This document summarizes several narrative theories: - Levi-Strauss argued narratives reduce complex worlds to simple binary structures like good vs evil. - Shore stated music videos can be recycled, emphasize style over meaning, or simulate experiences. - Goodwin said meaning comes from personal tastes and cultural references. - O'Sullivan argued all media tells cultural stories through conventions. - Domaille identified 8 common narrative types that all stories fit into. - Cook said standard Hollywood narratives have cause-and-effect, closure, and coherent worlds.

1. Narrative Theory

2. Claude Levi-Strauss (1958)
● Levi-Strauss states that all stories within a narrative operate to
certain clear binary opposites. For example Good vs. Evil and Rich
vs. Poor.
● Levi-Strauss ideas essentially come down to a complicated world
that is reduced to a simple structure. For example things are only
right and wrong, or good and bad never in between.
● This theory can be applied to simple mise-en-scene conventions.
For example the protagonist would be placed in white clothing
and bright locations and the antagonist will be placed in a dark
location and in black clothing etc.

3. Michael Shore (1984)
Shores theory states that music videos are/can
be any of these concepts:
● Recycled (Borrowing styles from the past)
● Surface without substance (The look is more important than the meaning)
● Simulated Experiences
● Information Overload
● Image and style scavengers
● Ambivalence
● Vanity and the moment
● Decadence
● Immediate Gratification
● IMage assaults
● The death of content
● Speed, power, girls and wealth
● Classical storytelling motifs

4. 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. This means that we create
meaning based on our own understanding of
culture.

5. Tim O’Sullivan (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 reflect our culture and the
current ideologies of a social group. Narrative theory
shows us that what we experience when we consume a
media text is an understanding of a particular set of
conventions and that it is important for us to be aware of
how these constructions are put together.

6. Kate Domaille (2001)
Domaille states that every story ever created and every story that will ever
be created can be fitted into one of 8 narrative types. Each narrative type
has a source on which the original story is based on. These narrative types
are:
● Achilles
The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of previously flawless, or almost flawless person
eg.Superman
● Candide
The indomitable hero who cannot be put down. eg. Rocky, James Bond etc.
● Circe
The chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent and the victim. eg. Smokey and the bandit.

7. Kate Domaille (2001)
● Faust
Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your soul
belongs to him.
● Orpheus
The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy
of loss or the journey which follows the loss.
● Romeo and Juliet
Simple love story.
● Tristan and Iseult
Love triangle, man loves women. Women may be taken or someone stops
them from being together.

8. Boardwell and Thompson (1992)

9. Pam Cook (1985)
Cook stated that standard Hollywood narrative structure
should have:
● Cause and effect within an overall trajectory of an
enigma resolution
● High degree of narrative closure
● A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially
governed by spatial and temporal coherence

10. Todorov (1977)