A2 G325: Critical Perspectives in Media

Section A: Question 1b)

Select one production and evaluate it in relation to ONE of the following media concepts:

GENRE NARRATIVE REPRESENTATION AUDIENCE  
MEDIA LANGUAGE

Today you receive red folders with this label so that you can gather work for Section A q. 1 b). 

In the exam, you select ONE of your productions. The question set will ask you to evaluate it in relation to ONE of these media concepts. You cannot assume that the concept will fit easily or in an orthodox way. You may be able to apply the concept or you may challenge the concept. however, you must be sufficiently knowledgeable about the concept. It may , for example, be more straightforward to relate your thriller film opening to 'narrative' than your music video promo pack. If you chose the music video, you might argue that music videos generally (and yours in particular) cannot be easily understood through applying conventional narrative theory.

Today we discuss three frameworks for approaching narrative. 

We start by considering how the narrative of what you did yesterday might be delivered. What do you include and what leave out? How does the story end? Does the version given depend on the audience? I give an example of how my story of what I did at half term could vary depending on my audience (friend, elderly relative, teenage male  students), the form (email, text, letter, conversation, review) and the aim ( to reassure: no mention of sharks, kidnappings or terrorism; to thrill: spill the beans!).

We discuss what we already know about narrative arcs and how they differ:

Sitcom narrative has 25-30 minutes to move from equilibrium to disequilbrium back to equilibrium and end in closure; stereotyped characters are readily identified.

Soap opera has multiple interwoven narrative strands designed to keep viewers watching, all at different points in the narrative arc;

Music video aims to sell tracks therefore although it may well tell the stories of the lyrics (but could equally amplify or offer disjuncture) it should offer the rewards & pleasures of repeated viewings, with visual intrigue not linear narrative

Moving image advertising often tells a story in 30 seconds, with clear stereotypes & beginning, middle end structure 

Drama usually involves conflict, with resolution in the final act; unlike poetry of novel form, it usually 'tells a story'. Audiences may be disconcerted when encountering unusual forms, such as by Beckett or Pinter. Shakespeare's plays follow traditional narrative arcs.

We discuss narrative in novel form, such as Jane Austen. We consider Oscar Wilde on novel form: 'The good end happily, the bad unhappily; that is what fiction means.'

In film that is conventionally structured, linear narrative unfolds and works towards resolution; flashbacks may add depth drawing together elements of the plot. Usually events are linked through cause and effect, and offer clear, satisfactory closure. 

Therefore, conventional film narrative structure is introduction, development, resolution (equilibrium. disequilibrium, restoration of equilibrium) with easily identifiable roles (hero, villain). However, alternative or independent texts may offer unclear or unsettling endings.

Stereotypes and archetypes aloow audiences to grasp narrative and to understand ideologies embedded in the texts.

TzvetanTodorov identified the basis of narrative as 'movement bewteen two equilibriums which are similar but not identical'. (The Politics Of Prose p.111 Oxford, Blackwell, 1977) Todorov – 4 Act Structure:

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• Resolution
• New Equilibrium

Roland Barthes recognizes that meaning is created in the interaction bewteen the reader and the text. The author's intention can no longer anchor the text's meaning. John Milton set out 'to justify the ways of God to man' in Paradise Lost but could not count on today's reader sharing his ideologies. Jane Austen's opening to Pride and Prejudice works because we see the irony not because we take the message at face value that 'a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife'.
Claude Levi-Strauss (Mythologies  London, Cape, 1970) as a social anthroplogist studied tribal cultural myth and saw underlying recurring themes expressed as binary opposites (light/dark, good/evil, coward/vilain) with cultural values attached. See this page on binary opposition.

Read here about positively and negatively marked oppositions. 
Binary Oppositions are a way of understanding the Narrative in media texts 
For example, Crime Drama binary oppositions:

• Murderer | Investigator
• Crime Scene | Police Station
• Strong Male | Female Victim
• Working Class | Middle Class
• Intelligence | Ignorance
• Good | Evil
• Guilt | Innocence
• Right | Wrong
• Private Life | Professional Life