Narrative theory analyzes how media texts communicate meaning through stories. It can be applied to films, television, photographs, and magazines. Vladimir Propp identified 8 character roles that commonly appear in folk tales, such as heroes, villains, and helpers. Tzvetan Todorov suggested narratives follow a pattern of equilibrium, disequilibrium, and resolution. Roland Barthes described two codes - the action code which alerts audiences something is happening, and the enigma code which presents puzzles for audiences to solve. Technical codes like camera shots are also used to guide audience attention.

1. NarrativeTheory
Annika Laws - Walsh

2. Definitions
Narrative = it refers to stories in some old
Narrative Theory = Analyses the way in which media texts
communicate meaning about events.
- Can be applied to range of different media including
film, tv, photographs and magazines
- Internet based media is more problematic though may still
relevant

3. Wheredowesee/hearstories?
- TV programmes
- Novels or Short Stories
- Films
- Advertisements
- News in papers or on TV and Radio
- Social Media
- Snapchat, Facebook, Youtube
- Through gossip and chat

4. “OnceUponaTime”
Once = invites the audience into the narrative world,
previously happened/past tense
Upon a time = situates us in a world we know is different to
our own, in a time that is not now.

5. VladimirPropp(1929)
- Russian theorist who
suggests that there
are a limited number
of character types
that share a function
- When an audience
reads a media text it
develops it deploys
it’s knowledge of
these characters.

6. VladimirPropp(1929)
Studied folk tales and proposed that it is possible to identify 8 character
roles:
- The Villan
- The hero
- The donor
- Who provides an object with some magic property
- The helper
- Aids the hero
- The princess
- Reward for hero
- Quest at end once hero has faced obsticles
- Her Father
- Father figure
- Judge, lawyer
- The dispatcher
- Who sends hero on it’s way
- The false hero
- The one who causes complications

7. TzvetanTodorov(1969)
- Bulgarian literary theorist
- Suggested the primary function of the narrative was to
solve a problem and that the characters pass through a
series of stages of a linear narrative where events
follow a chronological order.

8. TzvetanTodorov(1969)
Equilibrium
DisequilibriumResolution
(new Equilibrium)

9. RolandBarthes(1960s)
- Narrative can be broken down into 2 closed or set of
rules to help the reader make sense of it.
- There are two different codes:
- Action Code
- Enigma Code
- Camera shots are used as technical codes to draw the
audience's attention to give them an aspect of narrative,
for example a close up of a ticking clock or a left
behind wallet that the character has dropped to impact
the storyline.

10. ActionCode
- Something happening to catch audience's attention
- Alert audience something is happening
- Starting of a car
- Flashing lights
- Sirens
- Beeping from heart trace machine in hospital
- To inform the audience someone may be dying

11. EnigmaCode
- Teases audience by presenting a puzzle of riddle to be
solved.
- Mysterious figure in the opening sequence
- Headlines of new report
- Cover lines in magazines
- He emphasises the active role of reader in creating
meaning and the “culturally formed expectations”

12. TechnicalCodes
- Anything to do with Mise En Scene
- Shows the audience the narrative through a range of
camera shots.