Narrative Features Research Articles

Personality Exceptions

Adding character depth in narrative planners is a complex subject with many approaches. One common strategy used to add depth to characters is to imbue them with personality traits. One attribute that few personality models consider, however, is how character behavior should change when the character is exposed to reminders of powerful psychological influences. Through creating and refining a new digital construct known as Personality Exceptions, I will provide a tool that makes it much easier for personality systems to support such conditions. I intend to make a modular tool that researchers can attach to existing personality models to enhance the character depth of their characters and, thus, improve the overall quality of computational narratives.

Web-Series Ads as a New Marketing Media: Toward a Commercial-Independent Digital Integration Model

This study presents a new type of advertisement—web-series ads. This undiscussed form of advertising is unique, as it presents an independent digital cultural field. By examining the main structural and narrative features of web-series ads and consumers’ responses, this research presents an integration model which explains how advertisements, as a commercial system, integrate into an independent new media system. Using thematic, narrative–structural, and textual analysis methods, this research shows how marketers convey messaging by introducing a free-from-constraints new online advertising media type. The use of polysystem theory offers a new theoretical perspective to media research and explains the findings.

(In)definites, pronouns and bare nouns: How Turkish/Swedish bilingual 4-to-7-year-olds introduce characters in narratives in Swedish

Abstract This study investigates the referential forms children use to introduce characters in Swedish, in a cross-sectional sample of oral narratives by 100 Turkish/Swedish bilinguals aged 4 to 7 and in a longitudinal sample from age 4 to 6 (N = 10). We analysed development with age and how language proficiency (expressive vocabulary) and exposure affect children’s use of referring expressions, with a focus on referential appropriateness. In addition, a qualitative analysis of the characteristics of high- and low-performing children was carried out. The results show significant effects of age and language proficiency, but not of language exposure on appropriate use of referring expressions. At age 7, 69% of the characters were introduced with an indefinite NP. The Turkish/Swedish bilinguals were found to lag behind in their use of indefinite NPs in comparison to Swedish-speaking children investigated in previous studies, with little crosslinguistic influence from L1 Turkish.

Using Intersectionality to Understand How Structural Domains Are Embedded in Life Narratives.

This study draws on life narrative data and an intersectional framework to explore features of narratives around structural domains, aiming to better understand the possible impacts of these domains on identity. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 177 young adults from primarily minoritized groups (73% Asian American or Latine, 59% Women, Median Parent Income = $50,001 to $75,000), we gathered 885 life narratives. Young adults narrated a domain-general, ethnic/racial, gender, social class, and intersectional experience. Features capturing the content (Presence of Structural Domains, Connection to and Between Structural Domains) and process (Meaning Making, Affective Tone) of narratives were explored. Structural domains manifested uniquely within narratives such that ethnicity/race was discussed most frequently across narratives, whereas gender and social class were mentioned more in narratives about those domains. Additionally, Meaning Making was highest in self-defining narratives and positively correlated with the number of structural domains present within and across narratives. Affective Tone was most positive in self-defining narratives and most negative in social class narratives, which also contained the lowest Connection to Structural Domain. This study combines an intersectional framework and life narrative data to understand how structural domains manifest within young adults' experiences, revealing how those domains are interconnected and may impact identity.

Development of a codebook for the narrative analysis of in-hospital trauma interviews of patients following stroke.

Given their sudden onset and life-threatening consequences, strokes and transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) can trigger posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To gain a deeper understanding of the potential influence of factors in patients' descriptions of these medical events on PTSD, we conducted a standardized trauma interview with a convenience sample of patients hospitalized for suspected stroke/TIA (N = 98) to assess the details and emotional experience of the stroke/TIA event. Three researchers reviewed the interviews and the research literature on risk and protective factors for PTSD. From this analysis, a codebook with descriptions, examples, and scoring protocols for eight Likert scale, two categorical, and four binary codes was developed. Upon demonstrating sufficient interrater reliability, the research team scored all narratives. Three superordinate themes were identified in the analysis: distress (e.g., fear, helplessness), potential protective factors (e.g., positive expectancies, concern for loved ones), and level of detail (e.g., somatic detail, emotional detail). Differences in perceptions, themes, and expectations emerged in the narratives, indicating a wide range of responses following stroke/TIA. Additionally, patient age was negatively correlated with scores for the fear, r = -.34, p <.001, and negative consequences, r = -.24, p =.018, codes and positively associated with the likelihood of having positive expectancies, OR = 1.05, 95% CI [1.00, 1.10], p =.039. These findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of how patients reflect on their experiences post-stroke/TIA and can inform future research on the contributions of trauma narrative characteristics and emotional responses to PTSD risk.

From words to worlds: Generative reconstruction of The Alchemist narratives

This paper explores the creative translation of narratives into atmospheric qualities of space using artificial intelligence (AI). The study transforms the textual descriptions of events based on the notable works of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist into generative architectural representations. Exploration of prompts in text-to-image generative technologies is still defined by the description of forms and context instead of based on events. The study argues that utilising stories of events as prompts creates possibilities for a more enriching and evocative visual of architecture. This study utilises the Microsoft Bing Image Generator DALL-E 3 to generate images based on prompts derived from key events of The Alchemist. Nine particular events of The Alchemist novel are transformed into images, which are further transformed into AI-generated prompts. The study follows by regenerating the prompts into another set of images. The resulting AI-generated images reveal the potential of AI in creating architectural spaces that embody the atmospheric qualities of The Alchemist narratives, with varying degrees of details and nuances of the narrative events. Through annotating the generated forms, the contrast of lights, and the materiality of the generated images, the study creatively reconstructs the atmospheric qualities of The Alchemist events. In doing so, the study blurs the lines between textual and spatial storytelling, empowering the craft of meaningful and impactful spaces through the power of narrative. This paper highlights the potential of AI not just as a tool for visualisation but also as a catalyst for innovative and creative exploration in the design field.

Everyone Is a Tomato: Metagnostic Narratives of Genetic Revelation.

This essay explores the narrative characteristics of genetic revelations as instances of "metagnosis." Contrasting the scientific narrative of increasing knowledge with a series of different stories-including fictional tales-demonstrates the complexity of receiving information that changes one's conception of self, whatever the nature of the revelation. Such narrative awareness can help to communalize such experiences, reducing feelings of isolation and bewilderment.

Eudaimonic well-being: a socio-cultural perspective on narrative action

ABSTRACT This paper, inspired by Arendt’s thought on the narrative character of action, aims to understand how speech and action, performed in the context of new beginnings, reveal eudaimonic potential in the quest for well-being. Our qualitative study follows ethnographic/netnographic principles and highlights four patterns of narrative action that actualize eudaimonic well-being in the foundation of a new business and life project: integrating resources for new beginnings, mobilizing objects, activating like-minded communities, and unleashing authenticating technologies. Our contribution lies in introducing a socio-cultural glance into the field of eudaimonic well-being through which we emphasize the value of narrative action and purpose in the construction of a new beginning. In so doing, we highlight the virtuous interplay between authenticating acts, networked narratives, and networks of desire in social media in the pursuit of eudaimonic well-being.

From childhood to adolescence: the growth of narrative macrostructure in heritage bilingual English speakers

ABSTRACT Narratives are crucial for investigating children’s spontaneous language, offering insights into linguistic changes from early childhood to adolescence. Despite the known improvement in narrative skills with age, research focusing on bilingual children older than 8 is sparse. This study explores narrative macrostructure, episodic complexity, and internal state terms expressing feelings and thoughts among bilingual children in preschool, primary, and secondary school, focusing on English as a heritage language. Narratives were elicited from fifty-nine English-Hebrew bilinguals aged 5–14, divided into three age-groups, using Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (Gagarina, N., D. Klop, S. Kunnari, K. Tantele, T. Välimaa, I. Balcˇiūnienė, U. Bohnacker, and J. Walters. 2014. “MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives.” ZAS Papers in Linguistics 56:1–156), with language exposure data collected from parent questionnaires. Analyses of story grammar elements and episodic complexity revealed significant age-related differences in narrative macrostructure, with older children demonstrating more complex and coherent narratives. The length of exposure to the societal language did not significantly predict narrative outcomes, suggesting that narrative quality is not solely dependent on societal language exposure duration. This study provides valuable baseline data for typical narrative development in bilinguals and could aid in identifying Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in bilingual populations.

Encyklopedisten August Strindberg. Fallet Svarta Fanor

Abstract The article is devoted to the late prose of August Strindberg in the context of literary theories related to encyclopedic narratives and modern epic. I argue that Strindberg’s prose after the Inferno-crisis bears all the features of encyclopedic narratives: it has the ambition to sum up the scientific knowledge of the late 19th century, the narratives are formless, excessive, and full of digressions, their pursuit is mimetic completeness, and their form is both monstrous and hybrid. My thesis is illustrated by a close reading of the nine scientific chapters of the novel Black Banners from 1907.

Metaphors Realized in Narrative: A New Direction for Biblical Metaphor

ABSTRACTAn insight of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is that metaphor is more than a mere literary device; it influences readers through cognitive connections. Yet biblical metaphors have most often been studied in poetic, theological contexts and within linguistic rhetorical devices like “YHWH is my shepherd.” In contrast, some of the most ideologically powerful metaphors are those that shape the Hebrew Bible's prose stories. These metaphors reify cultural constructs and experiences, making them seem “natural.” The study of realized metaphor—metaphor embodied as a literal narrative feature—offers a new pathway for applying CMT to narrative texts, even those without overt linguistic metaphors. This article surveys the history of realized metaphors in literary theory, then provides some brief examples of biblical texts where a CMT approach reveals metaphors embedded in the fabric of the narrative. It concludes with a challenge: how can we extend metaphor theory to the full range of biblical texts, poetry and prose alike, in order to understand how metaphor shapes human perception in the past and the present?

From Elitism to Civilianization: The Mobilization of "Civilian Hero Narratives" in Public Crises

Initiating large-scale social mobilization in public crisis management is a unique advantage and an effective means for the state to prevent and resolve major risks, but due to the extreme lack of cases of positive social mobilization in crises, the mechanism of achieving effective social mobilization is not clear, and there is an urgent need for the theoretical and practical communities to summarize empirical experiences of achieving positive social mobilization in crisis management. Based on this, through the empirical analysis of the rescue cases of Chongqing mountain fire, we find that the media's "civilian hero" narrative in crisis management breaks the rigid pattern of "hero deification" and "elite propaganda" in traditional disaster reports, and is based on the "civilian hero" character narrative, "emotional mobilization" narrative theme and "individual presentation" perspective strategy, which is able to construct a public crisis "heroism" faith consensus, social mobilization resonance and common action. The media's "civilian hero" narrative has become a precise fulcrum for prying the lever of social mobilization, providing a new path for modern social crisis management.

Green and glam: Celebritisation of environmental activism on instagram

&lt;p&gt;This study examines the celebritization of environmental activism on Instagram, focusing on two prominent Indonesian public figures: Hamish Daud and Nadine Chandrawinata. Through a qualitative discourse analysis of their Instagram posts from July to December 2023, we explore how environmental&lt;br /&gt;sustainability is intertwined with the process of celebritization in the Indonesian context. Drawing on Driessens' (2013) framework of mediatization, personalization, and commodification, and employing Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model, this research investigates how these celebrities construct and promote their environmental activist personas through social media. Our findings reveal that Daud and Chandrawinata strategically blend their celebrity status with environmental messaging, creating a unique form of 'celebrity ecology'. They leverage Instagram's visual and narrative features to present environmental activism as part of an aspirational yet attainable lifestyle. The study identifies key strategies employed by these celebrities, including the integration of activism with personal branding, the use of family narratives to promote eco-friendly practices, and the endorsement of sustainable products. While their approach effectively raises awareness about environmental issues, it also reveals tensions between authentic advocacy and personal brand building. The research highlights how followers' interpretations of these messages can vary, sometimes focusing more on the celebrities' personal lives than on environmental content. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on celebrity activism in non-Western contexts and offers insights into the potential and limitations of using social media for environmental advocacy&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

Comparison of micro- and macro- structural narrative features between Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals and Turkish monolinguals

Abstract Bilingualism may lead to differences in narrative micro- and macrostructural features. Creating a normative data set on the narrative characteristics of healthy Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals may allow for a more effective assessment of language disorders that may occur in bilinguals with acquired brain injury. This study aims to determine how narrative micro- and macrostructural features differ in Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals in single picture and story narratives. A total of 23 bilingual (Turkish-Kurdish) and 23 monolingual (Turkish) healthy individuals were included in the study. Narrative samples were obtained using single pictures and a story. Micro- and macrostructural features were compared between bilinguals and monolinguals matched for age, education, and gender. Mean length utterance-morpheme and clausal density variables, considered as indicators of grammatical complexity, were higher in monolinguals in both single picture and story narratives. Morphemic errors were higher for bilinguals. Effort behaviors, which can interrupt verbal efficiency, were higher in bilinguals in single picture narratives. While there was no difference between the groups in verbal fluency (phonemic and categorical), the lexical diversty in storytelling was higher in monolinguals. In terms of macrostructural features, cognitive inferences in the story context and emotional discourse in the single picture context were higher in monolinguals, while enrichment expressions in the single picture narrative were higher in bilinguals. In both groups, macrostructural features such as cognitive inferences and expressions of uncertainty in discourse were negatively correlated with grammatical complexity variables. Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals’ single picture and story narratives in Turkish may show semantic, morphosyntactic and pragmatic differences compared to Turkish-speaking monolinguals.

’Gypsies’, Natural Monogamy, and Violence Full of Love

The paper examines modern knowledge about non-human primates in Czech travel narratives concerning Africa and biological journals from the late nineteenth century to the end of the interwar period. Particular attention is given to the way discourse on primates and anthropological discourse mutually influenced each other. Inspired by the intersection of human – animal studies, critical race theory, and gender studies, the paper emphasizes the anthropomorphizing character of biological discourse and popular travel narratives. At the time, presentations of primates created a specific anthropological resource and, in addition, helped to naturalize the dominant racial and gender ideologies. In the context of the Austrian–Hungarian and Czechoslovakian relative inability to obtain colonial possessions in the way western powers did, the representations of anthropomorphized non-human primates can also be interpreted as a specific field where Czech colonial fantasies about dominance were expressed.

‘Crazy Chinese’ and the 2017 nuclear crisis: A Peruvian newspaper representation of Kim Jong-Un

This study analyzes the narrative characteristics of graphic and written language regarding Kim Jong-Un in the peruvian newspaper ‘El Trome’. This occurred in May of 2017, when mainstream press in Peru closely followed national corruption scandals, whilst ‘El Trome’ focused on a different news story: the nuclear crisis between the United States and North Korea, popularizing the term “Crazy Chinese” in order to refer to the controversial Asian leader. Grounded Theory precepts were employed, which included content analysis of the newspaper covers as well as in depth interviews of the newspapers with both Trome’s General Editor and Design Editor. The newspaper maximized the fear associated with an impending nuclear war, constructing a journalistic message from a sequence of events with two main protagonists: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un, unpredictable leaders with access to nuclear weapons. The strategy appealed to black humor and entertainment in order to position an agenda independent from mainstream press, which focused on internal politics at the time.

Expanding Applications and Artistic Principles of Motion Graphics in Digital Media

Motion graphics, in contrast to traditional two-dimensional media, provide the user with an experience that is more intuitive, dynamic, multi-dimensional, rhythmic and narrative. This study examines the principles and evolution of motion graphics in digital media, including television commercials, websites, applications, interactive installations, and graphic design. By analysing their dynamic, rhythmic and narrative characteristics, this paper outlines the principles of art construction from the perspectives of time, space, communication and synthesis. It also explores the artistic expression of motion graphics through three main avenues: enhancing information presentation, expanding graphic creativity, and integrating multiple forms. To illustrate how these principles enhance information presentation, expand creative boundaries and integrate multiple forms, an in-depth literature review and a series of case studies are conducted. Conclusions focus on providing guiding principles for using motion graphics in modern digital environments.

‘상실’과 ‘저항’: 두브라프카 우그레시치의 포스트유고슬라비아 에세이즘과 그 함의

This research is devoted to the exploration of the implications of the Post-Yugoslav essayistic writings(Post-jugoslavenska esejistička proza) by Dubravka Ugrešić, one of the major contemporary female writers in Croatia through the analysis of their main themes and narrative features. It is the genre of essay that came to the fore in her literary works after she chose to live as an exiled writer. On the whole, it is the feeling of ‘loss’(gubitak) and the attitude of ‘resistance’(otpor) that underlie her essayistic writings, which are subsequently classified into five groups from the thematic points of view as follows. The first one is related to the nostalgic feeling of loss from the disappearance of Yugoslavia and includes those essays that criticize the confiscation and manipulation of the historical memories of ex-Yugoslavia in the new nation states that came to being after the disintegration of SFRY and during the outbreak of the Yugoslav interethnic violences and civil wars. The second group comprises the essays that provide the microscopic observations on the current situations in the Western Balkans in the transitional post-communist period. The third group of essayistic writings addresses the mutual recognitions between the East and the West of Europe, and the changes in recent Europe, caused by refugees and labour migration. The fourth group of essays examines the current status of literature including those ones and their writers in the Western Balkans and emphasizes the necessity of the proper consideration of the transnational literature as an alternative to the conservative national literatures, which have relied on the exclusive nationalistic cultures and have contributed to the identity politics. The fifth group of essays in Ugrešić’s oeuvre is related with the feministic criticism of patriarchal culture and misogyny in the Western Balkans. Based on the frequently repeated narratological elements, the above-mentioned themes are expressed through the authorial colorful tones and writing styles from the writings in fragments and short manifestoes to the long sarcastic feminist critiques and serious political interpretations with the view of diagnosing the crises of humanness(humanitas) from the Western Balkan countries to the West European societies. Ugrešić’s essayism originated from her diverse existential experiences as an exiled writer, and therefore needs to be considered as the heterogeneous and multilayered discourses that lead the readers to the deep contemplation and seeking solutions to the frustrating circumstances after the collapse of the communist countries.

“I want world peace… oh, and bigger boobs”: repetitions and stereotyping on Friends’ sustainable character Phoebe

ABSTRACT Television (TV) series have emerged as the quintessential entertainment product in popular culture, amplifying their potential for affecting stereotypical representations. However, how stereotypes are embedded and transformed through media has been overlooked. This study investigates repetitions, an essential feature of serial narratives that plays a key role in stereotyping through the construction of characters in TV series. Through a literary deconstructionist analysis of Phoebe Buffay, one of the main characters from the neo-cult TV series Friends, we offer a typology of different repetitions – namely, reproduction, layering and evolution – and show how they contribute to cementing the stereotypes of morally desirable yet deviant behaviours, such as sustainable consumption.

Authenticity matters: investigating virtual tours’ impact on curiosity and museum visit intentions

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of virtual museum tours on intentions to visit on-site museums. Furthermore, the role of an authentic virtual tour experience and its drivers is examined.Design/methodology/approachThe results of two studies, a field study in collaboration with one of the most renowned museums in Austria (n = 227) and an online survey (n = 153), were analyzed with a series of mediation models.FindingsVisual appeal and narrative quality were significant drivers of an authentic virtual tour experience. Curiosity mediated the positive effect of virtual tour usage intention on on-site museum visit intention.Originality/valueAlthough virtual reality has been considered a promising marketing tool in tourism, no research has explored the drivers of an authentic virtual tour experience. The findings of this study not only add new insights into the role of a virtual tour’s visual appeal and narrative quality in generating authentic experience and thus prompting virtual tour usage intentions but also demonstrate that virtual tours positively impact on-site visit intentions driven by curiosity.