MediaSpace Wiki

Intercultural Spr2006 Sess07

Index Card due today

Think back on a moment when you encountered your cultural background (any part of your cultural background) in a memorable way. What culture did you encounter. What happened? What made the event memorable?

Narrative Theory

• Stories are a fundamental way in which we organize the world
  • Ways of connecting
    • causes with effects
    • beginnings with ends
    • lessons with behavior
  • We use stories to structure our experience
    • To describe our relationships with others
    • To describe power relations
    • To socialize people into effective ways of behaving
• The study of narrative has deep roots
  • Aristotle's Poetics and his observations about Comedy and Tragedy
  • Plautus "plots": borrowed from Greek playwrights and widely reused to this day
• We encounter narratives everywhere in culture
  • Television series tell stories
  • The news features "news stories"
  • News magazines like 60 minutes always frame stories as narratives
  • Game shows and sports programs are framed as competitive narratives
  • Reality TV frames every episode as a set of stories.
  • Commercials are usually presented as stories
  • We share our experience with others through stories
• All media use narrative to advance messages
  • Musical performance
  • Dance
  • Face-to-face interaction
  • Hundreds of others
• There are several key elements of narrative ... at least "Western Narrative"
  1. The story
     1. Equilibrium
     2. Disequilibrium
     3. Twists and Turns
     4. Return to Equilibrium
  2. The characters
     1. the main character
     2. an opponent
     3. a sidekick
     4. a source of wisdom
     5. a love interest
     6. a dispatcher
     7. a false hero
     8. a narrator (see point of view)
     9. the audience
  3. Time
     • the times of the told, the telling, the broadcast, and the viewing
  4. Point of View
     • First, second, and third person
     • Punctuation
• Understanding these different elements of stories is important to cultural analysis of stories
  • Point of view is often cultural
  • Time is often viewed through cultural lenses
  • Characters are often cultural archetypes
  • Even the fundamental structure of the story can have a cultural overlay
    • How much equilibrium is necessary to a beginning
    • How much or a role is played by suspense (twists and turns) and the unexpected
    • Is return to equilibrium really an end

Narrative Theory: The story

• Beginning, Middle, and End are a statement of progress
  • Beginning as an interrupted equilibrium: Everything is cool and then something goes wrong
  • Middle as the consequences of whatever went wrong. Usually things get worse before they get better
  • End as a return to equilibrium
  • In our culture, the keystones of stories are suspense and the unexpected
  • But it doesn't have to be that way
    • Ancient Greek tragedy was about the expected
    • Medieval plays were often about delivering lessons
    • Japanese drama is often about exploring intracacy and teamwork

Narrative Theory: Characters and Settings

• Beginnings, middles, and ends happen to People and Places
• Every narrative entails the interaction of characters within a setting
  • The details of the story are usually found in that interaction
  • The narrative is a mold or form that this interaction occurs within
  • It tends to reflect the culture that is creating and consuming the drama

Narrative Theory: Time

• Beginning, Middle, and End are a statement of temporal sequence
• People routinely infer causality from sequence
  • Narrative frequently takes advantage of this very human trait

Narrative Theory: Point of View

• Beginning, Middle, and End are a matter of Perspective
  • one story's end is another's beginning
  • one person's middle is another person's beginning or end
• the notion of punctuation, in Interpersonal communication, is an element of the exposition in presentation media
  • hence any story might be depicted very differently with a change in the point of view and punctuation of events
  • consider the difference between:
    • the current Broadway show "Wicked!" and its relationship to "The Wizard of Oz"
    • "The Passion of Christ" and "Jesus Christ, Superstar"
• In literature we often describe point of view in terms of person
  • first person: a character tells the story
  • second person: a narrator tells the story as if you were a character
  • third person: a (generally omniscient) outside observer tells the story (the most common perspective
• What implications does the medium have for a narrative?
  • Do stories transcend language
  • Do stories transcend culture?
  • Are they simply instantiated in media
  • Or does the medium frame the story
• We'll argue both yes and no
  • That there are fundamental stories that remain baseline stories regardless of medium
  • But that the medium makes a difference to the way the story can be told
    1. Spatio-temporal extensions
       • to what extent does the medium force linearity of presentation
       • to what extent does the medium allow perception/exploitation of space
       • who controls the time dimension? creator or consumer
    2. Kinetic properties
       • Can a photograph tell a story as well as a movie?
    3. Semiotic properties (senses addressed and codes used)
       • Range of channels
       • Priority of channels
    4. Technological support and materiality of signs
    5. Cultural role and methods of production/distribution

Narrative Theory is generally conducted using the following methodology

1. Identify a set of texts (or a representative text) as data (parole)
2. Examine the text(s) to identify plot detail
3. Analyze the plot detail
   • in search of the big picture plot details
     • what events and decisions does the big picture plot hang on
     • what details don't matter to the fundamental trajectory of the story (even if we care about them a lot)
       • these details will often include characterizations, relationships, location, and other scenic details
       • every story within a family of stories will be different in detail
       • many will be similar in narrative plot
   • in search of the focal characters
     • hero
     • villain
     • sidekick
     • love interest
     • enabler
     • dispatcher
     • narrator
     • false hero
     • <there may be others>
   • in search of time manipulations
   • in search of perspectives of beginning, middle, and end

Index Card Assignment due Tuesday

Based on the inventory of cultures you have been collecting (your cultural background, cultures in conflict, etc), identify three cultural texts that take the form of a story or narrative. These could be movies, television shows, comic books, fairy tales, or any other story that is created within and for that culture.