Narratives, Politics, and the Public Sphere

Book excerpt: Published in 1999, the book invites readers to rethink about the contemporary form of politics in terms of the cultural and narrative logics of public discourse. The author proposes that the notions of 'public' and 'narrative' are central to understanding the discursive formation of public opinion. Incorporating a reformulated conception of the public into a theory of narrative progression, Dr. Ku explains (1) the interaction between narrative construction and political conflicts in politics of public credibility and (2) the progressive or narrative formation of the force of the ’public’ out of the struggle as well as its power over the positioning and re-positioning of the actors. Using the method of textual interpretation of newspaper discourses, she analyzes the interplay between politics and the 'public' by delving into the continuously changing narrative contexts wherein the controversy over governor Patten’s reform proposals unfolded in Hong Kong between 1992 and 1994.