Case Study - Tzvetan Todorov

Tzveran Todorov - Narrative Theory

- Tzvetan Todorov is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher.

- He was born in 1939 

I did this as I thought that It would be good to find out the different types of media and the different ways in which theorists see it. By looking at how different people thought a media text should be shown I thought that we could mix them all in to create a better product.

Tzvetan Todorov created a theory called the narrative theory, he believed that a story should have a beginning being normal a disruption where all the action takes place and then an end where there is a new normality.

What are the key points of his ‘narrative theory’?

The way that stories and characters are seen in media texts

5 keys ideas…                                                                           

1.    Equilibrium – Normal life/balance

2.    Disruption – Normality is disrupted

3.    Realisation – Characters accept disruption

4.    Reparation – Fixing the disruption

5.    New equilibrium – balance, but different  

Example – Spiderman                           

1. Equilibrium - Normal student, geek, works hard to try and get the girl of his dreams. 

2. Disruption - He is bitten by a spider, gets many attributes a normal human wouldn't.Then he has to fight someone evil. 

3. Realisation - When he gets used to the fact that he is a human spider.

4. Reparation - Stops the evil person from killing everyone and becomes used to the fact hes going to be spiderman from now on.

5 - Carries on with normal life as Spiderman.                                

Why is this important in studying media?

This is important to my course as I can see whether there are many other music videos that have used this theory and see whether they have worked out well. I believe that more of the music videos that have a background story have this sort of narrative besides the ones that end on a sad note.

How can you apply his theory to your research/project?

I can apply this to my research by looking at some example of music videos with his theory and seeing if I want to make I similar one or not. Most of the music videos we looked at were very interesting and kept you intrigued all the way through, this is what we'd like to do to our audience.

I think that after looking at a lot of videos that have this sort of storyline we decided to use it. In our music video we are thinking about having a couple that are together a lot and have a lot of fun, this would be the equillibrium after this they would be taken away from each other, maybe due to a problem at home with there family, therefore being disrupted and then they will end up back together somehow and this would be the new equilibrium. This is clearly a very basic version of the music video but it does replicate his theory.