Narrative Theory's

Tzvetan Todorov’s Narrative Theory

Todorov’s theory is that most story’s and plot lines follow the same 5 step pattern.  I’m going to be using The Incredibles as an example for each step.

Step 1 – Equilibrium

The first step and the first part of the typical storyline is the happy beginning where the scene, characters and the general scenario are happy and content, similar to the opening scenes in The Incredible where Mr. Incredible is catching a bank robber and “saving the world”

Step 2 – Disruption

This is the next part of the narrative where there is some sort of disruption which ruins the happy beginning, this would be when Mr. incredible saves someone jumping off a building, and then he sues the superheroes because he didn’t want to be saved.

Step 3 – Realization

This is normally during the middle of the story when  people realize what a disaster the problem was. This is when The superheroes have been gone for a while having been sued, and lots of crime and destruction start taking over, as well as Mr incredible finding out that he has been taken to the island away from the city so that Sydrome can attack the city with no one to stop him

Step 4 – Restored Order

Restored order is pretty self explanatory but its towards the end of the narrative where the characters return to repair the damage and get rid of the problem, this is when all of the Incredible return to the city in order to destroy the robot and save everyone

Step 5 – Equilibrium Again

The 5^th and last step is at the end of the storyline when the problem is resolved and everything can continue as it was before at the start, This is when The Incredibles have destroyed the robot and are accepted back as superheroes, and once all together in a family again they are back to saving the city.

Vladmir Propps Character Theory

Vladmir's theory was that most plots lines in story's follow 8 different character types, im going to be using Star Wars as an example of each character profile

The Villain

The name is very self explanatory but its the person who fights the hero and for my example its Darth Vader as he is obviously the most evil character in Star Wars and is the one that the main character fights

The Dispatcher

This is the character who makes the villains evil known, and sends the hero off on his quest.  This would be Obi Wan as he is the one who always guides Luke and tells him where to go and also warns him when danger is nearby.

The (Magical Helper)

This character doesn't necessarily have to be magic but it is usually the case in most Disney films for example, this is someone who helps the hero during their quest and in this case it would be Chewie. This is because Chewie always follows Luke and helps him from getting into danger.

The Princess or Prize

This is the person that the hero deserves throughout the story but is unable to marry because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The heros journey is often ended when he marries the princess, therefor beating the villain and resulting in a "Happy Ever After" moment. As suggested by the name this would be Princess Leia as she is the princess and the person who the main character desires (despite the fact she is is later to to be his sister.)

The Father

This is another self explanatory one but its the person who gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp also noted that functionally, the princess and the father cannot be clearly distinguished. This would again, be Obi Wan as he is Luke guardian who often appears in ghost form to help Luke on his quest.

The Donor

The donor prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object, this would be Yoda as he is the person who fully trains luke to because a jedi, in turn rewarding him with the power of the force which allows him to proceed with his quest to battle the dark side.

The Hero or Victim/Seeker hero

This is the main character who reacts tp the donor and weds the princess which in Star Wars would be Luke Skywalker as he is the films main character on the quest whos desire it is to marry princess leia

False Hero

The false hero is the character who takes credit for the heroes actions and tries to marry the princess. In this example it is Han Solo as he often takes a lot of Luke's credit during their quest and also falls in love with the princess.

Roland Barthes Codes Theory

Barthes theory of codes was that speech and text in films and stories were not as straight forward as they seemed. He believed that text was like a ball of thread and it was up the the viewers to unravel the thread and find out what the text means. He stated that there was lots of different ways at looking at a narrative and each way of looking at it had a different meaning and experience. He split his theory into 5 different codes which were woven into any narrative

The Hermeneutic Code (HER)

This is the way the story avoids telling the truth and revealing everything straight away, this is to give the audience the illusion of a mystery and to keep them confused from the truth of whats really happening.

The Enigma/Proairetic Code (ACT)

This is the way a story builds up tension and suspense so the audience are thrilled or exciting to find out what happens next in the narrative

The Semantic Code (SEM)

The sematic code points to any element in a text that suggests an additional meaning by way of connotation that the story suggests

The Symbolic Code (SYM)

This is similair the the previous code but instead acts to a wider degree. It organising semantic meanings into wider and deeper meanings and is most usually done with the use of antithesis, this is when new meaning arises out of opposing and conflict ideas

The Cultural Code (REF)

This is when the story/narrative opens the viewers minds to look deeper into the meaning of the wider cultural knowledge, morality and idealogy

Analyzing Fairy Liquid Adverts

I think what distinguishes adverts from other kinds of TV programming is that, as it has so much information for a company or product to show in the space of around 30 seconds it has to choose what to show and what to not show very carefully. Where a television programme has usually 30 minutes to an hour of information and footage to show the audience, an advert much choose what they think would captivate the audience to listen to what they are selling and promoting. 

Lots of fairy liquid adverts in the 60s and 70s always show a mother and usually a daughter, there is a general theme of women being shown in the washing up adverts. This Fairy Liquid advert from 1992 is a good example of an ad that is very different from todays kind of television commercials. The short ad is quite sexist as it shows the stereotype of a typical wife being in the kitchen doing the cleaning and washing up assisted by the daughter. Its very unrealistic as it shows the fairy liquid cleaning product as something the woman cares for by saying "Its kind, caring and the bubbles make my hands feel nice and soft." which wouldn't be the case in a real life scenario, its just something to help clean up and wouldn't be something the woman enjoys or talks about. The un realistic over the top attitude towards the product makes the ad come of as not very entertaining and very fake. The narrative of the ad is that the young child is trying to sell another cleaning product to the mother who is washing up, the mum then says that she would never use anything other than fairy liquid as her hand wouldn't feel the same. Most commercials like this tend to use the same format of ridiculously overselling the product by making the people in the ad way to over exaggerative of the product


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mki1Zto7JZo&nohtml5=False

The second example is a much more up to date Fairy Liquid TV advert from 2015, showing a father and his son washing up in the kitchen. They have got rid of the usual women filled washing up ads that people are way to used to seeing and swapped it for father and son. The ad shows the young boy who wants to make a rocket out of the fairy liquid bottle but the dad has finished the bottle as he is washing up with it. It shows the boy crossing out the weeks on his calendar counting down the days till the dad empties the bottle for his to make it into a rocket. It hasn't changed much from the previous examples narrative of an over exaggerated child who wants to use the fairy liquid way more than a child would in real life. Its not as over the top as the 1992 advert but still following the same guidelines, the child comes of very annoying as its obvious that no child would do something as extreme as mark days on a calendar just to wait for a bottle to empty where he could just buy a rocket toy. There is no woman shown in this commercial so the man is shown as the lead in this ad which is the only thing that has changed in years of fairy liquid ads


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb7neUBxEhc&nohtml5=False

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

Hypodermic Needle Theory

Developed in the 1930's

Also known as the Magic Bullet Theory

Its a model of community

It suggests that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. 

It can be considered obsolete today.

The Reception Theory

The different opinions people get from seeing media outlets (Eg with the same news broadcast, some people will agree with the reporter, some people would completely disagree and some people would accept what is being said but would have other opinions still.

Media text encoded by the producer

The text is then decoded by the audience in different ways

A text can be received in 3 different ways;
- Dominant or preferred reading
- Negotiated reading
- Opposite reading

Passive and Active Audience

Passive and active audience is very similar to the Reception theory where its how different typed of audiences receive and react to different types of media.

A passive media consumer is the same as a dominant or preferred reading, when after watching the news or listening to the radio, they just take in the information and accept it without question

The active audience is similar to the negotiated and opposite reading when they might argue against the media information that's been told to them

Bowling for Columbine

The point that Michael Moore is making when he goes to the bank to get the gun is how easy it is in America to get your hands on a firearm. For something as simple as a bank to simply give anyone a gun for making a new account only tells you that it can only be easier to acquire a fire arm anywhere else.

For my negotiated reading I have chosen the clip where Michael Moore goes into the bank to sign up for the account that allows you to also get a complimentary gun of your choice.  I think its silly that the bank just hands out guns to anyone who starts a new account but I know that it is also very emphasized by Michael Moore. In the documentary he is seen to be handed a gun by a member of staff making it look like it is very easy to get a firearms when in reality, before recording he had simply asked the employee if he could simply hold the gun. There is actually a 6 month waiting process you have to go through until you receive the gun but Michael Moore blatantly lied to prove a point that was invalid, so the documentary can be taken in different ways depending on how you look at it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglnvXzitOQ

For my oppositional reading i will use the clip below where Michael Moore is comparing guns to nuclear weapons. While some people might agree with his statements, i think that he often greatly over exaggerates a subject to make a point. I agree with his general premise for the documentary, that america has become too desensitized to violence and need to cut down on the amount of guns that are freely carried by the public, but this clip is a good example of the line between making a good point, and being over dramatic and possibly ruining his argument in the process, just for the sake of a documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1Da6MCUC4

Mean World Syndrome

Newspapers Comparisons

There are lots of drastic differences between different newspapers, ranging from the layout, the formality and the style of language used. This can all range depending on the target audience the newspaper is aiming at. For this i am going to be comparing "The Sun" and "The Times" newspapers and how they are both different to fit the audience that they were published for.













The image above is an article taken from an issue of The Times about Hilary Clinton and the FBI hunt against her emails. This type of newspaper is called a Broadsheet. The target audience is fairly older aged people as there is not too many colorful pictures, just lots and lots of information.






The newspaper on the left is whats called a Tabloid, an obvious difference from the Broadsheet above is that there is a lot more pictures dominating the page than text. This is intended for a younger target audience, mostly young adults as these people are mostly won over by large pictures and advertising rather than boring text all over the page. Where the other magazine relies more on small text and informative headlines, the paper on the left has very little text and the headline is very big and bland. There is only a small article as the rest of the page is taken by large pictures and colorful little advertisements at the bottom of the page.




This graph shows the readership from a mix of different newspapers including The Times and The Sun. As you can see by the top blue line, The Sun has the most popular readership for the longest amount of time from October 2006 all the way to 2011 and even then it only starts to decrease a little bit. One possible reason that The Sun is more popular is because of the large text and slight overuse of pictures.



From a distance The Times page doesn't stand out, it has almost no color and is just filled with small text, where as The Sun newspaper has lots of colorful pictures that would immediately catch peoples eye no matter what age and will straight away make them want to know more about the article from reading the very large headline. The layout of both newspapers plays a big role in telling us the target audience for each of them. The Times would be intended for older people as it filled with lots of information and isn't too eye catching but The Sun is very clearly intended for a much younger audience as lots of simple large text and colorful pictures would attract that age range. The publishers of both newspapers will take this into account when making each newspaper as they would make a specific picture and certain title headline that they know would attract whatever age range they want.

The Sun Magazine Example

This is my example for a Sun newspaper cover, it appeals to the same younger target audience as it is very simple and therefore eye catching. It uses only one picture of a popular celebrity that a lot of young people would recognize and want to buy the newspaper, is also doesn't contain a lot of text so that it keeps the simplicity of letting the picture do all the talking. It has some small headlines as well as the title hinting to what is inside the magazine but is still very simple with little bits of color so that its eye catching but not too distracting

The Times Magazine Example

My example of a Times newspaper is slightly more extreme compared to The Sun magazine. It has a lot of images and text and is much more complicated than the previous magazine cover, instead of a polar celebrity is now features two well known political leaders which an older audience would respond more too than younger people. It also has some other article headlines that have strange headlines in order to entice people to read more of the magazine.

Before creating a newspaper it is essential for the creators and publishers to carry out some research on there intended target audience before hand. They need to carry out different methods of research on different people in order to find out what is popular with certain ages so they can slowly put together some specific content for a specific target audience. One way of carrying out research is going out and getting the public to answer questionnaires. This would would contain a lot of questions asking things such as when they read the paper, what they look for in the paper and other questions that would help the editor get all the information he needs so that he knows what his intended audience wants to see.