2. Tim O'Sullivan argues that all media texts tells us some kind of story.
Through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories,
but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures. Narrative theory sets
out to show that what we experience when consume a media text is an
understanding of a particular set of conventions or constructions and
that it is important for us to be aware of how these are put together.
Tim O'Sullivan (1998)
3. This theory states that every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative types. Each of these narrative types has a
source, an original story upon which the others are based.
These stories are as follows:
Achilles
The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless or almost flawless individual e.g. Superman, Fatal
Attraction.
Candide
The indomitable hero who cannot be put down e.g. Indiana Jones, James Bond.
Cinderella
The dream come true e.g. Pretty Woman.
Circe
The chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent victim e.g. Smokey and the Bandit, Duel, The Terminator.
Faust
Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your soul belongs to him e.g. Bedazzled, Wall Street.
Orpheus
The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of loss or the journey which follows the loss e.g. The
Sixth Sense, Love Story.
Romeo and Juliet
The love story e.g. Titanic
Tristan and Iseult
The love triangle: man loves woman, unfortunately one of both of them are already spoken for or a third party intervenes e.g.
Casablanca.
Kate Domaille (2001)
4. Bordwell and Thompson 1997
inferred
events
what happens
what we
see
non-diegetic
material
How we are shown what happens
Plot
Story
5. This theory suggests that music videos generally fall into two groups, performance
and conceptual. Performance is when the audience can see the artist singing and
dancing in the video. Conceptual is when the audience can see something with
artistic ambition.
Abstract
Abstract videos do not have any performance or narrative in them and are considered
artistic.
Performance
A video that has performance includes clips of the artist lip syncing and dancing. Also,
if the artist is a band then they can be seen playing their instruments.
Narrative
A video with a narrative has a story that either goes with the lyrics of the song or does
not. This narrative is often easily understood by the audience as it is easy to follow.
Sven Carlsson (1999)
7. Pam Cook's theory states that Standard Hollywood narrative structure
should include:
•A high degree of narrative closure
•Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution
•A fictional world that contains verisimilitude governed by a spatial and
temporal coherence
Pam Cook (1985)
8. Levi-Strauss argues that human cultural
understanding is based upon binary opposites
such as good v bad, rich v poor, male v female.
Claude Levi-Strauss (1958)
9. Michael Shore argues that music videos are 'recycled styles that contain
an information overload'. This means that newer music videos are similar
to existing ones as they are using the same style or theme.
An example of this would be Weezer's Buddy Holly Video as it looks like it
has been taken from the show Happy Days. Another example is the music
video for the song The Importance of Being Idle by Oasis.
Michael Shore (1984)
Weezer – Buddy Holly Oasis – The Importance of Being Idle
10. This theory states that narrative relations are highly complex
and meaning can be created from the individual audio-viewer's
musical personal taste to sophisticated intertextuality that uses
multi-discursive phenomena of Western culture.
Andrew Goodwin (1992)
