This document discusses several theories related to narrative and storytelling in media. It covers theories about how all media texts tell stories, the different types of narratives according to Kate Domaille's theory, standard Hollywood narrative structure, music video formats, and how meaning is created through intertextuality and an individual's understanding of culture. Theories discussed include those by Bordwell and Thompson, Todorov, Levi-Strauss, Shore, and Goodwin.

1. NNAARRRRAATTIIVVEE

2. BORDWELL AND THOMPSON [1997]
STORY
PLOT
(what happens)
what we
see
inferred
events
non-diegetic
material
(how we are shown what happens)
TIM O’SULLIVAN ET AL. [1998]
This theory argues that all media texts tell the audience some kind of story.
Through careful mediation, texts offer a way of telling stories about
ourselves, not necessarily as individuals but the stories of us as a culture
or set of cultures.
Narrative theory shows us that what we experience when we ‘read’ or
consume a media text is an understanding of a particular set of
constructions or conventions and that it’s important for us to be aware of
how these constructions are put together.

3. KATE DOMAILLE [2001]
Every story ever told can be categorised into eight narrative types according to Domaille’s 2001 theory. Each type
has a source – an original story upon which the others are based. The types are:
Achilles
The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless (or seemingly flawless) individual e.g.
Superman, Fatal Attraction.
Candide
The indomitable hero who cannot be put down e.g. Indiana Jones, James Bond, Rocky.
Cinderella
The dream come true e.g. Pretty Woman
Circe
The chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent victim and the attacker 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, Born on the Fourth of July.
Romeo and Juliet
The love story e.g. Titanic.
Tristan and Iseult
The love triangle: man loves woman but unfortunately one or both of them are already spoken for or a third party
intervenes e.g. Casablanca.

4. SVEN CARLSSON [1999]
Music videos generally fall into two groups – performance and conceptual.
Performance refers to the artist or actors singing, dancing etc. Conceptual
means something else with artistic ambition.
Performance clips
• Can be vocal, instrumental, dance etc.
• Locations may include rehearsal rooms, concerts, studios etc.
• Shows vocalists
• Clichés – walking down the street in the rap genre for example
Narrative Clips
• Most appropriately understood as a short film
• Contains a visual story that’s easy to follow
• Can be a pure narrative, meaning no performance is present at all
Art Clips
• No perceptive narrative
• No lip-synced or live performance
• Artistic

5. PAM COOK [1985]
Standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:
• Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of
enigma resolution
• A high degree of narrative closure
• A fictional world that contains verisimilitude governed by a
spatial and temporal coherence
TODOROV [1977]
Equilibrium of Diegesis
Re-equilibrium
boy
girl
DISRUPTION
(enigma)
L i n e a r i t y
QUEST RESOLUTION
Cause and effect

6. CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS [1958]
Levi-Strauss was a structuralist whose ideas about narrative
amount to the fact that he believed all stories operated to
certain clear Binary Opposites such as good vs evil, rich vs
poor etc. The importance of these ideas is that essentially a
complicated world can be reduced to simplicity with an
either/or structure: things are either right or wrong, there is no
inbetween.
This theory can be applied to stereotypical mise-en-scene:
PROTAGONIST ANTAGONIST
COLOUR white, bright colours black, dark colours
LOCATION countryside, natural urban area
PROPS nature, plants etc. guns, cars etc.

7. MICHAEL SHORE [1984]
This theory sees music videos as audio visual poetry. Shore argued that music videos
are/can be any of the following concepts:
• Recycled styles (borrowing from past times)
• Surface without substance (the look is more
important than the meaning)
• Simulated experiences
• Information overload (caused by the surface
without substance idea)
• Image and style scavengers
• Ambivalence
• Decadence
• Immediate gratification
• Vanity and the moment
• Image assaults and outré folks
• The death of content
• Anaesthetisation of violence
• Thorough chic
• Adolescent male fantasies
• Speed, power, girls and wealth
• Album art come to turgid life
• Classical storytelling’s motif
Weezer’s Buddy Holly video (above) is an example
of recycled styles as they borrow heaving from
Happy Days, as is the Oasis video for The
Importance of Being Idle (below).

8. ANDREW GOODWIN [1992]
Goodwin argues that meaning can be created from the
individual audio-viewer’s personal music taste to sophisticated
intertextuality that uses multi-discursive phenomena of Western
culture (not as a group but as an individual). Essentially this
means we create meaning based on our own understanding of
our culture – whether it’s Western or otherwise. Many are
dominated by advertising references and film pastiche (copy),
and reinforce the postmodern ‘re-use’ tradition.