The chronicle is a journalistic genre.
The term chronicle has its origin in the Latin chronica , whose etymological antecedent is in the Greek concept kronika biblios . The term refers to a story that narrates events according to their chronological organization.
For example: "When I read Marco Polo's chronicles for the first time, I was fascinated" , "The newspaper El Vespertino published an interesting chronicle about yesterday's match" , "The summit chronicles indicate that the Uruguayan president retired in obfuscation" .
The chronicle as a genre
The chronicle is a genre that is somewhat complicated to define, however we could affirm that there are two types of chronicle: journalistic and literary . Both are characterized by recounting events that have happened, in the order in which they have happened. In the first there is something that is non-negotiable, which should not contain even an ounce of fantasy . In the second you can have the luxury of including fiction. In both cases, the person in charge of collecting and narrating events is known as a chronicler . In this sense, the chroniclers of the Indies were the authors who, after the European arrival in America , dedicated themselves to describing the customs of the aborigines who lived on American soil.
Some authors try to explain what was described above in this way. The chronicle as a journalistic note is published in different media (newspapers, magazines, television or radio) and touches on current issues; while when it is a text classified within the literary genre , it narrates real or fictitious situations according to the order in which they occurred real or imaginary, relying on testimonies from real or fictitious witnesses.
Journalism and literature
It is the most abundant journalistic style in newspapers and journalistic media whose particularities are related to providing information clearly and without having to use expressive or fictional resources to do so. This is a type of direct writing, where the emotional aspects of the parties are left aside and where the axis revolves around the events that you want to mention.
In any case, there are many contradictions regarding the characteristics that the authors believe a text should have, in fact there are highly contradictory opinions that do not clarify at all the idea of the bases of this genre. To give an example, while some consider that the chronicle is the journalistic genre that informs the most, others observe that it is the most opinionated or editorializing.
José Luis Martínez Albertos defines it as a hybrid genre that is in the middle, between news and editorial texts. This is possibly the definition that comes closest to the real meaning of the term. As it is a direct narration about news but with certain elements of evaluation that give it a more literary, committed character and also less close to the information as we understand it.
Fundamental aspects of the chronicle
Like any other genre, the chronicle is a way of interesting a certain audience in a discourse, in this case journalistic; where the texts must meet a certain amount of conditions that allow it to take shape and achieve the results expected of it.
It is important to take into account four fundamental aspects: the content (the event that is narrated), the form (the approach given to the topic), the tone (the way in which the journalist addresses readers) and the effect (the results expected to be obtained with that writing).
Classification according to type
There are several types of chronicles , according to the type of focus they have and the interests of the author himself. They can be:
*Of human interest: Desde un enfoque humanista, se intenta motivar ciertas emociones en el lector a partir de hechos donde personas se interesan por personas; suele encontrarse en temas de interés social, sobre todo catástrofes o acontecimientos dramáticos relacionados con la life in society.
*Of social interest: Su enfoque es íntimamente social; suele utilizarse para tocar temas como los social claims, generalmente oponiéndose al sistema y abriendo una brecha imparable entre poder y pueblo.
In addition, there are other types of chronicles that are closely related to a particular topic, for example the sports chronicle (shows sports events without getting involved with other aspects of life in society), the judicial chronicle (analyzes the events from the point of view of the laws), etc.
As a literary genre , the chronicle can serve certain authors with a clear structure to tell a fictional story that borders on reality. There are many writers who have cultivated the genre, some in an amazing way and who have allowed the foundations of this type of literary text to be laid. An example is the work of Gabriel García Márquez (an important reference of Latin American magical realism ) "Chronicle of a Death Foretold."
In any case, it is necessary to clarify that it is not a strict and defined genre , but rather it changes as the times change.
A disease can be classified as chronic.
Other uses of the notion of chronicle
It should be noted that there are other meanings of the term, among which is the one given to it from a medical point of view. When the term is applied to a disease or illness , the concept of chronic comes from the Latin chronicus and refers to what is frequent or persists over time. Chronic disease is called, therefore, a pathology whose cure cannot be anticipated or will never materialize, so it will remain in the patient's body. In any case, there is no specific period that makes a disease chronic.
Finally, Crónica is a television channel from Argentina , which is characterized by addressing the news from a sensationalist and sensationalist point of view.