Polymath

One Idea about Narrative – [MLP]

There was an interesting editorial by Norman Mailer in the newspaper last week: PARADE Magazine | One Idea (Norman Mailer)--January 23, 2005. While he spends a little too much time praising the current educational reform effort, his "one idea" is the need to eliminate commercial interruptions on television, because they interrupt the narrative of the programs, and attention to narrative is an important part of reading literacy.

"In the early years of television, it was even hoped that the attention children gave to TV would improve their interest in reading. Indeed, it might have if TV, left to itself, consisted of uninterrupted narratives. That, of course, was soon not the case. There were constant interruptions to programs—the commercials." [emphasis mine]

I think this is an interesting argument with respect to interactive narrative and computer games as well. Computer games remain relatively free of commercial interruptions, so if there is something nice to be said about the narrative expressiveness of the form, it follows that computer games should encourage the type of concentration which will lead to improved literacy. Unfortunately I don't think there is much to be said for game narrative, and I also think that the economic disparity between those families who can afford computer game systems and those who cannot gives all the benefits to the former. Note that the so-called premium channels, where one can watch uninterrupted movies, require monthly subscription fees on the order of $600-1200 a year.