1. LZ411 Critical Media theory Structural narrative analysis Aims To explore what we mean by structural narrative analysis To look at different approaches to structural narrative analysis To apply these approaches to TV advert

2. An example Google Ad Reunion over 9 million hits on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9oFJE

3. Plot, story and narrative Plot the sequencing of events that a text contains Story the logical/chronological/causal sequence that we imagine to have happened Narrative an organising or explaining principle underlying (some) stories. E.g. indicating morals, identity questions, 3

4. Narrative: The ingredients Characte rs Events Time & Space (setting) Characte rs Causality

5. Narrative: The resolution of disruption Tension and conflict Beginning Middle End Aristotles Poetics 335 BCE Initial situation (equilibrium) Disruption Realisation of disruption Resolution (new equilibrium) Todorovs transformations (1971) 5

6. Our example again Google Ad Reunion over 9 million hits on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9oFJE

7. Narrative: Driven by opposites Abstract concepts E.g. Good/bad, evil/love, mortal/immorta l, nature/culture etc. metaphorical transformation Concrete representations Drive the elements 7

8. Drive the Elements Ad

9. Vladimir Propp Narrative Functions Analyse characters in narratives not for their individual psychologies but for their function in the narrative (i.e. what they do to advance the narrative) Propp identified 31 narrative functions Not all are necessarily present in every narrative but those that appear are always in the same order. 9

10. Propps spheres of action Character type The villain The donor Function villainy, fighting, action, creates narrative complication gives magical agent or helper which helps in resolution of the narrative The helper Aids the hero, makes good a lack, rescues from pursuit, solves difficult tasks, transforms the hero The princess Father threatened by villain, needs to be saved, assigns difficult tasks, gives princess away at the end The dispatcher sends the hero on his task (can also be the father) aims to resolve complication, departs on search, reacts to the donor, attempts difficult tasks, restores equilibrium, marries the princess The hero The false hero Unfounded claims to heros sphere of action. i.e. Appears to be good but turns out bad

11. Peugeot Ad

12. The heros journey (the monomyth) Joseph Campbells Monomyth from Hero with a thousand faces (1949)

13. Analysis - Chanel Ad Plot and story? Pleasure? Characters and action? Journey?

14. Barthes (1970) Structural Narrative Analysis An examination of texts for how they weave together these 5 different codes of meaning. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The enigma code The connotative code The action code The symbolic code The cultural (referential) code

15. Boots TV Advert 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Yfr8ZK FXE

16. SEMINAR / READING Edgar-Hunt, R., Marland, J. and Rawle, S. (2010) The language of film. Lausanne: AVA books. (NARRATIVE CHAPTER) Search for a TV advert with a narrative structure. (make sure its available for us to watch in the seminar) Do an analysis of the advert using one or more of the structural approaches weve covered in this lecture or in the reading. 16