Narrative Analysis is a type of analysis where individuals dissect a story that is told by way of a variety of mediums. It could be through pictures, verbal story telling, a lecture, documentary or etc. Through narrative analysis, the analyser attempts to discover the motives, values and story that is being conveyed by the story teller. Sonja Foss’ “Narrative Criticism” goes over different techniques that viewers and listeners can use to be more critical of the stories and media that they consume.
Sonja Foss defines a narrative as something with multiple characteristics. One of these being an artifact. An artifact is the means by which the narrative I being portrayed. The narrative must contain multiple components:
- Comprised of events that are Active or Stative
- Events are organized in time order
- Includes some form of casual or contributing relationship among events in a story
- Must be about a unified subject
Reading Ross’ excerpt before reading “Narrative Analysis Guidelines” document, I wasn’t really comprehending what Narrative Analysis and Artifacts were. The guidelines gave me a better idea of what everything meant.
By searching the term “Migration” on BBC’s website, I was directed to this thread of news reports:
https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cz4pr2gdg1et/migration
“US fires: will climate change lead to the next ‘great migration’?”
“Moria migrants tear-gassed by Greek police in protest over new camp”
“Moria migrants protest in front of burnt-out camp”
Those are a few examples of artifacts that I could conduct a narrative analysis of.
The Artifact about seesaws at the U.S-Mexican border stood out to me and the following are my questions and answers to it:
Does the narrative encourage a particular interpretation of a situation? – Yes, it gives an impression that the lives affected by the U.S.-Mexican border are completely innocent in this situation. It primarily shows adolescents.
Does the narrative embody and advocate any values? – Not necessarily, because it doesn’t explicitly promote or demote the border or the people involved.
What does the narrative reveal about the culture in which it appears? What does this culture value and/or repress? – It shows that the children who affected by this situation are still adolescent at heart and want to live regular lives of children.
My questions about this week’s theme:
- Is narrative analysis something that should always be used in day to day conversations and media consumption, or is it sometimes okay to take things at face value?
- Is narrative analysis something that is objective or subjective?
Grade: 4.5/5
Good work here, Brandon. To your second question, “Is narrative analysis something that is objective or subjective?” the answer is definitely subjective. In fact two people could conduct a narrative analysis on the same artifact and end up with two completely different interpretations. Still, the best analysis is that which uses specific and nuanced examples from the artifact to support it’s argument.