Narrative codes
and satellite; narrative paradigm; web
or online drama. See also topic guide under
language/discourse/narrative.
Narrative codes See codes of narrative.
Narrative: kernel and satellite Terms defi ned
by Seymour Chatman in Story and Discourse:
Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Cornell
University Press, 1978) to describe structural
elements in narrative. The kernel is an event
crucial to the advance of the plot, serving to
direct the story’s progress and development.
A satellite is a minor feature of the story that
embellishes the plot, adding detail, fl eshing out
the narrative.
Chatman writes of kernels as ‘narrative
moments that give rise to cruxes in the direction
taken by events. Th ey are nodes or hinges in the
structure, branching points which force a move-
ment into one of two (or more) possible paths’.
Satellites are secondary elements that feed into
the kernal; their loss would not seriously hinder
the plot development. Without kernels, however,
there would be no story.
Narrative paradigm Th eory that sees people
as essentially storytellers, defi ning humankind
as homo narrans. A substantial section of the
Autumn 1985 edition of the Journal of Commu-
nication was devoted to an analysis, by a variety
of contributors, of the notion that if storytelling
is central to human discourse and interaction,
then the paradigm provides an important meta-
phor for communications research, which has
its own story – its own narrative-base – rooted
in beliefs about truth and falsehood, fact and
fi ction and the nature of reason.
In ‘Th e narrative paradigm: in the beginning’,
Walter R. Fisher, Professor of Communication
Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern
California, believes that rationality in humans is
determined by the nature of persons as narrative
beings: by ‘their inherent awareness of narrative
probability, what constitutes a coherent story,
and their constant habit of testing narrative
fidelity, whether the stories they experience
ring true with stories they know in their lives’.
He goes on, ‘Th e world is a set of stories which
must be chosen among to live the good life in a
process of continual recreation.’
Narratives: grand narratives See postmod-
ernism.
Narrowcasting As contrasted with broadcast-
ing; the term describes the process whereby
programme-makers and advertisers aim at
specialized-interest (or niche) audiences, from
gardening to golf, from astronomy to cookery; or
at special levels of audience distinguished by,time-frame of the soap is as important as the
time-frames within it. The soap ‘frame’, thus
amply provided with time, requires many char-
acters and many plots. Th e narrative template
or mould out of which soaps emerge is, give or
take an adjustment, the same or similar to that
which produces popular narratives of all kinds,
including the news. Th ey must attract and hold
attention. Th ey must gratify both cognitive
(intellectual) and affective (emotional) needs.
Th ey must facilitate identification, personal
reference as well as diversion (see uses and
gratifications theory). Th ey must meet the
needs of a certain type of audience at a certain
time of day while at the same time fulfi lling such
criteria as commercial viability, which in turn is
conditional upon ratings and audience share.
Another key element of narratives is what is
termed binary framing, that is the story being
structured in terms of opposites – heroes/
villains; good/evil; kind/cruel; tolerant/intoler-
ant; beautiful/ugly. In Narratives Asa Berger
talks of ‘central oppositions’. Stories are built
around protagonists who are archetypal, with
character-traits that are readily recognized- heroes, heroines, villains and victims (see
propp’s people). Something happens, an event
producing a state of disequilibrium, of imbal-
ance, which has to be corrected or resolved;
and in the resolution we may read a message, a
moral, about valour or self-sacrifi ce.
Robert C. Allen, writing in Channels of
Discourse: Television and Contemporary
Criticism (Routledge, 1987, edited by Allen),
diff erentiates between what he calls the Holly-
wood narrative mode and the Rhetorical mode.
Th e fi rst hides the means by which the text is
created. It invites audience to believe that what
they are seeing is real: one is absorbed into the
text without being, as it were, addressed by it. In
contrast, the rhetorical mode directly addresses
the viewer. Th e news, Allen sees presented in
this way – the news reader looks directly out
at us; and similar formats can be recognized in
cooking, sports and gardening programmes on
TV: ‘Th e texts are not only presented for us, but
directed out at us.’
Asa Berger concludes his book by affi rming the
importance of narrative analysis in the study of
communication: ‘We used to think of the stories
we read, listen to, and watch as little more than
trivial amusements to “kill time”. Now we know
that people learn from stories, are emotionally
aff ected by them, and actually need stories to
lend colour and interest to their everyday lives.’
See codes of narrative; narrative: kernel