1. Media analysis – Laurent Di Filippo – nov 2010
Narrative analysis
Media analysis – Laurent Di Filippo – nov 2010

2. Aim of the course
Study the représentations of new media in the TV-serie South Park
Killing two birds with one stone
Learn method of media analysis
Have a preview of the social representations of new media
Third bird : writting an article

3. Why using Narrative Analysis ?
Narration : "a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occuring in time and space" (Bordwell and Thomson, 1990)
Theoretical and technical term for stories
Sequences of various evenements ? How is continuity described
Idea of distinct events linked by cause effect relationship

4. Why using Narrative Analysis ?
Narration :
Sources of Knowledge (see Plato and myths in The Republic)
Selecting and omitting elements
Shape perception of social reality (representions)
Communicates continuities and changes
Source of pleasure : Mimetic qualities and identifications

5. 2 types of narrative analysis
Narrative Structure
Plot and Story
Causality, time and space
Processes of Narration
range and depth
Narration in melodrama Satirical TV SHOW
Mise en scène

6. Narrative structure What is told ? Unity of meaning
The cause and effect logic that connects events
The characters and how they motivate events
The temporal order, duration, frequency, how is time represented ?
Spatial informations

7. Plot Versus Story Plot Story What will be studied ?
What is presented explicitly
Story
Diegese / the whole fiction
Story
Inferred
events
Explicity presented events
Added nondiegetic events
Plot
What will be studied ?

8. Causality, time and space
Link between the shots and the scenes and relation to the link between the events
Time : plot time VS story time, order, duration, frequency
Space: visible space VS diegetic space
What effect is created ?
Space: visible space VS diegetic space => What king of elements ? For example where are we if we see the tour effeil

9. Universal Models Compare the initial and the final equilibrium
Todorov's Model
Exposition
Disruption
Complication
Climax
Resolution and Closure

10. Processes of narration
How things are told
Importance of the place of the narrator
The viewer's activity ?
Process of story construction

11. Range and depth What kind of information is given ? Range Depth
Unrestricted or restrected (Omniscient narration or character related)
Whose point of view is represented and how ?
Depth
Degree of identification
Camera position and point of view shot

12. Narration in satirical TV show
Specificity of the genre
Satire : "A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit"
Linked with real life
What is funny and why ? (dialogue, plays on word, situation, repetition, etc...)
How is identification implemented ?
Irony is a mean for distanciation, say the contrary to emphase what we think
Derision : act of mockery
Wit (esprit) : "The natural ability to perceive and understand" Sharp
Melodrama is linked to pathos

13. Mise en scène
How different elements attract our attention and shape our understanding of the story
Background / décor
Positions of the characters, clothes
Lights
Other relevant and non-relevant elements
Systematically : in their own right and in interaction with other elements (Construction)

14. Don't forget The context Relation between the elements of analysis
Intertextuality
How the structure and the mise-en-scène inform us on what is not said
The told and the untold

15. Conclusion Narrative changes with society
A set of tools that can be extended according to the data and the researcher
What seems important for you that you got from the course ?

16. Tasks www.southparkstudios.se
"Canada On Strike", S12E04 (1: Structure, 2:Processes)
"Make Love, Not Warcraft", S10E08 (3: Structure, 4:Processes)
"Guitar Queer-O", S11E13 (5: Structure, 6:Processes)
"Over Logging", S12E06 (7: Structure, 8:Processes)
"You have 0 friends", S14E04 (9: Structure, 10:Processes)