Week 7: Visual Narrative and The Media.

It is said that men are creative beings who spend most of their time employing different forms of narration possible to share a piece of their story during their life course.  According to Fisher’s book Narrative Paradigm, stories are shaped by history, culture and character. He believed that narratives are central to human life (p.298). It is in our very nature to be storytellers (Lemon, 2006) and these stories or narratives are being passed down from one generation to the next.  In some point, stories or narratives help document history so as to be remembered, heard and shown. From this, it allows us to be more imaginative; pushing our minds and thoughts to the limit (Pierzchala, Winter 2009).

There are different kinds of narratives; ranging from oral, written, visual, and photographic as to name a few. However, some people tend to over simplify the meaning of narrative and collapse all storytelling into a single category (Peter Lamarque, 1994. p. 131).

Narrative can be understood as “a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious”. (narrative)

All narrative has a dualistic nature that involves the story or content – also known as fabula in relation to events, actions, time and location; and the discourse – how the story is told in terms of arrangement and emphasis of any elements of the content (Narrative Theory: A Brief Introduction).

According to Lamarque (pg.131), the narrative content must consist of description of the events and not just a mere catalogue of descriptive sentences. Secondly, temporal dimension is essential for the shaping of events by calling to mind accounts of the past. This is so that experiences can be told in an orderly fashion. Once arrangements of events are in chronological order, it provides structure to the content. With this meshed together, you get a plot. - A structured series of interconnected events. Therefore, it is important to have structure in a story because it helps to connect the missing dots as well as records. Thirdly, for every narrative, there is a narrator; real or implied or both. Narratives don’t just exist; they are told and mediated from some perspective. Huisman named this phenomenon of focalization (pg.13). Thus, the four basic dimensions of all narrative are time, structure, voice, and point of view. Once these are in tack, it gives a beginning, middle and an end to the narrative as stated by Aristotle’s Dramatic Structure.  

According to Aristotle, he believes that the form of action can take the place of the process of telling. He stated “in the drama, there is no narration because the actors do the action.” Presumably narrative can be implied.  This is known as “mimesis” which in English means “showing”. However, when a narrator tells us both the story (action) and the speech of the characters (character’s speeches are spoken), this suggest to an overlapping concept of both diegetic and mimetic. - A ‘mixed mode’. For Plato, diegesis suggests that the poet himself is a speaker and mimesis explains that poet tries to give the illusion that another character speaks (Huisman 2005 p.18-19).

As stated in the book Narrative concepts by Rosemary Huisman, narrative is recognized in many different media such as films, in television and so on (p.11). This is indeed true as so to speak. For this reason, I have attempted to expand my investigation on narratives in the context of visual communication with an emphasis on video clip and pictorial, a medium that shapes our perception of stories told through it.

Enter, Royal Brunei Holiday Report

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The motive of this video is to promote and show what Brunei has to offer for the people that have not yet (or wish to for that matter) step foot on Brunei’s soil. Thus, the reporter’s mission was to stay a couple of days in Brunei to draw up a visual report as she explored her way in the Heart of Borneo filled with cultural richness, breath-taking views of the rainforest and the amazing architecture. Since the report is mediated from her, she is the focalizer. Here, the reporter/narrator is the speaking subject whilst the subject of speech is on Brunei tourism.

The narrator was given the opportunity to visit the little wonders and aspect of Brunei Darussalam by visiting the museum, the palace (where she gets to see Her Majesty in person), Brunei’s most exquisite 7 stars hotel: The Empire Hotel and lastly, escaped into the beauty of god’s creation: the tropical rainforest. The reporter gave very descriptive sentences on each of the events she experienced to help increase the climax of the narrative by highlighting the tourist spots to captivate the audience’s attention.  

Finally, there is intertextuality found in the report. One of which is the ‘fairytale sultanate’ mentioned by the narrator at the end of the video. If we apply a semiotic approach, the pragmatics encoded on the term fairytale means being in a fictitious, magical and highly fanciful story. It is this predetermined or presupposed meaning embedded in any set of signs that provides the intertextual knowledge for the audience. Thus, this gives the viewer the idea that Brunei is truly a kingdom of unexpected treasure.

  

Now, let’s examine a much different medium.

The photo above shows the Brunei Tourism advertisement poster; hence the genre: tourism advertisement. Again by applying the semiotics approach, it demonstrates that the word play of a few vowels and consonants being filled with vibrant colors of signs are very well presented. They filled in images within each letters because it helps with memory. According to Jerome Bruner educational psychologist of New York University, he found out that a person’s brain only can remember ten percent of what they hear, thirty percent of what they read but significantly eighty percent of what they see or do (Bruner, 2006) . These individual signs were chosen because it relates very much to the country Brunei. It represents Brunei’s rich malay culture and its lavished greeneries.   

In conclusion, it is clear that narrative can be presented through various mediums. I believe narrative is realized in many of the media context due to its importance when shaping visual images to a diverse audience. After writing this, I have established a basis of the power of visual narrative in different media context.

Works Cited

Bruner, J. (2006). A brave new (visual) world . In P. Paul Martin Lester, Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication. Fullerton California.

Fisher, W. Narrative Paradigm. In E. Griffin, A first look at communication theory (pp. 298-299). New York, NY.: Frank Mortimer.

Huisman, R. (2005). Narrative concept. Cambridge University Press.

Lamarque, P. (1994). Narrative and Invention: The Limits of Fictionality. In N. C., Narrative in culture (pp. 131-132). New York and London: Routledge.

Lemon, N. (2006). Retrieved october 7th, 2010, from Using Visual Narrative for reflection: http://www.aare.edu.au/06pap/lem06537.pdf

narrative. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2010, from Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/narrative

Narrative Theory: A Brief Introduction. (n.d.). Retrieved october 7th, 2010, from courses.nus.edu.sg: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/NarrativeTheory/chapt1.htm

Pierzchala, J. (Winter 2009). Visual Narrative and photography. Retrieved october 7th, 2010, from http://narrativemachine.com/documents/Visual-Narrative-and-the-Photographer.pdf


Brunei Tourism logo. Retrived October 7, 2010, from executivemasterclass.com:  http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.executivemasterclass.com.my/marketroot/executi/catalog/page_images/Brunei_Tourism_Logo2.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.executivemasterclass.com.my/executi/catalog/exchange/11907806840/11908630743/&h=1000&w=2400&sz=678&tbnid=lQhVjYkJXV4V0M:&tbnh=63&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbrunei%2Btourism&zoom=1&q=brunei+tourism&hl=en&usg=__cilrEd1Hz2qygVOnP8f7VhQdmq8=&sa=X&ei=yEW0TJaXIcePcfucrPAI&sqi=2&ved=0CCcQ9QEwBA