Original
Time's Sentimental Tale: Operationalizing Plot Within the Narrative Policy Framework
Abstract
ABSTRACT The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) has proven to be a successful analytical tool for examining the role of narratives within the policy process; however, the analysis of plot is still understudied. This gap persists due to difficulty in developing valid and reliable measures of plot and a lack of plot operationalizations using longitudinal data. Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's thesis on the shape of stories, this study explores the extent to which policy narratives assume a generalizable shape and how that shape can contribute to our understanding of the policy process. Using 2014–2020 news media coverage of Ghana's energy crisis, we reconceptualize plot as a temporal story arc captured through the media's affective evaluations of policy events, reflecting how the policy problem is framed across time. To achieve this, we apply sentiment analysis to news media coverage of policy events and aggregate them into a sentiment score. This score is then plotted over time to visually depict the shape of Ghana's energy crisis story. Our results reveal that this shape closely mirrors Vonnegut's Man in Hole story, suggesting that policy narratives may adhere to generalizable story arcs. Theoretically, these results contribute to our understanding of time and sentiment within the NPF, opening avenues for future research. Methodologically, this paper provides an empirical blueprint for capturing and coding plot variables in a reliable and replicable manner.
中文
时间的感伤叙事：叙事政策框架中的情节操作化
摘要
摘要 叙事政策框架（NPF）已被证明是考察政策过程中叙事作用的一种成功分析工具；然而，对情节的分析仍显不足。这一空白之所以持续存在，是因为难以开发出有效且可靠的情节测量指标，并且缺乏使用纵向数据对情节进行操作化的研究。受库尔特·冯内古特关于故事形状论的启发，本研究探讨政策叙事在多大程度上呈现出可概括的形状，以及这种形状如何有助于我们理解政策过程。我们利用2014—2020年加纳能源危机的新闻报道，将情节重新概念化为一种时间性故事弧，通过媒体对政策事件的情感评价加以捕捉，反映政策问题如何随时间被框定。为实现这一目标，我们对政策事件的新闻报道应用情感分析，并将其汇总为情感得分。随后将该得分随时间绘制出来，以直观呈现加纳能源危机故事的形状。结果表明，这一形状与冯内古特的“洞中之人”（Man in Hole）故事高度相似，说明政策叙事可能遵循可概括的故事弧。在理论上，这些结果有助于我们理解NPF中的时间与情感，并为未来研究开辟了路径。在方法上，本文为以可靠且可重复的方式捕捉和编码情节变量提供了实证蓝图。
关键词
叙事政策框架、情节、情感分析、政策过程、加纳、能源危机、纵向数据、故事弧