The Paradox of Political Literary JournalismHow Dutch Journalists Simultaneously Increase and Decrease Intersubjective Distance

Abstract

This chapter examines narrative characteristics of literary journalism in the context of Dutch politics. In recent years, numerous books and newspaper stories have been published in the Netherlands that promise to offer inside views of the personal life and work of prominent political actors. The chapter analyzes a set of these stories through the conceptual lens of distance, specifically by examining narrative techniques that regulate intersubjective distance at three levels: the meta-representation level, the event representation level, and the discourse level. The analysis reveals a paradox of creating either distance through proximity or proximity through distance: when the actual distance between journalist and political actor is high, narrative techniques strategically reduce the epistemic, spatio-temporal, and psycho-emotional distance between narrator, political actor, and reader; however, when the actual distance is low, narrative techniques are found to increase this intersubjective distance. This paradox underscores the relevance of approaching narrative distance at multiple levels, which has implications for debates in which political literary journalism is deemed either detrimental or beneficial to citizens’ understanding of and engagement with politics.