Media language: narratology (Tzvetan Todorov) and structuralism (Claude Levi-Strauss). Equilibrium, disruption and new equilibrium, character functions, and binary oppositions, and how narrative structure carries ideology.

What this dot point is asking

Within media language, Eduqas names two theorists of narrative structure: Tzvetan Todorov (narratology) and Claude Levi-Strauss (structuralism). You need to read a product not just for its individual signs but for the shape of its story, and to explain how that shape makes meaning and carries ideology. Propp's character functions are useful supporting knowledge, though Eduqas names Todorov and Levi-Strauss as the set theorists.

The answer

Todorov: equilibrium, disruption, new equilibrium

The model is powerful because it forces you to name the moments that trigger each stage and to notice that the ending changes the starting state. The new equilibrium is rarely identical to the old one; what has shifted is often where the meaning lies.

Propp: character functions (supporting knowledge)

Vladimir Propp found that stories reuse a small set of character functions: the hero (who pursues a goal), the villain (who opposes it), the donor (who gives the hero something needed), the helper, the princess (or prize) and others. A single character can fill more than one function. Mapping functions onto a product shows how its structure is built, and it pairs naturally with Todorov, since the disruption is usually the villain's work.

Levi-Strauss: binary oppositions

The analytical move is to identify the oppositions a product is built on and then ask which side wins. A crime drama that always resolves in favour of the law privileges order; a romance that rewards individual desire over family duty privileges the individual. The resolution naturalises a value.

Why structure carries ideology

Because audiences experience structure as satisfying rather than as an argument, the values a narrative rewards feel like common sense rather than a position. This links narrative directly to Barthes' myth: a repeated resolution (the hero always wins, order is always restored) hardens into a taken-for-granted view of how the world works.

Examples in context

A strong narrative answer never just retells the plot. It maps a named model onto specific moments, identifies the oppositions, and explains what the resolution means.

Try this

Q1. Name Todorov's three stages of narrative and define each. [5 marks]

• What the marker wants. Equilibrium (a settled state), disruption (an event that breaks it) and new equilibrium (order restored but changed) (AO1), ideally with a brief example.

Q2. Analyse how binary oppositions create meaning in one set product you have studied. [10 marks]

• Cue. Close analysis (AO2): name the oppositions, show which side the narrative privileges, and explain what that implies about the product's ideology.