LxC Tasks 3/4: Why is American football disappealing?

One of the most disappealing narratives in Russian media has to be American football. American football is rarely, if ever, shown on Russian television channels. There is a strong disconnect that exists between the American culture and Russian culture concerning American football. Events such as the super bowl do not make the news in Russia and therefore are widely considered disappealing.

In The Structure of News, Galtung states that “the more distant a nation is, the more will an event have to satisfy the frequency criterion.”[1] American football is a relatively constant event in America. Therefore, based on Galtung’s conclusion, it will not create a news presence across the ocean. Also in the article is the criteria for a news article to have demand. The demand is evidently not present for American football events and therefore it does not make headlines.

In Narrative Interest as Cultural Negotiation, Herman and Vervaeck state that in order “for narrative interest to arise, the circulation on offer must to some extent coincide with the reader’s disposition as it derives from his or her cultural embeddedness.”[2] American and Russian cultures are completely dissimilar when it comes to American football. In fact, when I tried to search for “super bowl” on the main Russian news channel, I did not receive any results.[3]

As with most European countries, when “football” is mentioned, soccer is thought of. The disappeal of American football in Russia can explained by the criteria in the preceding paragraphs. Based on Prince’s definition in The Disnarrated, American football can be considered “unnarratable,” or “falling below the so-called threshold of narratability (it is not sufficiently unusual or problematic).”[4]

[1]Galtung, Johan/Ruge, Mari Holmboe. "The Structure of Foreign News." The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers.Volume 2 (1965), Page 66.
[2]Herman, L., Vervaeck, B. "Narrative Interest as Cultural Negotiation." NARRATIVE. Volume 17 (2009), Page 112.
[3]Результаты поиска: "супербоул." Первыи Канал. http://www.1tv.ru/allsearch/?s=%F1%F3%EF%E5%F0%E1%EE%F3%EB Accessed April 4, 2011. Internet

This is the result page of my search for “superbowl” on the Russian news website.

[4]Prince, Gerald. "The Disnarrated." STYLE. Volume 21 (1988), Pages 1-3.

LxC Task1: Creation of a sports complex in Moscow

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is the co-owner of the New Jersey Nets, a team that plays in the National Basketball Association. His new venture is to help finance and build a sports center in Moscow’s International Business Center.[1] The whole MIBC is an ongoing project that seeks to create an area where people would be able to work, relax, and tour in western Moscow.


Prokhorov’s planned addition of a sports center helps create an entertainment outlet that would place MIBC on a slightly different approach than originally expected. While considered to be an area primarily for business, the complex would more focus on leisure time. On the local level, it would create an outlet for residents to get physically fit and also provide entertainment in the form of a movie theater for everyone.


As for a global impact, the center would increase tourism to the area. Not only would the people living in or near MIBC be able to experience it, the aesthetics of the area would welcome international crowds. It is unknown whether the Nets would be able to play a game at the complex but it is certainly not a farfetched idea. Looking at Prokhorov’s past and his international vision for the future of the Nets, he would certainly be able to put two and two together.


From the categories that Galtung presents in The Structure of Foreign News, this news article contains meaningfulness and cultural proximity.[2] Based on my previous blog post on the appeal of narratives, these two categories are also main parts that create an appealing narrative. Due to me being the reader, the article has cultural proximity due to connecting both my Russian heritage and my American upbringing. Furthermore, the meaningfulness of the article stems from the cultural proximity. Having been in Moscow allows me to appreciate what Prokhorov has planned for the region.

[1]Прохоров превратит «Москва-Сити» в спортивно-развлекательный центp. Equipnet.ru. Published April 4, 2011. http://www.equipnet.ru/news/power-industry/power-industry_19494.html Accessed April 4, 2011. Internet.

This is a news article that describes Prokhorov's plans for building the sports complex. It also incorporates the economic concerns of the project.

[2]Galtung, Johan/Ruge, Mari Holmboe. "The Structure of Foreign News." The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers. Volume 2 (1965), Pages 70.

Narratable, Unnarratable

What is narratable is a subjective topic. "One narrator's unnarratable can very well be another's narratable" [1]. "Much fiction derives some of its force from representing what is widely considered unrepresentable and from making narratively interesting what is commonly viewed as entirely lacking in interest" [1] . These quotes point to the idea that the unnarratable are things that are uninteresting, such as the specific method one uses to brush their teeth, but it can also be something that is difficult to express. Now, it is possible that someone can turn their method of teeth brushing into an interesting commentary, taking it out of the category of the unnarratable for that author. Therefore the unarratable is not something truly definable. Anything can be made into a narrative. According to Martin Kreiswirth a narrative is “Someone telling someone else that something happened”[2]. The word "something" is specifically ambiguous because narrative is an expansive concept that is difficult to define.

Making something that is unnarratable into something narratable adds to the appeal of narratives. One of the appeals of a narrative is to convey a story to another person. However, when we tell stories that are hard to express, or bring attention to things we have never paid attention to before, then, a narrative is bringing something new to the table. It becomes special on a new level. It is easy to tell a narratable narrative, but the really interesting stories are narratives that can talk about something that is previously conceived as unnarratable.

There was a recent NPR podcast about how difficult it is for reporters to report on sex scandals because it is such a difficult and emotional topic [3]. Stories of rape balance on the edge of narratable and unnarratable. The New York Times published a news article on March 8th about an 11 year old girl who had been raped [4]. The story came off as extremely biased towards the boys accused of the crime The article quotes neighbors wondering how their “young men could have been drawn into such an act” [4]. The newspaper ordered a re-write of the story after readers complained. The NPR radio show pointed out how difficult it is to report on a rape story. There is a shame factor for the victim that is involved that often makes her story unnarratable. But when a reporter can break the unnarratable barrier and tell the truth about a story that is difficult to tell, they can hopefully make a change.

The biggest appeal of narratives is their ability to bring about change. They can make people think differently, and can call people to action.

[1] Prince, Gerald. "The Disnarrated." Style. 22.1 (1988): 1-8. Print.

[2] Kreiswirth, Martin: Merely Telling Stories? Narrative and Knowledge in the Human Sciences. Poestics Today 21:2 (Summer 2000), p. 294.

[3] "Sex Scandal Difficult to Report." NPR: WNYC, New York, 4/4/11. Radio. 6 Apr 2011.

[4] McKinley, James. "Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town." New York Times March 8, 2011: A13. Print.

Narratives: Human voices amidst a sea of automated online content farms, and emerging artificial intelligences

When attempting to understand what constitutes a narrative, one can easily reference a structuralist approach by Barthes[1], or a more textbook oriented discourse by Abbott[2], of what constitutes a narrative. While this foundation may be an effective starting point, further refinement is needed during this era of digital information, when computational technology speeds double almost every two years. It now will become more important than ever to define a narrative by who can create, and what cannot ever, create a narrative.

The main support for this idea can be found in the list created by Marie-Laure Ryan, which begins by her usage of the idea of chronotopos,[3]to begin a list of stipulations necessary in order to create a narrative. The topos in her argument is that a “Narrative must be about a world populated by individuated existents.”[4], which is then coupled with the chronos dimension, wherein she adds “This world must be situated in time and undergo significant transformations…The transformations must be caused by non-habitual physical events.”[5] After using chronotopos to tie the narrative into space and time, a further “mental dimension” is added in which “Some of the participants in the events must be intelligent agents who have a mental life and react emotionally to the states of the world...Some of the events must be purposeful actions by these agents.”[6]These set forth the conditions necessary which differentiate that, that it is only humans who can truly ever create a narrative.

In the current state of the cyber realm a new presence has only begun to emerge; the presence of aggregated content farms, and digital creations, created solely by computers. These content farms can already digest large volumes of information on their own, and with the aid of some artificial intelligence programming and nary a human input, they can convert that information into seemingly human like answers and responses which could fool many people into thinking it was written by a human. These same computers are learning to master the recreation of language and writing. Couple this with the recent advances of a supercomputer on Jeopardy!, named Watson, who vied with human contestants in a battle of human versus artificial intelligence. Watson’s superior computational speeds and continuously refined search algorithms, easily allowed it to best his human counterparts.

Watson demonstrated the ability of a computer to understand the difficult nuances of subtle human questions. Combine this ability with the easy consumption of huge volumes of facts, and the recreation of written language and it may be entirely possible for a computer like Watson, to someday crowd out the true narratives and voices of humans in the online world. And one day the content they create may compete with our own voices as humans. But those voices, if they do emerge, will always be deficient in their ability to tell narratives. They not only lack the chronotopos of the human endeavor, but the very essential human understanding, experience, and perspective. Which is what makes our narratives so unique, so rich and so unequivocally human.

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[1] Barthes, Roland. “An introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. Volume 6, No.2 (1975)

[2] Abbott, H. Porter: The Cambridge Companion to Narrative (Cambridge Introductions to Literature). Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002

[3] Bakhtin, M. Mikhail: Chrono topos . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2008

[4] Ryan, Marie-Laure: Toward a Definition of Narrative, in: Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 29.

[5], Marie-Laure: Toward a Definition of Narrative, in: Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 29

[6] , Marie-Laure: Toward a Definition of Narrative, in: Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 29

Narrative

            A narrative is the process of telling something to someone. The process includes senders and receivers of the narration as all the communicating process does. A narrative is the core element of a human life, as Barthes points out in his article that “there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative”. [1] Indeed, human beings depend on narratives in understanding what is happening around them. Abbott agrees with this by stating that without narratives “we often feel we don’t understand what we see”. [2] It must be noted as well that a narrative comes before a discourse, because “the story only comes to life when it is narrative”. [3] How can a story exist if it is not told? The question reveals the essential feature of a narrative.

Narrative happens in the every aspect of human life, so it can take infinite numbers of forms. Language, art works, history, and gestures are only a few of those examples. [4] The function of the narratives varies as well, though all the functions are to construct a “plot as a mapping in time and space”. [5] A narrative, therefore, is the necessary process for human in order to make sense out of the world. 

[1] Barthes, Roland. “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. New Literary History. Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (Winter. 1975), p. 237. Print.

[2] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative.Cambridge. Second Ed. University Press. p. 10. Print.

[3] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative.Cambridge. Second Ed. University Press. p. 20. Print.

[4] Barthes, Roland. “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative”. New Literary History. Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (Winter. 1975), p. 237. Print.

[5] Herman, David. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 64. Print.

Takane Kobayashi 

What is a Narrative

A synthesized definition of a narrative composed of many definitions stated in Herman’s, The Cambridge Companion to Narrative: A narrative is the “representation of a sequence of events” that engenders change experienced by agents temporally and causally, transmitted by a narrator and incepted by a narratee [1]. A narrative does not have to be an art, such as a novel or saga, but can be conjured by all of us. Non-artists make narratives everyday by simply putting words together even when, as Abbott states in, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, "uttering a subject followed by a verb, in a narrative’s most simple form" [2]. In Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative, Barthes elaborates that "inception by the narratee is affected by the medium of the storytelling by the narrator, which can be articulated language, whether oral or written, pictures, still or moving, and gestures" [3]. For example, a video is a literal interpretation of a narrative, but with little explanation and bias from outside sources, unlike an article explaining the same event. One thing a narrative must be is relatable. When a story is ingested by a narratee an evaluation can come from many aspects of the narrative, such as personal experience and connection to main focal points of the story. Abbott also states "A narratee is sensitive to exactly how the narrative is constructed", [4] which makes narratives especially important to global media. The induction of the internet and video as a storytelling device has changed the dynamic of the purpose and intent of the narrator, and the meaning and accessibility to the narratee.

[1] Herman, David. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 23. Print.
[2]- Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. pg 1.
[3]- Barthes, Roland Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative, New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2 On Narrative and Narratives (Winter 1975) The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. pg 237
[4]- Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. pg 84.

What is a narrative?

The best definition is a simple one: an account of events as told by an intelligent source. The source does not necessarily have to be human; a computer can compile a list of events from history into a narrative.


Narratives are not just found in works of literature; they can also be found through everyday speech. For example, when you explain to a person what you did last night, the result is a narrative. It is also important to realize that lyrical verses (in music or in poetry) are different forms of narratives.[1]


Marie-Laure Ryan has perhaps the most elongated and detailed definition of a narrative.[2] Her definition may make sense in specific scenarios, but not in others. For example, she states that diaries and chronicles would not be considered narratives because they do not connect specific events and do not provide closure.[2] However, diaries must have connected events because they contain personal experiences which relate to a person's specific era which he/she lived in. Even if the diary entries are looked at as seperate events, each entry is considered a narrative. The same concept applies to chronicles and therefore makes this part of her definition false. Furthermore, I argue that a narrative does not need closure. Going back to the example of a compilation of a history of events, there is no end to history. As time keeps ticking, events happen. Therefore, in many new current narrative events, there may not be a specific closure of events.



A modern day example would be the events that are unravelling in Libya. If one was writing a narrative on the revolution happening in Libya, the writer would be ending his/her article with the latest report. However, the latest report may not provide sufficient closure due to new events occuring every few minutes. Thus, a narrative does not need to have closure; therefore, the simple definition still stands.







[1] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p.2.

[2] Ryan, Marie-Laure. Toward a Defintion of Narrative, in Herman, David (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 29.

What is a Narrative?

A narrative can be defined as a personal account of an event which has components of time and space,that is communicated from the narrator to the listeners. Often a narrative depicts a past event that the narrator experienced, thus when it is told, it usually has a specific meaning to it.

In fact, "a narrative is made up solely of functions: everything, in one way or another, is significant" [1], especially for the narrator. Interpreting a narrative is more open and ambiguous because a narrative's interpretations depends on its different listeners. Also, these interpretations may change over time, which leads to a skewed judgment of the original meaning of a narrative.

A narrative represents an event that occurs in a space and time frame that is alternate to the one that the narrator occupies. Thus, "time and space are components of the basic conceptual framework for the construction of the narrative world" [2]. These components allow the listener to imagine the event and construct his own interpretation of the narrative as it is told to him.

It should also be noted that a narrator need not be, traditionally, a person, but it can be a "number of instruments - among them actors and cameras - that can be used in the narrative process of representing events" [3]. Any form of technology or art can be a narrator because "the narrative, viewed as object, is the basis of communication: there is a giver of narrative and a recipient of narrative" [4]. Any personal account of an event can be considered a narrative.


[1] Barthes, Roland. "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative". New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (1975), p. 244. Print.

[2] Herman, David. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 63. Print.

[3] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, Second Ed. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2008. p. 15. Print.

[4] Barthes, Roland. "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative". New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2, On Narrative and Narratives (1975), p. 260. Print.

Narratives

Martin Kreiswirth said it best when he defined narrative as “Someone telling someone else that something happened”[1]. Narratives are how we talk about our lives. It can be something as simple as telling your neighbor what happened to you yesterday, to a best selling memoir. H. Porter Abbot went so far to say that narrative is “the distinct human trait”[2]. It is what separates humans and animals, our ability to communicate beyond the basic survival level. We have built an outlet for us to communicate and share our feelings in ways that are more complex than just to warn others of danger and to find food. Humans connect on a different level than other species because of our ability to narrate.

We have in fact created a new level of survival through narrative, and that is the social scene. Many aspects of survival in human life rely on social interactions. To get a job, we have to go through a job interview. To get into college, we must write a personal narrative essay. Everyone tells you getting a good job is about making connections and having contacts to get far. This all relies on our ability to construct personal narratives that make us seem appealing and interesting and prove that we have something to offer.

It is important to point out that in order for a story to be a narrative, it must include “non habitual physical events…It must communicate something meaningful”[3]. A narrative is a story where something out of the ordinary happens. It cannot just be a recount of an ordinary day. But it must be a story about how something changed. Abbot also agrees “something has to happen”[4].

The language the narrative is in is also important. As Annemarie Fischer points out “A narrative is the news transmission as well as poetic representation”[5]. How you tell a narrative affects how it comes across. With different wording, punctuation and pauses, the narrative comes off differently. When you are trying to tell a narrative for comedic effect versus emotional, you tell the story differently.

A narrative is a story. Our lives our filled with narratives, and it is the way humans communicate.

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[1] Kreiswirth, Martin: Merely Telling Stories? Narrative and Knowledge in the Human Sciences. Poestics Today 21:2 (Summer 2000), p. 294.

[2] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. 2cnd Ed. Cambridge University press. P. 1. Print.

[3] Ryan, Marie-Laure: Avatar of Story (Electronic Mediations, Volume 17). London, Minneapolis: University of Minnestoa Press 2006, p. 98. Print.

[4] Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. 2cnd Ed. Cambridge University press. P. 16. Print.

[5] Fischer, Annemarie. “Defining Narrative.” Global Media Narratives. Binghamton University. Binghamton, NY. 2/24/2011. Keynote.