Media Narrative Theories

1. NARRATIVE THEORIES EMILY ROSE

2. WHAT IS NARRATIVE?
-Narrative is the way in which a story is told in media texts. It helps the audience make
sense of a plot in a film for example.
-Through the years many different theorists have come up with theories in approach to
narrative in order to understand it.
- I’m going to look at different theories in detail…

3. VLADIMIR PROPP
-Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was born is 1895 in Russia, he was a Soviet folklorist
and scholar who analysed the basic plot components of over 100 Russian folk tales to
identify their simplest narrative elements.
-He broke up the fairy tales into sections and then defined the tale into a series of
sequences.
-His most popular theory was his character theory.

4. PROPP’S CHARACTER
THEORYPropp noticed that there tended to be a pattern of 8 characters which appeared in all of the
works that he analysed. These are less applicable in today’s media texts but not non-existent.
Here are the 8 characters…
1. The villain- struggles against the hero.
2. The dispatcher- the character who sends the hero off on a quest.
3. The (magical) helper- helps the hero in their quest.
4. The princess/prize- the hero deserves this/her throughout the story but is unable to marry her
because her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain.
5. The father of the princess.
6. The donor- prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero- reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
8. The false hero- takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

5. TZVETAN TODOROV
Todorov is a Bulgarian- French historian, philosopher, literary critic, sociologist and
essayist who was born in 1939.
-He came up with the equilibrium vs. disequilibrium theory in media.

6. TODOROV’S EQUILIBRIUM VS.
DISEQUILIBRIUM THEORY
- He believed that plot lines must follow a specific pattern to keep the audience
engaged.
- He noticed that there are 5 stages of plots.
1. Equilibrium- happy start
2. Disruption- a problem which disrupts the happiness
3. Realisation - everyone realises the problem and it turns to chaos
4. Restored order - characters attempt to repair the damage
5. New equilibrium – this is where the problem is resolved but it’s a different normality
to the start

7. ROLAND BARTHES
- Roland Barthes was born in 1915, he was a French philosopher, linguist and theorist.
- He came up with five codes to help people to make sense of media.

8. BARTHES’ CODES
1. ACTION: resolution is produced through action eg. A shoot-out
2. ENIGMA: teases the audience by presenting a puzzle or riddle to be solved- works to
delay the story’s ending pleasurably.
3. SYMBOLIC: connotations
4. SEMIC: denotation
5. CULTURAL: the audience can recognise as being part of a culture

9. CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
- He was born in Belgium in 1908
- He was anthropologist
- He came up with multiple narrative theoires.

10. LEVI-STRAUSS BINARY
OPPOSITIONS- A conflict between two qualities or terms for example…
Powerful Powerless
Male Female
Old Young