Narrative and Media

Narrative and Media, first published in 2006, applies narrative theory to media texts, including film, television, radio, advertising, and print journalism. Drawing on research in structuralist and post-structuralist theory, as well as functional grammar and image analysis, the book explains the narrative techniques which shape media texts and offers interpretive tools for analysing meaning and ideology. Each section looks at particular media forms and shows how elements such as chronology, character, and focalization are realized in specific texts. As the boundaries between entertainment and information in the mass media continue to dissolve, understanding the ways in which modes of story-telling are seamlessly transferred from one medium to another, and the ideological implications of these strategies, is an essential aspect of media studies.

Helen Fulton is Professor of English and Head of the School of Arts at Swansea University. She manages to combine contemporary critical theory with medieval literature and has a particular interest in narrative in all its forms. Her most recent publication is A Companion to Arthurian Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Rosemary Huisman is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Sydney, where she was also Head of Semiotics until 2003. Her research brings together contemporary literary, semiotic and linguistic theory in the exploration of textual production and interpretation in different media, discourses and genres. A practising poet, she has produced major publications on the semiotics of poetry, from Beowulf to contemporary Australian writing. Julian Murphet is a Lecturer in the Department of English, University of Sydney, where he teaches American literature, film and critical theory. He is the author of two books on contemporary American literature, and has published widely in postmodern culture and the interrelations of visual and literary media. Anne Dunn is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Before embarking on an academic career, she spent over twenty years in commercial and publicly-owned media, as a writer, resesarcher, journalist, producer, director and manager, including freelance work with magazines and newspapers. She is the current President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association.