Music TheoryGeeta Gohil

Narrative• Narrative refers to the way the story of a film is told, as well as the actual story itself. In your studies of narrative

you will consider narrative structure. This refers to the order in which the action takes place. It is also important to consider where the audience is placed in relation to the narrative and whose eyes we see the story through. This is not always the central character. We may observe the narrative subjectively and we may even see events through different characters’ eyes at various points in the narrative.

• Structure

There are 3 ways in which a narrative can be structured.

1. Circular – Circular Narrative is one which begins at the end. This may sound strange but you are more than likely to have seen a film that does just this and then proceeds to tell the story through a series of flashbacks before returning back to where the video started. E.g. - Titanic

2. Episodic - there are flashbacks in which no in circular. A good example would be Forest Gump. The episodic narrative is comparable to how fictional books break up a story into chapters. Often these chapters follow on sequentially but sometimes different viewpoints or aspects of the story are told in different chapters and these interrupt the chronological flow. It may be that the story uses parallel narratives in order to show the different versions and experiences of the same event.

3. Linear - This narrative structure is simple and is the most common one used. It refers to a story that is being told in the order in which the events happen – from beginning to end. E.g. - Coldplay - The Scientists

Narrative

• Narrative viewpoint is important to consider as a narrator can tell us which character we are meant to feel most connected to and the camera can also add to this by showing us relationships or events from their POV, it's even common that the narrator is part of the story.

• Restricted Narrative - the audience only get to know as much as the characters do. This way the audience are as puzzled as they on the same page as the characters in solving out what is happened as the film/music video goes on.

• Omniscient Narrative - this narrative creates suspense rather than mystery because we know lots of aspects of the narrative and we are just left in suspense about how the main characters will find out.

• This narrative gives that audience a 'god-like' perspective. the audience sees events in which the characters don't or might not be aware of other plotting against them.

Narrative

The Relationship Between Song Content and Narrative Content

• Illustration: The narrative in the video very closely echoes the lyrical content of the song

• Amplification: The narrative whilst inspired by the song adds a narrative element to complement the themes/subject matter of the song

• Disjuncture: The narrative seems to hold very little relationship to the song and quite arbitrary (random)

Conventions

• Narrative is subordinate to performance

• Songs rarely tell complete naratives

• Music videos resusts classic realistic narratives (stories with beginning, middle and end with a full cast of charactes.)

• Music video narratives tend to reflect a ‘sense of story’ and are more thematic in their approach

• The audience consumes music videos in a loose, more casual way.

• Music videos need to have repeatability built into them

• Most important is the authenticity of performance.

Theories

Tzvetan Todorov – suggested there were 5 stages to a narrative:

• Equilibrium – A happy start

• A disruption of this equilibrium by an event – A problem occurs

• A realisation that a disruption has happened

• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption – the problem is solved

• A restoration of the equilibrium – A happy ending

Erving Goffman – character theory – suggested that there are 4 main types of characters in media text or production:Protagonist (leading character)Deuteragonist (secondary character)Bit player (minor character whose specific background the audience is not aware of)Fool (character who uses humour to convey messages)

Allan Rowe – ‘Narrative involves the viewer in making sense of what is seen, asking questions of what we see and anticipating the answers. In particular, narrative invites us to ask both what is going to happen next and when and how will it all end. Narrative operates on the tension between our anticipation of likely outcomes drawn from genre conventions and the capacity to surprise of frustrate our expectations.’

Claude Lévi-Strauss - he suggests that all narratives are based around the conflict of binary oppositions.Some examples of binary opposites:Good - EvilWeak - StrongYoung - OldMale - FemaleVladimir Propp – character theory – suggested that there were 7 character types in the 100 tales he analysed:

-Villain (struggles against hero)-Donor (prepares/gives the hero some magical object.-Helper (helps the hero in the quest)-False hero (perceived as a good character at the start but is actually evil)-Dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and send the hero off)-Hero (reacts to the donor, weds the princess)-Princess (person the hero marries)

Theories

Andrew Goodwin- 5 key aspects for music videosThought beats, seeing the soundNarrative and performanceThe Star imageRelation of Visuals to songTechnical Aspects of Music VideoGoodwin also says that music videos should ignore common narrative. It's important in their role of advertising. He says that narrative and performance go well together so the audience don't lose interest. Meta narrative is a big story that shows the development of a star over time.

Genre

Genre not only covers the common conventions of a certain genre or sub-genre of the product however it needs to include the ideas of how genres are developed and how the institutions use genre to certain markets.‘Genre’ is a critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements. Genre is important as it plays a part in the construction of identity and different. Genre is applied different to music videos than to Film or television. It’s rare for a music video to have a genre of sci-fi which is common amongst TV and Film. An alternative way of considering genre is to look at musical genres such as Hip-Hop, Indie or Country.Theorists which are relevant to Genre are;• Denis McQuail “The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass

medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers.”

• Katie Wales “Genre is... an intertextual concept” • Christine Gledhill “Differences between genres meant different audiences could be

identified and catered to... This made it easier to standardise and stabilise production” • Tom Ryall (1978): Genre provides a framework of structuring rules, in the shape of

patterns/forms/structures, which act as a form of ‘supervision’ over work of production of filmmakers and the work of reading by the audience.

Representation

• Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or written form as well as still or moving picture.

• The easiest way to understand the concept of representation is to remember that watching a TV programme is not the same as watching something happen in real life. All media products re-present the real world to us; they show us one version of reality, not reality itself. So, the theory of representation in Media Studies means thinking about how a particular person or group of people are being presented to the audience.

Representation

• The term refers to the processes involved as well as to its products. For instance, in relation to the key markers of identity -Class, Age, Gender and Ethnicity(the cage of identity) -representation involves not only how identities are represented(or rather constructed) within the text but also how they are constructed in the processes of, production and reception.

• Theorists

• Laura Mulvey - this theorists argues that cinema positions the audience as male. This applies to the video we are analysing as the woman wishes that she has the same status as a man and when listening to the lyrics and watching the video we are able to tell that she believes that men are the dominant sex.

• Stuart Hall – argues that media doesn't not portray reality accurately but they construct it as to what they see as ideal.

Media Language

• Media Language Media conventions, formats, symbols and narrative structures which cue the audience to meaning. The symbolic language of electronic media work much the same way as grammar works in print media. Stuart hall: encoding and decoding; preferred/ negotiated/ oppositional readings.

• Denis McQuail – Uses and Gratifications theory (audiences consume media texts for Suveillance; Personal Identity; Personal Relationships; Escapism/ Diversion.

• Ien Ang – “audiencehood is becoming an even more multifaceted and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences.”

• Media language is used to tell story and is part of editing.

• Semiotics - Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) - the signifier and signified.

• Roland Barthes (1913-1980) - denotation and connotation

• Stuart Hall (1981 ) – encoding and decoding (preferred reading)

Media Language

• Roland Barthes (1913-1980) - denotation and connotation.

• This is a theory we are all familiar with and looks at how the audience will interpret meaning from a particular media text. However, this interpretation is often influenced by society and the audience member’s own experience of the world. The denotation is an object placed within media texts. It is then up to the audience to draw on their own cultural, social and historical knowledge to interpret its connotations

Media Language

• Stuart Hall (1981) Encoding and Decoding.

Continuing to look at meanings within a media text, Hall’s theory thinks about the preferred meaning of a text. If something is encoded it is what is written within a media text. An image has been placed in the text by the producer and will challenge or promote dominant ideologies. Decoding is when the audience reads into this piece of media and makes their own interpretation of what the image means. Hall thinks the media circulates dominant ideas, and his theory says that producers place dominant ideas in different media. So basically, they would have cleverly encoded their views and opinions into say a film or newspaper article with the intention of the audience interpreting this preferred or intended meaning.

Audience

• You may have to consider the age, gender, demographic profile and socioeconomic. There are also different types of reactions: a preferred reading (your intended interpretation), an oppositional reading (someone who didn’t like it) and a negotiated reading (someone who isn’t the target audience but might appreciate it for whatever reason).

• Cultivation theory – as audiences watch more and more film and TV, they gradually develop certain views about the world (some may be ‘false’).

• Desensitisation – If we, as an audience, are exposed to too much violence for example, we become less sensitive to this is in real life.

• Copycat/ modelling theory- people may imitate what they see in the media

Audience

• Audience TheoryThere are three theories of audience that we can apply to help us come to a better understanding about the relationship between texts and audience.

• The Effects Model or the Hypodermic Model

• The Uses and Gratifications Model

• Reception Theory

Audience

• The Effects Model

The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audienceIt is normally considered that this effect is negativeAudiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influenceThe power lies with the message of the text.

Audience

• The Uses and Gratifications

The Uses and Gratifications Model is the opposite of the Effects ModelThe audience is activeThe audience uses the text & is NOT used by itThe audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure.

Here, power lies with the audience NOT the producersThis theory emphasises what audiences do with media texts – how and why they use them. Far from being duped by the media , the audience is free to reject, use or play with media meanings as they see fit.

Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:DiversionEscapismInformationPleasure

Audience

• The audience is in control and consumption of the media helps people with issues such as:LearningEmotional satisfactionRelaxationHelp with issues of personal identityHelp with issues of social identityHelp with issues of aggression and violence

• Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of violent images can be helpful rather than harmful. The theory suggests that audiences act out their violent impulses through the consumption of media violence. The audience’s inclination towards violence is therefore sublimated, and they are less likely to commit violent acts.

Audience

• Reception Theory

Given that the Effects model and the Uses and Gratifications have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in the 1970sThis considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded (understood) by audiences.

The theory suggests that:When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audienceIn some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to sayIn some instances the audience will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message.

Audience

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:Dominant or preferredNegotiated Oppositional

DominantWhere the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with itE.g. Watching a political speech and agreeing with it

NegotiatedWhere the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held viewsE.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested

OppositionalWhere the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasonsE.g. Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition