THE THEORY
Walter Fisher was the founder of the narrative paradigm. (1984) He stated that through the narrative paradigm, men would have an alternative approach to understand how human beings acted. In the narrative worldview, humans were considered as “storytellers” and human communications were regarded as “stories”. According to Fisher, stories that were made of good reasons were the “communication expression of social reality” (1984). Furthermore, Fisher explained that men decoded the truthfulness of a story or human discourse based on its narrative probability and narrative fidelity.
Narrative coherence gauged the story structure whether it went well together or not. Moreover, individuals evaluated the coherence of a story based on what he thought the structure of the story should be. Its plotline was consistent, the characters’ role and action coincided, indispensable details were not left out, and no unrealistic events or unexplained surprises were expressed (Griffin, 2011). On the other hand, individuals looked into a story’s narrative fidelity through the soundness and truthfulness of a story. People determined the values rooted in the story and evaluated whether the morals were apt to the story or not. They also compared the values with their own and discerned the impact it had on their selves and on others. Furthermore, the audience also studied if the values embedded in the story were transcendent. (Fisher, 1985)
THE CASE
For this study, the researcher used content (textual) analysis of a film text called, Grease. Using Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm, the researcher evaluated the movie based on its narrative coherence and fidelity. To further validate the coherence of the movie, the researcher looked into the consistency of the plot, the characters and their behavior, the completeness of details and the flow of events. The researchers also drew out the values that were