Oldal 36 [36]
Part I. Interdisciplinary Approach to Storytelling | 35
With the advent and spread of VHS and then DVD technology and thematic
cable television, time-independent television viewing became possible. Fans
could watch cult films and series at any time and watch multiple episodes at a
time. The ratings of channels and their shows have declined, and at the same
time, viewers have sought series with more complex narratives (Mittel, 2006).
Viewers no longer appear to enjoy being distracted by commercials in their
reception of narratives. Uninterrupted quality storytelling existed only through
public service broadcasting in Europe and subscription channels in the US.
Since the turn of the millennium, US content providers (first HBO and later
Netflix) have become globally available, allowing unlimited and uninterrupted
access to film narration. These providers owe their success and hence their
economic profit to their viewers’ insatiable hunger for stories. High-concept
series are characterized by a basic plot that becomes more complicated from
episode to episode, but each episode also has its own storyworld. Series build
their episodes according to their own narrative logic, but Mittel (2006) notes
that they can deviate from this logic in the plot or in the time management
of individual episodes by means of so-called narrative spectacles in order to
maintain the attention and long-term engagement of the viewer who follows
the logic of the series structure.
3.2 The Medium is the Message
Among media theories, media narratology should be highlighted as a sub¬
discipline which examines the structure of media narratives and analyzes
them with the approaches and assumptions of media theories. McLuhan’s
(1962) maxim “The medium is the message” conveys the notion that the
technology and communication conventions of the medium determine
the content and message of the narrative, and also that the content and the
medium itself are always the shapers of socio-cultural dialogues. A narrative
has a different message when viewed in the form of a comic strip, a radio
play, a series, a blog post or a film. Since the medium itself and the media
narrative cannot be separated, the communication clichés of the medium,
its role in society and its target group need to be examined.
Technical media have a mediating function, and since the printing of books,
all narratives communicated through external media are communicated
through an interface. Since media are the means of information flow, including
the transmission of narratives, the question arises as to what extent the
interface influences the content. Do changing media really affect human
culture and information transmission as McLuhan claimed?
From the point of view of communication theory, one of the most
fundamental questions is whether narrative-based knowledge transfer was
orally or literally determined in each period. Theories based on cultural
and technological approaches to history show a chronological arc from the