Week Seven - A Story in Everything

Narrative is basically story-telling (Cambridge Dictionary Online), and according to Aristotle, narrative structures of a beginning, a middle and an ending.

It can be found in many types of media and can be of different forms (Huisman, 2005, page 11). Hence, it would be not such a farfetched idea to suggest that narrative could be found almost anywhere, either in printed form in books and newspapers, spoken form in conversations and radio and songs, graphical form in printed adverts in magazines and flyers and a combination of different forms such as in films and television commercials.

Let’s take a look the most common form of narrative – a fairy tale:

The Peasant in Heaven

Once upon a time, a poor pious peasant died, and arrived before the gate of heaven. At the same time, a very rich, rich lord came there who also wanted to get into heaven. Then Saint Peter came with the key, and opened the door, and let the great man in, but apparently did not see the peasant, and shut the door again. And now the peasant outside heard how the great man was received in heaven with all kinds of rejoicing, and how they were making music, and singing within. At length all became quiet again, and Saint Peter came and opened the gate of heaven, and let the peasant in. The peasant, however, expected that they would make music and sing when he went in also, but all remained quite quiet; he was received with great affection, it is true, and the angels came to meet him, but no one sang. Then the peasant asked Saint Peter how it was that they did not sing for him as they had done when the rich man went in, and said that it seemed to him that there in heaven things were done with just as much partiality as on earth. Then Saint Peter said, “By no means, you are just dear to us as anyone else, and will enjoy every heavenly delight that the rich man enjoys, but poor fellows like you come to heaven every day, but a rich man like this does not come more than once in a hundred years!”

(source: The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales)

It is easy to see that the above tale have an obvious beginning, a middle, and an ending; hence, fitting into the narrative category. Now, let’s see another form of narrative – a printed advert:

People in general are born story-tellers and thus, it does not take much effort to make a story out of even a simple picture. With reference to the schema theory – a theory of which suggests that ‘people organize everything they know into schemas or knowledge structures’ (Tracey and Morrow, 2006, page 51) called frames. These frames consist of two levels – the top level and the lower level. The top level is basically consists of what is familiar with the analyzer, while the lower level is what could be changed or filled within the same frame.

Returning to the advert, it is of no trouble to guess that this advert is for a slimming product or service. There is obvious beginning and middle in the picture, but, again, it is easy to think that the man used to be fat (beginning). Then, he found this particular slimming product/service and began to use it (middle). Finally, as ‘a happy ending’, he manages to get the optimum body build and satisfaction is clearly shown on his face (ending). The top level here is that the man is now slim, and the lower level would ‘fills’ up his past as ‘a fat man’ and indirectly, making a narrative.

Now, let’s move to yet another form of narrative – a music video:

Again, with reference to schema theory, the narrative begins with a supposed separation of the young couple and with the aid of the lyrics sung by the artists, it could be assumed that the couples are thinking – or being reminded of – the times they used to spend together before and the young man makes an immediate decision to find his girlfriend which result, in the end, they reconcile with each other. Not exactly very farfetched from the usual fairy tales shown by Disney and Hollywood, with the couple having a happy ending.

And apparently, television commercials have always used this ‘fairy tale’ structure in their narrative-like commercials, just like the one below:

Here, the narrative is even more complex. Not just the commercial has the basic structure for a narrative, it also has definite characters – a ‘hero’ or in this case, a ‘heroine’, a ‘villain’, the ‘godmother’…or ‘godfather’ to be precise, the ‘villain’s side-kicks’ and ‘minor characters’. Again, referencing to schema theory, it is hard not to be reminded of those Disney Princesses’ films with the protagonist struggles against the ‘cruelty’ of the antagonist to achieve her dream and like any other fairy tales, she succeeds and even her enemy gives a grudging recognition for it.

There are a lot of other forms of narratives that could be analyzed but I would stop here and as a conclusion, within almost every subject, there would be some kind of narrative structure injected in it, obviously stated or hidden cleverly. And with schema theory, these narratives can be unravelled for the world to see.

References:

§         (1998). The Peasant in Heaven (page 696 – 697). The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. London, England: Routledge.

§         Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (2006). Narratives (page 41 -64). The Media’s Student Book. New York, United States: Routledge.

§         Fulton, H., Huisman, R., Murphet, J. and Dunn A. (2005). Narrative and Media. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=wBfchogKaUQC&lpg=PP1&dq=narrative%20in%20mass%20media&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=narrative%20in%20mass%20media&f=false

§         Tracey, D.H. and Morrow, L.M. (2006). Schema Theory. An Introduction To Theories And Models (page 51 – 54). New York: Guildford Press. Retrieved June 21, 2010, from Universiti Brunei Darussalam Ebrary Books Website.

Week Six - Believe It Or Not, Dragons Are Real

Rhetoric is an art of persuasion and is widely used in the communication world, and this includes the visual world. I would, however, concentrates on the rhetoric used in documentaries.

As cited by Gill Branston and Roy Stafford in their ‘The Media Student’s Book’ (2007), documentary is ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ (page 455). In other words, documentary represents reality and most would agree with this statement. Unlike any other shows, documentary usually deals with facts such as history and science and these are conveyed ‘academically’, in terms of tones, visual outputs and words. Hence, documentary is perhaps one of the trusted medium other than news programmes.

Rhetoric is commonly used in documentaries though it is not as obvious as that use in public speaking and debates. The rhetoric in documentaries is more subtle, and could be traced in the words spoken by the narrator and the visual shown.

Below is some clips from a documentary called ‘Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real’:

Notice how the narrator speaks of the dragons? It is as if dragons are real…in fact, they are real that they have a dragon carcass to prove it, and the unknown-source scars on the fossil head of a tyrannosaurus rex which then are concluded from the talons of a flying dragon. People may say that the carcass is a fake and the fossil head of infamous T-rex is altered. However, the way the documentary is shown from the beginning is like of those in ‘Walking With Dinosaurs’ or ‘Meerkat Manors’. It is so believable that no wonder a lot of viewers are beginning to be convinced that dragons are as real as the dinosaurs, especially those who happen to be fantasy lovers.

When the narrator proceeds to the so-called Jurassic life of the dragons, he begins to talk about the T-rex and the dragons in co-existent and even informs the viewers a bit of information on the dragon’s defence systems, adding more credibility to the theory of the dragons’ existence. It is worth noted that the narrator does not use probability words, such as ‘if’, ‘might’, ‘probably’ or ‘maybe’ when he talks about the dragons; in fact, he talks like all of them are just mere facts.

And by the end of the documentary, it would not be a wonder if most viewers are convinced that dragons are real, except now only leaving fossils as their remnants:

This is how rhetoric is used in documentaries. They do not say what to believe or not, much less forcing someone to change opinion of something. But, they present evidences which are coupled effectively with convincing explanations and this creates a very persuasive ‘argument’ and one of the factors that contributes to the ‘truthfulness’ of documentaries.

Reference:

§  Griffin, E. (2008). A First Look At Communication Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.

§  Branston, G & Stafford, R. (2007). Documentary And Reality TV. The Media Student’s Book (page 455-460). New York, United States of America: Routledge. 

Week Five - 21st Century Fairy Tale

Television commercials nowadays are not just commercials; they have stories-…they are stories, and some could even rival those of fairy tales. For example, TM’s TV commercial ‘Everyone Connects’:

The commercial is so easily understood. Why is this so? This could be explained by using Gestalt Theory and Schema Theory.

Gestalt theory suggests that ‘the whole is different than the sum of its parts’ (Lester, 1995, page 53) and are influenced by wholeness, interdependence and contexts. And according to this theory, our perceptions are then ruled by the ‘principles of perceptual organisation’: proximity, similarity, common fate, figure or ground and closure.

Now, let’s analyze the commercial using this theory.

Wholeness: All the main male-and-paper character’s friends help him to get to his ‘paper’ girl of interest and the commercial concludes with both of them unites as a couple, which is evident in their photo posted in the social website Facebook.

Interdependence: The commercial is a success with the great coordination of the casts, the settings, the concepts and the production managements. The correct choice of theme song – ‘Through My Window’ by Bunkface – also contributes to the success of the commercial.

Context: It is easy for people to connect themselves with the commercial as most would be familiar with Facebook and it is common to find love interest in a workplace. As for the male character dare to undergo a ‘dangerous journey’ to get to his love interest, it is the same as those in fairy tales and modern romance movies. So, with all these familiarity, the commercial is easily understood.

Principles of perceptual organisations:

§  Proximity – the focus is centred on the main male character with sometimes to other characters with relations to the main character.

§  Similarity – although there is no such thing as paper human, but people could easily familiarize with the main character’s work life and social life and hence, contributes to the comprehension of the commercial.

§  Common fate – the commercial mostly follows the main character’s point of view which flows smoothly.

§  Figure/ground – although there are a lot of side characters, all are of the same purpose, uniting the main character with his love interest.

§  Closure – there is lack of speech in the commercial but with the right expression and the song accompanying the commercial, the events occurring in the commercial is easily comprehensible.

Hence, according to Gestalt theory, the commercial is a success because it fulfils all the requirements. Schema theory, however, requires something else.

Schema theory explains how people comprehend and perceive things based on their knowledge and learning. According to this theory, there are two types of memory structures called frames working whenever one is trying to comprehend something – top level and lower level. The top level is basically consists of what is familiar with the analyzer, while the lower level is what could be changed or filled within the same frame.

Especially in advertising, incongruity and congruity are important as while incongruent schema would bring greater interest than the congruent one, it has a higher risk of being misunderstood as it usually deals with the ‘unfamiliar’, unlike congruent schema which deals with familiarity and hence, easily understood.

Now, let’s analyze the commercial using this theory.

Top level: Most would be familiar with workplace, social network Facebook, love interest and helpful friends. The storyline would also be familiar with most as it does not differ that much from the normal romance like those in Disney’s movies and romance novels where the ale character would pursue his love interest despite of challenge or danger he might be facing.

Lower level: People do not usually encounter of having to glide from one building to another just to pursue one’s love interest, but it is easily understandable that this is just one of the ‘challenges’ that any person might face in creating a successful relationship. The act of the main male character’s friends of fanning him to give him a boost to go to the other building also would not be common, but again, it is easily understandable that this is just a way of friends would help someone in trouble.

Incongruent schema: The storyline might be simple but people are wondering how the story would turn out, given the fact the main characters are both made of paper and no speech are made during the commercial, save for the background song. It piques the audiences’ interest in watching the commercial from the beginning to the end, more ever it does not take long to finish.

As a result, according to Schema theory, the commercial is a success as although most of the components in the commercial are common, but there are some novelty created in the commercial, just enough to interest the viewer and at the same time, easily graspable.

Reference:

§  Lester, P. M. (1995). The Sensual And Perceptual Theories Of Visual Communication. Visual Communication: Images With Messages (page 52-58). California: Wadsworth Publishing.

§  Tracey, D.H. and Morrow, L.M. (2006). Schema Theory. An Introduction To Theories And Models (page 51-54). New York: Guildford Press. Retrieved June 21, 2010, from Universiti Brunei Darussalam Ebrary Books Website.