Conventions of the Online explainer.
As part of my narrative assignment I am writing a web explainer so to do it well here are 3 others and the narrative techniques they utilised.
1: VOX Explainer Britney Spears is finally free.
The first article I looked at was very much a longform explainer by VOX but exhibited a great use of narrative skills and writing for the web.
General Techniques:
The article started off without text but with a massive image banner covering the whole of the screen which immediately immersed you into the story of friction between Britney’s fans and the legal conservatorship, it also in some ways emulated methods of “scrollytelling” as it required some scrolling to allow you to access the story at all.
This was followed by frequent use of BASIC techniques with Quotes , various words in the text made bold to enhance scannability, and meaningful images placed at relevant locations in the text. Whilst the use of most basic techniques was good the large amount of text did mean that there were areas of the article where only text could be seen making it feel a much more time-consuming read. Saying this , I believe that this is due to it perhaps fitting into the sub-genre of a longform explainer which was written much more like a news piece. This is reflected in its narrative structure.
Narrative Structure:
As mentioned when looking at techniques, there is a large amount of text that whilst I think could be made more attractive to read by the use of images, videos or bullet points. It had been made in this way to suit being a longform piece.
This is reflected in its inverted pyramid structure, which it uses beginning with the most recent event of Britney Spear’s conservatorship ending, before delving into context. It continues to reach the reaction of the conservatorship no longer being correct and that it has now been ended. The crucial part that identifies it as an inverted pyramid setup, is how after this it delves back into context of the beginning of Spear’s story and the harassment she received from media. Returning back to the conservatorship and how the reaction of the world is now we know then finishes the second context , background and reaction narrative arc. This context, background and reaction structure then repeats until we finally have the coda of :
“As of November 12, that fact has finally changed. Britney Spears is walking free, in control of her own body at long last.”
as a result this is definitely a longer form explainer format being used. I did wonder if the Kebob structure was being used (Man , 2011) however it does not significantly use an anecdote in its structure at the beginning or the end where instead the “something happened” convention is used.
Genre Conventions:
This article whilst following genre conventions of an explainer somewhat with its conversational manner of writing and its use of images , I would argue that there is elements of this that challenge the genre. I mean this in terms of the text mixing explainer with a longform articles way of writing. I argue this because whilst the text is conversational it is from more of a personal opinions point of view which contradicts the Red Hot Chili Peppers explainer I look at below, which is more conversationally factual. The use of sub-headings in this article is clever here as instead of using question’s as the subheadings as traditional with explainers , quotes are used instead to demarcate sections. This technique again lends towards the more longform journalistic style of writing. The subtitle however does stick to the fun conversational nature of the explainer though in its use of a pun something we see in other explainers.
Audience Construction:
This is a difficult one to decipher with this article but I would argue that from references to the New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears” it is aimed at affluent middle class readers due to the fact that the New York times exists behind a paywall. It is targeted towards 20–45 year old readers I would argue and particularly those who consume news media in the way it conversationally and journalistically written somewhat with a focus on current affairs.
2: Absolute Radio Explainer: Get to know the red hot Chilli Peppers.
The second article I looked at was the closest to the professional context of the explainer that I am creating for the assignment however it still featured a lot of patterns seen in the first explainer on Britney spears.
General Techniques:
Firstly as in all Web-writing the BASIC principle had been applied with a large image beginning the piece in this respect an image of the band together after winning a Grammy award. This image whilst not as large as the one introduced in the Britney spears article , so not acting as visual immersion into the story did act as a visual abstract in introducing it to the reader.
In addition to the BASIC principle of writing being used with the image we also see : short-paragraphs , frequent use of images throughout the piece (Which are mainly used to break up the text before the next question is introduced), some video usage as well as a few links in the text , however I would argue this is a underused technique. Use of these techniques and media added both to the brevity and scannability of the article.
Genre Conventions:
The conventions of the genre of explainer being conversational are also shown again in the use of the quite colloquial phrase “Get to know” within the title instantly being an inviting and conversational way of writing. The rest of the article does feature some conversational elements including the start of paragraph explaining where they got there name from by writing “get ready for this…” . However the article is much less talkative than the Britney spears one , this may be due to the fact that here though , much more concrete facts are being dealt with rather than in the Britney article where the writers opinions are clearly being made clear.
Efforts, to address the curational nature of explainers can be seen in the curation of social media links to relevant pages of the “chili peppers” and absolute radios relevant videos which matches the idea from Jeff Jarvis of “ Do what you do best and link to the rest.” (As cited by Bradshaw 2021).
Narrative Structure:
The structure of this article as with all explainers , flows very easily into conventional narrative structures. This one fits into Cortazzi’s narrative structure (Fulton ) with a sort of rambling intro, before orienting the reader occurs. In this case orienting comes from the context of how long they have been together linking from the re-joining of Frusciante which began the piece. We then get more context before eventually reaching a complication about the change of guitarists they have had , before the meaning of this eventually evaluating that they will have a new album coming out in 2022. This finally leads to the coda that all this info has led to Absolute Radio making a red hot chili peppers playlist.
Whilst I initially analysed this as a inverted pyramid structure, with an early mention of the most recent activity of “ fabled guitarist John Frusciante” re-joining group. This structure is not correct as the context does not return in a big way after the first complication and its subsequent reaction, with only a small context of a new tour and no other reaction to this. As a result whilst it is a little confused as a Cortazzi structure with elements of the inverted pyramid setup, it is overarchingly a Cortazzi structured narrative.
Constructing the audience
The audience of this piece comes largely from the absolute radio target audience consisting of ages 35 to 44 and 45–54 made of the ABC1 and C2 demographics (getmemedia.com , 2017). However within this demographic i would say the construction of the article focuses around people of these ages who may have heard of the Red Hot Chili Peppers but do not know alot about them. This is due to the questions being quite surface level like “How long have they been together” and “Red Hot Chili Peppers: Band Members” things that a dedicated fan would know and not necessarily be interested in reading. Saying this there are elements of debate at the end which could be said to appeal to more of there fanbase however largely this is for people who want all the fuss of the chili peppers explained to them.
3: Moonrise magic: why Friday’s lunar eclipse offers an unusual twilight show for most of Australia , Guardian Explainer.
The third article I decided to analyse was the Guardians Moonrise magic article which focused on the explaining why a particular lunar eclipse is worth seeing a made good use of many narrative techniques.
General Techniques:
As in the previous two examples there was prolific use of the BASIC web-writing ideas with widespread use of images and videos , linking as well as bullet points which were present in the first few lines with links embedded into them for interactivity. There was also a widespread use of mimesis in this article due to the potential of the the factual nature of the story in terms of showing a lot of the things they were describing through mixed medias whether that was images, videos or even to finish the article the interactive optical illusion graphic. Using this managed to make this short article quite readable whereas the pure text would have been unappetising as a piece without these images.
As in the Absolute Radio article, the images also act as bookmarkers almost to the end of a particular section before the next explainer sub-section question is raised as well as an image being at the very start of the article a convention seen in all articles I have looked at here for this genre.
Narrative Structure:
This article whilst being weak in the narrative sense in terms of characters, which are few, really only being the effaced narrator and the moon , it does still have a typical narrative structure. The structure that it exhibits is identical to the Red Hot Chili Peppers Article in that it is a Cortazzi (Fulton, 2005) based structure with a clear abstract , orientation , a complication of you needing a
“unobstructed view towards the eastern-north-eastern horizon”
as well as the evaluation and result. A coda is present in the last part when they mention hoping that the weather holds out to see it.
Genre Conventions:
As mentioned starting the article with an image just after the title is a common trait seen in all explainers analysed here. The use of language here is a lot more formal than previously seen in explainers and I would argue actually detracts from the piece compared to others as a result as it makes it more drier.
Positively there was a widespread use of infographics and diagrams within the article which fits the explainer genre very well and is common in this format although not previously seen in the other two articles. This explainer also is of the shorter format compared to the longform format seen in the Vox article previously . This leads me to conclude when I saw another example of the longform explainer on DJ Magazines website that there are two sub-genres of the format , short and longer form explainers which share a lot of common features however the longer form ones often are more journalistically written and have longer pieces of text not split up by images.
Audience Construction:
The audience for this piece is focused on Australian and New Zealand readers with obvious geographically localised information however saying this any westernised individual can read this as there is no specific Australian language indicating a more localised audience. The reason I say westernised is there is no mention of other countries in the southern hemisphere who may see this like Malaysia or the Philippines.
Considerations I am taking away for my work:
- Starting the article with an image seems to be a genre convention as does using images to bookend sections so this will be used however this does not mean images can go elsewhere which they do in the above articles in some places as long as relevant to a current point in the text.
- Use of infographics , whilst only used in the last example they are a really good way to keep the story engaging when you need to dispense some facts to the viewer.
- Conversational tone to the piece.
- Widespread use of basic with curational links.
- Use of questions or quotes as sub-headings within the explainer.
- Narrative Structures of Cortazzi or Inverted pyramid as your story is not a longform discussion piece like the Britney Spears explainer was you shall use the Cortazzi structure described by (Fulton 2005).
Bibliography
- Man, P. (2011) Narrative Structures in Data Visualizations to Improve Storytelling. Masters of Media. [Blog] 3rd May 2011. Available at: Narrative Structures in Data Visualizations to Improve Storytelling | Masters of Media (uva.nl) [ Accessed on 11th December 2021].
- Bradshaw, P. (2021) Curation : MED7334 Narrative. [Google Presentation] Birmingham City University. Unpublished.
- Fulton, H. et al. (2005) Narrative and media . Port Melbourne, Vic. ;: Cambridge University Press, pp.22–23.
- getmemedia.com (2017) Absolute Radio advertising opportunities. Available at : Absolute Radio advertising opportunities — Bauer Media (getmemedia.com) [ Accessed 7th December 2021].
