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Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film
31 May 1980-
About: The article was published on 1980-05-31 and is currently open access. It has received 1885 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Narrative structure & Narrative criticism.
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TL;DR: This paper proposed a framework for applying narrative approaches to terrorist authored texts, in particular, autobiographies, to understand how individuals involved in militancy understand the world, draw upon existing narrative resources and give meaning to their actions.
Abstract: Narrative has recently garnered in much attention in the study of terrorism but remains poorly understood. This paper offers some initial steps towards translating the promise of narrative approaches into a set of steps for systematically analysing and understanding terrorists’ own accounts of their engagement with extremism and militancy. This approach rests on the assumption that terrorist authored accounts are more than post-hoc rhetorical exercises that aim to persuade others, or even the authors themselves, of the righteousness of their political cause or otherwise mitigate their responsibility for their involvement in violence. In particular, I advance a framework for methodically applying narrative approaches to terrorist authored texts, in particular, autobiographies. In doing so, I will demonstrate how this approach can help better comprehend how individuals involved in militancy understand the world, draw upon existing narrative resources and give meaning to their actions.
19 citations
01 Mar 2007-International Journal of Human-computer Studies \/ International Journal of Man-machine Studies
TL;DR: An interactive narrative-driven game architecture, in which a user generates novel narratives from existing content by placing ''domino'' like tiles that act as ''glue'' between scenes and each tile choice dictates certain properties of the next scene to be shown within a game.
Abstract: This paper presents a model, called Scene-Driver, for the re-use of film and television material. We begin by exploring general issues surrounding the ways in which content can be sub-divided into meaningful units for re-use and how criteria might then be applied to the selection and ordering of these units. We also identify and discuss the different means by which a user might interact with the content to create novel and engaging experiences. The Scene-Driver model has been instantiated using content from an animated children's television series called Tiny Planets, which is aimed at children of 5-7-year old. This type of material, being story-based itself, lends itself particularly well to the application of narrative constraints to scene reordering, to provide coherence to the experience of interacting with the content. We propose an interactive narrative-driven game architecture, in which a user generates novel narratives from existing content by placing ''domino'' like tiles. These tiles act as ''glue'' between scenes and each tile choice dictates certain properties of the next scene to be shown within a game. There are three different game-types, based on three different ways in which tiles can be matched to scenes. We introduce algorithms for generating legal tile-sets for each of these three game-types, which can be extended to include narrative constraints. This ensures that all novel orderings adhere to a minimum narrative plan, which has been identified based on analysis of the Tiny Planets series and on narrative theories. We also suggest ways in which basic narratives can be enhanced by the inclusion of directorial techniques and by the use of more complex plot structures. In our evaluation studies with children in the target age-range, our game compared favourably with other games that the children enjoyed playing.
19 citations
Cites background from "Story and Discourse: Narrative Stru..."
...The story is a collection of facts (such as events, actions, characters, etc.), whereas the narrative relates to the particular way in which these facts are arranged and conveyed to a reader or audience (Genette and Lewin, 1983; Brooks, 1996; Chatman, 1978; Szilas, 1999)....
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...Digital products such as games and interactive DVDs are another type of spinoff that are becoming ever more popular....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the relationship between growing authority and the voice in which it is expressed, arguing that ethnographic research provides a way of helping students to gain the authority that comes from engagement in real inquiry.
Abstract: In this essay I look at issues of authority and voice as they have entered the current critique of ethnographic writing. Arguing that ethnographic research provides a way of helping students to gain the authority that comes from engagement in real inquiry, I examine the relationship between that growing authority and the voice in which it is expressed.
19 citations
26 Apr 2007
TL;DR: This article explored the relationship of television and moral imagination and explored how television might be valuable in reaching moral maturity in order to diminish needless suffering in this world, where the authors from the literary culture emphasise that the content of the narrative, as well as the reader are of importance for the development of moral imagination.
Abstract: textIn this dissertation the central focus lies with exploration the relationship of television and moral imagination. The underlying aim was to explore how television might be valuable in reaching moral maturity in order to diminish needless suffering in this world. To give form to these aspirations, the main research question that was the starting point of this dissertation was: How do people in the Netherlands use television narratives as a resource to develop a capacity for moral imagination in order to become morally mature? To answer this question, a framework derived from the literary culture was developed. The authors from the literary culture emphasise that the content of the narrative, as well as the reader are of importance for the development of moral imagination. In this study the television narrative was considered as a 'cultural toolbox' that offers moral insights that the active viewer still needs to give meaning to and can use to give meaning to everyday life experiences. Three studies were conducted that each focused on a different aspect of 'how culture works': the content of the toolbox has been researched as well as the audience(s). One of the leading threads running through this dissertation is the Culture vs. culture dichotomy that delivers us with an instrumental perspective on media. Two features of the debate on television were distinguished. The first dimension, primarily found in public debate, dismisses television in general as a popular medium. The second dimension, found in the public as well as in the academic debate, dismisses certain genres, mostly light entertainment.
19 citations
Dissertation•
10 Sep 2015
TL;DR: The authors examine the relationship between print textuality and digital textuality, and argue that the reader's desire for a high level of perceived agency is deeply connected to our anxieties about agency in a cultural context in which individualism is encouraged but our actual individual agency is highly limited.
Abstract: This thesis examines key examples of materially experimental writing (B.S. Johnson?s The Unfortunates, Marc Saporta?s Composition No. 1, and Julio Cort�zar?s Hopscotch), hypertext fiction (Geoff Ryman?s 253, in both the online and print versions), and video games (Catherine, L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Phantasmagoria), and asks what new critical understanding of these ?interactive? texts, and their broader significance, can be developed by considering the examples as part of a textual continuum. Chapter one focuses on materially experimental writing as part of the textual continuum that is discussed throughout this thesis. It examines the form, function, and reception of key texts, and unpicks emerging issues surrounding truth and realism, the idea of the ostensibly ?infinite? text in relation to multicursality and potentiality, and the significance of the presence of authorial instructions that explain to readers how to interact with the texts. The discussions of chapter two centre on hypertext fiction, and examine the significance of new technologies to the acts of reading and writing. This chapter addresses hypertext fiction as part of the continuum on which materially experimental writing and video games are placed, and explores reciprocal concerns of reader agency, multicursality, and the idea of the ?naturalness? of hypertext as a method of reading and writing. Chapter three examines video games as part of the continuum, exploring the relationship between print textuality and digital textuality. This chapter draws together the discussions of reciprocity that are ongoing throughout the thesis, examines the significance of open world gaming environments to player agency, and unpicks the idea of empowerment in players and readers. This chapter concludes with a discussion of possible cultural reasons behind what I argue is the reader?s/player?s desire for a high level of perceived agency.The significance of this thesis, then, lies in how it establishes the existence of several reciprocal concerns in these texts including multicursality/potentiality, realism and the accurate representation of truth and, in particular, player and reader agency, which allow the texts to be placed on a textual continuum. This enables cross-media discussions of the reciprocal concerns raised in the texts, which ultimately reveals the ways in which our experiences with these interactive texts are deeply connected to our anxieties about agency in a cultural context in which individualism is encouraged, but our actual individual agency is highly limited.
19 citations