, then provides historical context by contrasting the current situation with past presidencies. It includes an interview with Senator Cotton, who elaborates on the strategy's goals (forcing Putin to negotiate) and explores its potential effectiveness, concluding with an open-ended "we shall see."" and "It presents an expository and analytical structure, presenting the news of the contract, detailing the controversial aspects of the AI, and then engaging expert commentators to provide insights into the political motivations, market implications, and the broader relationship between business and government."

To get started analyzing all of this, let's start by extracting all of the Narrative Structure entries from all stories in last month's evening news broadcasts. We'll limit ourselves to just July 2025 to minimize the amount of text Gemini has to consider so that it fits into its input token limits. Instead of trying to write this filter ourselves, let's just ask Gemini to do it for us:

I have a JSONNL file called "storyseg.eveningnews-2010-20250729.v1.json". i want to use jq to extract all the entries with "id" having "_202507\d\d_" pattern. then i want to take the "stories" array in each row, extract the "narrrativeStructure" field from each and return all of those narrativeStructure fields one per line and write to file "NARRATIVES.json"

Incredibly, Gemini immediately gives us the following filter that does all of that:

jq -r 'select(.id | test("_202507\\d\\d_")) | .stories[]?.narrativeStructure' storyseg.eveningnews-2010-20250729.v1.json > NARRATIVES.json

Running this yields 908 entries.

Now let's ask Gemini to perform a top-level assessment of narrative structure. For maximal reasoning capacity, we'll switch to Gemini 2.5 Pro:

Attached is a text file containing narrative structure analyses showing how various television evening stories were told. Each row is an analysis of the narrative structure of one show. You are a narrative analysis scholar. I want you to deeply consider each of these analyses and then step back and look across all of them together and give me a couple-page top level analysis of the broad trends and patterns and interesting findings you see across all of them, citing examples of each trend, pattern and finding.

This yields:

An Analysis of Narrative Structures in Evening News Reporting

The provided dataset of narrative analyses reveals a sophisticated and largely consistent set of storytelling frameworks used by evening news programs. These structures are not merely containers for information; they are engines of meaning, designed to frame events, generate emotional engagement, and make complex realities digestible for a broad audience. An examination across the corpus highlights several dominant patterns, from the urgency of breaking news to the emotional resonance of the personal anecdote. The findings demonstrate that while the content of the news is ever-changing, the methods of its telling are remarkably stable and purposeful.

Trend 1: The Primacy of the "Breaking News" and Unfolding Crisis Framework

The most prevalent structure is that of the unfolding crisis, often initiated with a "breaking news alert." This framework is engineered to create a sense of immediacy and ongoing development, compelling the viewer to stay tuned. These narratives rarely present a resolved situation. Instead, they move from an initial, high-impact overview to a series of escalating or detailed reports.

Trend 2: The Macro-to-Micro Funnel: Humanizing the Abstract

A powerful and frequently used technique is to start with a large-scale event, policy, or statistic and immediately funnel down to a specific, human-level story. This "Macro-to-Micro" approach makes abstract issues relatable and emotionally resonant. Policy debates, economic reports, and natural disasters are often framed this way to give the viewer a personal access point to a larger, more impersonal topic.

Trend 3: Conflict as a Narrative Engine

Particularly in political and legal reporting, the narrative is often explicitly structured around conflict. This framework presents issues not as a set of neutral facts, but as a struggle between opposing forces, figures, or ideas. This dramatizes the political process and simplifies complex negotiations into a more accessible "us vs. them" or "protagonist vs. antagonist" dynamic.

Trend 4: The Investigative Arc: Building Mystery and Suspense

Stories involving crime, accidents, or official malfeasance frequently adopt an investigative narrative arc. These stories begin with a central question or a grim discovery and proceed to reveal clues, introduce key figures (suspects, victims, investigators), and explore motives. This structure engages the audience by inviting them to participate in the process of solving the mystery.

Trend 5: Formulaic and Cyclical Reports: The Comfort of Predictability

In stark contrast to the unfolding drama of breaking news, certain segments like weather and sports rely on highly predictable, formulaic structures. This predictability provides a rhythmic and comforting familiarity for the viewer. Weather reports, for instance, almost universally move from a broad overview to regional specifics and a future outlook.

Interesting Findings and Nuances

Conclusion

The narrative structures employed in evening news are far from arbitrary. They are carefully selected tools used to manage information, evoke emotion, and construct a coherent, engaging version of the world's events. The dominance of the "unfolding crisis" and "conflict" frameworks underscores a preference for drama and immediacy, while the "macro-to-micro" technique ensures that broad issues have a human, emotional anchor. By understanding these recurring patterns, we can more critically appreciate not just what we are being told, but how the story is being shaped for us. The storytelling itself becomes a central part of the news.

Let's dive a bit into sourcing. While sourcing information is less represented in the Narrative Structure field, there should be enough information there to derive some basic insights:

What are the most common sources used by these news stories? Politicians? Corporate executives? Ordinary citizens? Etc? Tell me the kinds of sources most commonly used to tell these stories, how those sources are used and do certain sources tend to be used for certain topics more than others?

This yields:

The Hierarchy of Voices: An Analysis of Sourcing in Evening News Narratives

Evening news stories are built upon a scaffold of sources, each lending a different form of authority, emotion, or perspective to the narrative. The analyses reveal a distinct pattern in which Official Sources establish the primary frame, Affected Individuals provide the emotional core, and Expert Sources offer credible context. This triangulation of voices is the bedrock of modern television news storytelling.

1. Official Sources: The Architects of the Narrative

By far the most common and foundational sources are official figures. Their statements, actions, and perspectives often serve as the inciting incident or the central pillar around which the rest of the story is built.

2. Affected Individuals (Ordinary Citizens): The Emotional Core

While officials frame the story, it is the voices of ordinary citizens that provide its emotional weight and human stakes. These sources make abstract events tangible and relatable for the audience.

3. Expert Sources: The Voice of Credibility and Explanation

Experts are deployed to provide context, explanation, and a veneer of objective analysis, especially on complex topics. They translate technical information and predict future developments, lending credibility to the report.

Summary of Source Usage by Topic

Source Category Primary Narrative Function Common Topics
Official Sources Framing & Authority: Set the agenda, provide official facts, represent power. Politics, Law Enforcement, Disaster Response, Foreign Policy
Affected Individuals Emotion & Humanization: Provide emotional weight, personal stories, real-world impact. Disasters, Accidents, Crime, Human-Interest, Policy Impact
Expert Sources Explanation & Credibility: Explain complex topics, provide forecasts, offer objective analysis. Weather, Health & Science, Economics, Legal Proceedings
Corporate/Advocacy Perspective & Conflict: Represent specific interests, provide the "other side" of a story. Business, Labor Disputes, Regulatory Debates

Conclusion

The sourcing patterns in evening news are highly strategic. A typical "hard news" story, such as a natural disaster or a major policy announcement, is constructed like a tripod: it stands on the authority of Official Sources, is given human dimension and emotional resonance by Affected Individuals, and is made understandable by the explanations of Expert Sources. This formula allows news programs to present information that feels both authoritative and emotionally compelling, effectively guiding the audience's understanding of and reaction to the events of the day. The choice of who gets to speak, and in what capacity, is one of the most powerful tools in a journalist's storytelling arsenal.

Let's try a more free-form prompt:

What are the most common narrative patterns you see in the data?

Here we get results similar to our first output, but better structured in some ways:

The Archetypes of the Evening News: An Analysis of Common Narrative Patterns

While the daily news cycle presents a seemingly endless variety of events, the ways in which these events are packaged and presented to the public fall into a limited set of powerful, recurring narrative patterns. These patterns are the storytelling DNA of television news, shaping raw information into coherent, emotionally resonant, and easily digestible formats. The following are the most common archetypes identified in the data.

1. The Unfolding Crisis

This is arguably the most dominant pattern for "hard news." Its primary function is to create a sense of immediacy, urgency, and ongoing development. The story is presented not as a finished event, but as a situation in progress, compelling the viewer to stay engaged for future updates.

2. The Macro-to-Micro Funnel

This powerful pattern translates large, abstract concepts into personal, relatable stories. It takes a broad issue (a new law, an economic trend, a widespread problem) and funnels it down to a single, human case study, making the impersonal personal.

3. The Conflict Frame

This pattern structures a story as a struggle between two opposing forces. It is the default narrative for most political reporting, simplifying complex negotiations and debates into a dramatic showdown.

4. The Investigative Arc (Problem & Mystery)

This pattern frames a story as a puzzle to be solved. It focuses on the search for answers, causes, or culprits, inviting the audience to follow along with the process of discovery.

5. The Positive Resolution & Human-Interest Arc

In a media landscape often dominated by crisis and conflict, this pattern provides a narrative of hope, resilience, or simple warmth. It focuses on positive outcomes, community spirit, or inspiring personal journeys.

Summary Table of Narrative Patterns

Narrative Pattern Core Function Common Topics
The Unfolding Crisis Create Urgency & Suspense Disasters, Accidents, Breaking News
The Macro-to-Micro Funnel Generate Empathy & Illustrate Impact Policy, Economics, Social Trends
The Conflict Frame Dramatize & Simplify Politics, International Relations, Strikes
The Investigative Arc Build Intrigue & Seek Answers Crime, Accidents, Scandals
The Positive Resolution Arc Inspire Hope & Provide Emotional Release Human-Interest, Community, Resilience

By recognizing these fundamental patterns, we see that evening news is not just a recitation of facts but a highly structured form of modern folklore, using time-tested narrative techniques to make sense of a complex world.

How about free-form anomaly assessment?

What are some of the things that surprised you most about the data? Anything that you didn't expect to see?

Yielding:

Surprising Findings in the Narrative Landscape of Evening News

While the use of common narrative patterns like the "Unfolding Crisis" or the "Conflict Frame" is expected, a deeper analysis of the provided data reveals several surprising and subtle storytelling strategies. These findings suggest a level of narrative complexity and strategic intent that goes beyond simple, formulaic reporting.

1. The Sophisticated Use of Narrative Juxtaposition

What surprised me most was the frequent and deliberate use of juxtaposition to create implicit meaning. Stories weren't always presented in isolation; they were often paired or structured internally to create a contrast that guides the viewer's interpretation without an explicit statement from the reporter.

2. The Dynamic Blending and Evolution of Narrative Patterns

I expected to see stories fit neatly into one archetype each. Instead, the data reveals that longer, more complex stories often blend multiple patterns or evolve from one pattern to another over the course of a single report.

3. The Strategic Absence of Narrative

Equally surprising as the complex narratives was the deliberate choice to strip a story of almost all narrative framing. Certain topics, particularly in the realm of business and finance, are presented with a stark, declarative minimalism.

4. The "B-Plot": Humanizing or Trivializing Detail in High-Stakes Stories

I was struck by the inclusion of seemingly trivial or quirky personal details within reports on major national or international issues. These "B-Plots" often centered on the idiosyncratic behavior of powerful figures.

5. The Self-Referential Turn: The News Reporting on Itself

Finally, I did not expect to see the news turn its analytical lens so directly upon its own industry and practices.

What about a different approach? Let's ask Gemini to be a graduate student using this data to suggest a potential dissertation direction:

You are a communications or journalism doctoral student. Write a one-page proposal to your advisor that summarizes some of the major trends in this data and uses them to propose an interesting and novel research question for your dissertation.

This yields:

To: Dr. [Advisor's Last Name]
From: [Your Name]
Date: October 26, 2023
Subject: Dissertation Proposal: The "Macro-to-Micro Funnel" as an Engine of Affective Polarization in Broadcast News

Introduction & Problem Statement

My preliminary analysis of a comprehensive dataset of evening news narrative structures reveals a consistent set of storytelling archetypes. While patterns like the "Unfolding Crisis" and the "Conflict Frame" are well-documented, I have identified a particularly powerful and under-examined narrative pattern I term the “Macro-to-Micro Funnel.” This structure begins with an abstract, large-scale event (e.g., legislation, an economic report) and immediately “funnels” down to a single, human-level case study. A report on a tax bill, for instance, is not just about policy; it is about the specific restaurant owner who benefits or the individual who loses Medicaid coverage. This technique is the primary mechanism through which broadcast news translates abstract policy into relatable, emotional content.

While this pattern effectively generates empathy, I hypothesize that it also serves a more problematic function in our current political climate. By selectively humanizing one side of a policy's impact—presenting either a “protagonist” who is helped or a “victim” who is harmed—these narratives may be a key driver of affective polarization. They bypass deliberative, policy-focused engagement in favor of a visceral, emotional response rooted in allegiance to or animosity toward the individuals portrayed. The core question is no longer "Is this good policy?" but "Are you on the side of this person?"

Proposed Research Question

My proposed dissertation will investigate the following central question:

How does the “Macro-to-Micro Funnel” narrative pattern in evening television news influence viewers' emotional responses (empathy, anger) and contribute to affective polarization, and does the political leaning of the broadcast network moderate this effect?

This central question will be explored through three sub-questions:

    1. How frequently is the Macro-to-Micro Funnel employed across different news topics (e.g., economics, healthcare, immigration) and across networks with varying ideological orientations?
    2. Through experimental design, can we measure a causal link between exposure to a Macro-to-Micro narrative and heightened emotional responses and increased partisan animosity compared to a "just the facts" policy report?
    3. Does the perceived identity (e.g., race, class, geographic location) of the individual featured in the “micro” narrative alter the polarizing effect of the story?

Methodology

I propose a mixed-methods approach to address this question:

    1. Quantitative Content Analysis: I will conduct a large-scale content analysis of evening news transcripts from three major broadcast networks over a one-year period. I will code for the presence of the Macro-to-Micro Funnel, the topic of the story, and the demographic characteristics of the “micro” subject. This will establish the prevalence and nature of the pattern in the contemporary news environment.
    2. Experimental Survey: The core of my research will be an online experiment. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions:
      • Condition A (Pro-Policy Funnel): View a news clip about a policy using a Macro-to-Micro narrative focused on a person who benefits.
      • Condition B (Anti-Policy Funnel): View a news clip about the same policy using a Macro-to-Micro narrative focused on a person who is harmed.
      • Control (Macro-Only): View a news clip about the same policy that presents only the high-level policy details and statistics, without a human-interest story.

      Following exposure, participants will complete a survey measuring their emotional response (empathy, anger), their support for the policy, and their feelings toward opposing partisans (a standard affective polarization scale).

Anticipated Contribution

This research will make a novel contribution to the fields of political communication and journalism studies. While much research has focused on overtly biased commentary, this dissertation will be the first to systematically investigate the polarizing potential of a seemingly empathetic and standard journalistic storytelling technique. By isolating the Macro-to-Micro Funnel, I aim to demonstrate how narrative structure itself—not just overt opinion—can be a powerful, subtle engine of political division. The findings will have significant implications for understanding how journalistic routines, even when well-intentioned, may inadvertently exacerbate the very polarization they often decry.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to discussing this proposal with you further.

How well can Gemini summarize these findings in the voice of an academic paper abstract?

Write a one page abstract of a paper for an academic journal in communications or journalism scholarship that summarizes the key findings of this data. Use the terminology, knowledge, citations and voice typically used by academic journals in those fields. Include citations to the literature that contextualize your findings.

This yields the following:

The Architecture of the Ephemeral: Narrative Archetypes and Source Hierarchies in American Evening News

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of a comprehensive dataset of narrative structures used in contemporary American evening television news broadcasts. While the ephemeral nature of nightly news often obscures its underlying rhetorical architecture, this study reveals a stable and highly structured set of narrative patterns that shape the public's understanding of daily events. Drawing on a framework informed by narrative theory (Fisher, 1984) and news framing (Entman, 1993), our analysis identifies five dominant storytelling archetypes: (1) The Unfolding Crisis, a suspense-driven format used for breaking news; (2) The Macro-to-Micro Funnel, a technique that personalizes abstract policy through a human-interest case study; (3) The Conflict Frame, which dramatizes events by structuring them as a struggle between opposing forces; (4) The Investigative Arc, which frames stories as a mystery to be solved; and (5) The Positive Resolution Arc, a "feel-good" narrative focusing on community and resilience.

The study further demonstrates that these narrative patterns are populated by a consistent and predictable hierarchy of sources, reinforcing the findings of Gans (1979) on the centrality of official voices. Official Sources (politicians, law enforcement) are overwhelmingly used to establish the primary narrative frame and lend authority. Affected Individuals (eyewitnesses, victims, citizens) are deployed to provide the "emotional core" and humanize the story, making abstract issues tangible and relatable. Finally, Expert Sources (meteorologists, doctors, analysts) serve as voices of credibility, translating complex information and offering non-partisan context.

Our key findings reveal a sophisticated interplay between narrative form and source selection. For instance, the Macro-to-Micro Funnel almost exclusively relies on an Affected Individual to provide its emotional payload, a technique that, while fostering empathy, may also contribute to the affective polarization identified by Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes (2012) by prioritizing emotional allegiance over policy deliberation. Furthermore, the analysis uncovers more subtle narrative strategies, such as the use of narrative juxtaposition to create implicit meaning and the deliberate absence of narrative framing for financial news, which signals a shift from storytelling to pure information dissemination.

Ultimately, this paper argues that evening news is not merely a conduit for facts but a powerful site of cultural storytelling. The recurring archetypes and structured use of sources function as a modern folklore, transforming the chaos of daily events into a series of coherent, emotionally resonant, and easily digestible parables. By deconstructing this architecture, we gain a deeper understanding of how the news media constructs reality and shapes public perception, not just through what is said, but through the fundamental act of how the story is told.

Keywords: Narrative Analysis, Journalism, Framing, Television News, Sourcing, Political Communication, Affective Polarization

References

What about a sourcing analysis?

How common are data-driven stories in this dataset? What about ones that rely primarily on a government source?

Yielding:

Excellent question. Analyzing the dataset for the prevalence of these specific story types reveals a significant disparity in how different kinds of information are valued and utilized in evening news. The findings show a heavy reliance on government as a source, while data is used more as a narrative tool than a story's foundation.

Here is a detailed breakdown.

Analysis of Data-Driven vs. Government-Sourced Stories

Data-Driven Stories: The Supporting Actor

True data-driven stories—those where quantitative information is the central subject—are relatively uncommon in this dataset. When data does appear, it almost always serves as a supporting element to a more dominant narrative pattern, rather than being the story itself.

Data is most frequently used in one of three ways:

1. The Narrative Hook: A startling statistic is used to grab the viewer's attention before the story pivots to its true focus: a human or emotional narrative. The data provides a sense of scale and importance, but it is not the main point.

2. The Factual Foundation (in Niche Topics): In concise reports on specific topics like business or economics, data is the foundation. These stories are often brief, direct, and lack the complex narrative framing of other segments.

3. The Credibility Prop: Data is sprinkled into a larger report to lend an air of authority or to quantify a claim.

Overall Finding: Purely data-centric stories are rare. Data is a powerful ingredient, but it is seldom the main course. It is most often used to set the stage for a more emotionally resonant narrative or to provide a quick, factual update on the economy. The narrative imperative to tell a human story consistently outweighs the imperative to simply present data.

Government-Sourced Stories: The Foundational Bedrock

In stark contrast, stories that rely primarily on a government source are overwhelmingly common. They represent the foundational bedrock of a majority of the "hard news" stories in the dataset. The actions, statements, policies, and investigations of government entities are not just a source for news; they are often the very definition of what constitutes news.

Government sources are primary in several key ways:

1. The Catalyst for the Narrative: A government action is frequently the inciting incident that creates the story in the first place.

2. The Official Frame and Source of Authority: The government's perspective provides the official version of events. In stories about crime, disasters, or threats, "authorities" are the designated source for factual information.

3. The Central "Character" in Conflict Narratives: In political stories, government officials and competing branches or parties are the main characters.

Overall Finding: The evening news, as represented by this dataset, is fundamentally a chronicle of government action. From the President's policies to a local sheriff's investigation, the business of government provides the raw material for a vast percentage of news narratives. Other sources—citizens, experts, witnesses—are most often brought in to react to, suffer the consequences of, or explain the actions initiated by these primary government sources.