Media narrative

Media narratives share the characteristics of spoken or written word narratives: they function to entertain, educate, inform and develop the culture of the society in which they are produced.

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MEDIA NARRATIVES IN SOCIETY

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Most people have been immersed in storytelling from early childhood. Parents tell stories to develop their children’s language skills, and educate and entertain them. The stories that parents tell their children are more than the characters and the plots — on a deeper level they are about beliefs, values and ideologies. Narratives often reaffirm broad societal beliefs such as ‘Crime doesn’t pay’ or ‘Good will triumph over evil’. They often contain warnings about how people should or should not behave, pointing out the consequences of going against societal morals and beliefs.

Most of our media narratives are created by and distributed to audiences by mainstream media institutions, which broadly reflect the values and beliefs of the society in which the narratives are made. In Australia, 61 per cent of funding for television drama in 2015–2016 came from the Australian lm and television industry, with less than1 per cent coming from private investors. This is indicative of the nature of media narratives—they are mostly told by large media organisations whose motives are pro t-driven as much as artistic. In the main, media narratives produced by mainstream institutions like television networks and major lm production companies will tend to support the beliefs of the society in which they exist. From time to time however media narratives will challenge the beliefs of their own society and prompt debate and social change.

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AUDIENCE RECEPTION

The context in which a narrative is viewed can affect the way the audience understand, experience and respond to a film. The Australian lm Animal Kingdom (2010) tells the fictional story of a Melbourne criminal family who murder two young policemen in a quiet suburban street in an act of retribution. The lm won the World Cinema Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

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Most residents of Melbourne in 1988 remember the cold- blooded ambush murders of two young police constables checking an abandoned car in Walsh Street, South Yarra. Although Animal Kingdom is fiction, viewing the lm evokes memories of the media narratives from the 1988 real-life crime and criminals involved in it .

 

While modern Film goers see the same fictional narrative as those who experienced the news narratives in Melbourne at the time, the reception context and therefore the viewing experience is very different. While the younger audience reacts to the characters in the film, an older Melbourne audience recalls the criminals that they saw on their televisions and in their courts. Although not a documentary, the film becomes a retelling and reinterpretation of history to some members of the Melbourne audience.

Similar  localised  films  such as Chopper   and the TV franchise series- Underbelly  also provide example of the different reception context between  those in the community that witnessed events  interpreted in the series and those who  didnt   and  therefore respond to the  characters / acting  and drama of the series

 

 

AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS

Audience members’ response to a film in terms of enjoyment or disappointment is often dependent on their expectations of it. If a film is marketed as a terrifying horror it will satisfy the audience if it is scary and disappoint them

 

if it is not. Teenage girls often choose horror movies as entertainment for sleepovers. Perhaps they choose horror to experience the shared response of fright while sitting safely with their friends. If this is so, the scarier the film is the better the experience will be. Conversely, if the film
is not scary it will be received in a different way. While it may not provide fright, it might still provide the group with entertainment. The expected horror lm might provide comic entertainment as the group mocks the lm and laugh at it together.

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AUDIENCE AND SHARED EXPERIENCES

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Audiences sometimes respond to a lm on a personal level because of who they are and the experiences they have had. Often an audience member will identify strongly with a character or storyline because they have had a similar life experience. A father struggling with his career might identify most closely with the character of Richard in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), while his teenage son might more closely identify with Dwayne, a teenage boy experiencing the anxieties and frustrations of adolescence. In Marathon Man (1976), John Schlesinger uses the audience’s experience of having a dentist drill into their teeth to his advantage by setting a torture scene in a dental chair. As Laurence Olivier brings the drill toward the screaming mouth of Dustin Hoffman the audience is horrified by their own fear of the experience.

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AUDIENCES AND VIEWING FORMATS

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Another factor affecting audience response is the medium through which the lm is experienced. The physical experience of viewing may a ect the way in which an audience member receives a lm. The experience of

viewing a film on a phone will differ significantly from viewing it in a darkened cinema. The size of the screen and the limitations of the phone’s speakers may not allow the viewer to fully experience elements of the mise en scène, including depth of field, colour and sound mixing. A lm viewed in a classroom may evoke expectations of study and homework, while viewing a lm with friends at a cinema might evoke feelings of enjoyment and entertainment.

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AUDIENCE AND GENRE

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Modern lm audiences understand the codes and conventions of the lm genre. These understandings
affect their understanding and response to film narratives. Audiences understand that science fiction is set in the future and can therefore believe that in Blade Runner (1984) police cars can y, and actress Sean Young is believable as a replicant or robot version of a human. Genre understanding can also encourage audiences to explore themes or relate to a text closely. In The Truman Show (1998) director Peter Weir questions the ethics of the television reality television genre and explores the themes of identity, belonging and freedom.

Familiarity with a genre also allows the audience to enjoy satire aimed at that genre. Knowledge of James Bond Films adds to the audience’s enjoyment of the Bond satire Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Mike Myers created Austin Powers by modelling the character Dr Evil  on the Bond villains Ernst Stavro Blofeld  Humour in the satire genre draws on the audience’s knowledge of other lm genres and their texts. This referencing of other texts is often referred to as ‘intertextuality’.

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FILM NARRATIVE AND THE AUDIENCE

The first audience to experience onscreen film did so in 1895 with a screening by Auguste and Louis Lumière. The Lumière brother’s first film was entitled Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895). Predictably, the action consisted of workers leaving the Lumière factory. This was typical of early filmmaking. The audience’s fascination came from being able to see moving images on screen. Film subjects at this time included rivers, waterfalls, ski slopes, animals, early motor cars, boats and trains. In The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (1895), the Lumière brothers placed a camera next to a railway track and audiences thrilled as the train came closer and closer. In 1898, English filmmaker George Albert Smith mounted the front of a moving train to lm a ‘phantom ride’. While such films provided excitement for audiences, ‘thrill’ cinema soon gave way to narrative.

Just as filmmaking was once new, so too was film-viewing. Most audiences were not experienced filmgoers and those that were had been viewing events rather than stories. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter made the narrative lm The Life of an American Fireman (1903). This film illustrates how filmmakers learnt to use editing to tell stories to the audience—it is an early example of how editing helps the audience understand what is happening in the story.

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The film begins with split screen showing a remain on one side and a mother putting her daughter to bed on the other. This is an early example of ‘parallel editing’. Then there is a shot of a re alarm being activated, followed by a shot of firemen leaping into action and jumping down a re pole. Shots of the re crews traveling to the re provide the action and excitement.

Suddenly, there is a cut to the bedroom of the mother who was seen earlier putting the baby to bed. She screams out of the window for help and soon a reman bursts in and rescues her and her daughter.

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Interestingly, the same action was shown taking place from outside the building. Perhaps Porter thought that audiences would be confused by cross-cutting the interior and exterior shots together. A later version of the lm does indeed feature a more modern cross-cutting style.

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Ref Heinemann  Media