Narrative

The second part of this weeks lectorial covered narrative and story telling, and it’s effect on the media. After Rachel’s bad cop speech, Brian showed us a video of an adorable little boy telling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Is story telling considered to be part of media? It depends. Just like the video, a little boy telling a story to the camera and audience would be considered media, and therefore is. Technology is arising, story’s these days are being told over television shows and YouTube clips, taking over the usual story book times.

Narrative – its significance is crucial when it comes to structure meaning of a story. So- what is it? It is the reiteration and retelling of a sequence of events, a shared reality that can be transmitted, in which eventually leads up to some sort of resolution. Narrative enables people to collate a certain structure to form meaning and ideas, making stories be told in many different ways- which ultimately makes them valid and relatable. It is due to the link of media and culture that different narratives cause representations, ideas and themes to link to our own self identities.Like a little boy sharing the story of Jack and the beanstalk. It is through the key elements of story that make up a narrative. These include: Controlling idea, character, conflict=drama, structure (progression) and character change/growth.

The progression of a narrative usually is guided by the three- act structure
One: Establishes set up of narrative
Two: Escalates complications and obstacles- the problem
Three: The climax, confrontation or resolution

I sometimes find as though this structure is so obvious and well known in society, that now films just become so predictable.  And therefore, it is those films that dont follow this rule, that go above and beyond the ‘narrative norm’ to challenge the audiences perceptions.

Used as a prime example, Mistaken for Strangers- a documentary that has a certain structure to form a narrative, unlike other documentaries. Reality usually doesnt represent a narrative or form of structure, however sometimes it can do just that. Which led to Brians questions about PB3. What value and importance does our interviewee have to give, and if it rises into some sort of climax- just something to think about…