Transcript 11th International ISKO Conference Paradigms and

11th International ISKO Conference
Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
Knowledge organization of fiction and
narrative documents: a challenge in the
age of the multimedia revolution
Francisco-Javier García-Marco (Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain)
João Batista Ernesto de Moraes (São Paulo State University, Marília, São Paulo, Brazil))
Luis-Fernando García-Marco (Gobierno de Aragón, Zaragoza , Spain)
José Augusto Chaves Guimarães (São Paulo State University, Marília, São Paulo, Brazil)
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
CONTENT
 Aims, methodology, scope
Context: the growing importance of narrative
Fiction and non fictional narratives
The specificity of fictions documents:
emotion as information
Another level of complexity:
intertextuality and reception aesthetics
The theory of literature and subject indexing
A model for KO of narrative documents
The problem of a canonical order
Conclusions, recommendations and future research
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
AIMS AND METHODOLOGY
 To integrate the models of content analysis and knowledge
organization developed in two fields:
(a)Library and Information Science: analytic-synthetic tradition
(b)Literature Theory: Narratology and Thematology
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
Elements for a knowledge
organization model
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
DEFINITION OF NARRATION
 We
understand narration as a communicative
strategy, deeply ingrained in the functioning of
human mind and social communication, by which a
sender offers—and a receiver gets—a message
conveyed in a story, that is, an account of a course
of events happening to a being or group of beings
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
1. CONTEXT: THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVE IN
CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Knowledge organization researchers — and in general Information
Science researchers — have been more concerned about scientific
documents

Narrative based communications are gaining considerable room in
disciplines like education, psychology and even in fields like business and
management in general (story-telling), pop culture and cultural industries
(reusing cultural artifacts and themes)

Our culture is reinvigorating stories as a tool of communication

Multimedia is nearer narration
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
THE POWER OF STORIES

are easy to remember,

produce a better “closing” or Gestalt of understanding,

and have a direct access to other non-logical intelligences, like
emotional or aesthetical intelligence,
 Which are being accepted—with all their virtues and faults—as a key part of
human learning, or, at least by those more critical of them, as unavoidable ones
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
2. FICTION AND NON FICTIONAL NARRATIVES

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

A very important part of narrative information is fiction
If a researcher considers information to be only actual facts, fiction will not
be considered information, but …
Fiction conveys cultural and—at the end—very pragmatic information
Fiction is an artistic manifestation, present in all civilizations
There are many narrative documents that are not fiction, viceversa
There is a blurring frontier between fiction and non-fiction that is evident,
and affects both sides of the line (e. g., journalism)
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
3: THE SPECIFICITY OF FICTION DOCUMENTS

In fictional narrative documents, sense is considered implicit or even
voluntarily conveyed or blurred, so analysis is very important

It is also very interesting to note that “fictionality” is a property that accepts
grades, in the sense of Aristotle’s verisimilitude

Sometimes, fictional documents have been considered divided in two
groups:
 the first conveying information and …
 the second one, whose sole purpose would be to amuse or generate emotions
(Lancaster, 2003, p. 200)
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
3: EMOTIONS ARE INFORMATION

But this division should not be used to demote the importance of the
second group of texts,

for emotions are informational processes,
 very important for example in creating public opinions and ideological
positions,

and amusement is one of the biggest industries of our time,
 which, in addition, serves also the development of group and public opinion.
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
3: The specificity of fiction documents


In any case (García, 2006),
With the multimedia revolution, a growing percentage of content is leaving
the relatively unambiguous path of scientific and journalistic genres and
approaching the semantic jungles of creative literature. This kind of
material requires the complex kind of content analysis that is characteristic
of artistic disciplines, that can be summarized in the simplified model that
was proposed by the Art historian Panofsky (1955) —also applicable
analogically to the analysis of fiction—: description of common subjects;
identification of the specific names and exemplars of these common
subjects; and interpretation of the abstract subjects that are being
represented through the former.
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
4: Another level of complexity: intertextuality and reception aesthetics

Narrative documents sense is always a result of the interaction among
creators, publishers and readers (reception aesthetics)

So indexing must be open to incorporate permanently new uses and users,
with their specific thematic representations at that special moment

If any narrative text survives the occasional market, it becomes literature,
and gets part of the literary tradition, and so it becomes an argument of
authority
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
5: The theory of literature and subject indexing

A very interesting aspect for knowledge organization is the existence of
thematic “universals”, which are truly cross-cultural topics that exist in
different spaces and times of history

Formalists (Tomachevski, 1982) detect a more analytic level of thematic
analysis

Topics are anyway expressed through specific and changing conceptual
and aesthetical structures, called motives
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
5: The theory of literature and subject indexing

In Narratology, the subject becomes very connected with the way in which
it is developed throughout narrative techniques to produce a story
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There are many classifications of this kind of structures
 According Ronald Tobias (1989, 1993), there are twenty master plots that are
subjacent to any work of fiction: quest, adventure, pursuit, rescue, escape, revenge,
riddle, rivalry, underdog, temptation, metamorphosis, transformation, maturation, love,
forbidden love, sacrifice, discovery, wretched excess, ascension, and descension
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
Models of narrative and fiction KO

Genre

Author

Literature generations

Movements
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
6: A MODEL FOR KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION OF NARRATIVE
DOCUMENTS
Personality
Literature world
Universals
Connoted world
Energy
Matter
Space
Time
The relation among authors and works, literature movements, genres,
styles, narrative structures, etc.
Human relations, personality development…
When using a story as a mirror of a subjacent one
Motives world
The creative expression of the denoted world
Denoted world
Entities, objects, persons, etc. (common/ identified)
Potential uses
Different uses in education, research, creation, etc., both intended by the
authors or not.
Different communication channels
Media
Table I. Levels of facet analysis
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
Some keys

The analysis of uses of fiction is a must
 educational, recreational, cultural, academic, scientific and business oriented

Subgenres can be effectively connected with the specific needs of the general
public
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There are facets in genres: satirical, historical, etc. may permeate other genres
classification
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Universals codify the main approaches that users take toward narration
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Connoted world is key for academics and others interested in interpretations
(authors)
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Motives are key for cultural industries (producing plots)
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
7: THE PROBLEM OF A CANONICAL ORDER

Any knowledge organization set of principles is of little interest if it is unable to
produce some kind of canonical order of the world of subjects in a systematic
arrangement, but…

Different schemas should be developed for each kind of users, as flexible faceted
systems usually ensure

For general use, a schema that prioritizes the hierarchy genre-subgenre-basic
plots, with auxiliary facets for places, personages, ages and dates, literary
movements, and narrative methodologies should work

Information about the complexity of the narration, the level of fictionality and
potential audiences should be available
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
8: CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Addressing narrative knowledge organization on the era of Internet means
imagining models for integrating the very different uses that a narration can have

Though this information is increasingly important and widespread, many times
classification systems lack the needed granularity to ensure proper retrieval (v. g.
Moraes and Guimarães, 2007)
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Such a model would be especially useful for the design of systems capable of
facilitating the interchange of information among systems that have been designed
for a specific purpose (functioning as “spines”)

There is not such a thing as a single classificatory approach to fiction
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A working canonical order is needed as a point of encounter among the different
information needs that are expressed in subjects

An interesting approach in the age of the semantic web would be to connect such
alternative thematic views around a canonical one as interrelated vocabularies, in
the way that the new standards, as BS 8723, make possible
11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010

Much work must be done in clarifying each of the big levels of analysis that have
been proposed in this paper

Studying users and uses is a key aspect
 One of our next steps will be a pilot study with teenagers and their teachers in secondary
educations centres in Brazil and Spain

Finally, there is a need of continuing research in how content analysis —the
previous phase to actual classification and indexing— is done
 The set of procedures involved in identifying, extracting and selecting contents of documents
(1) requires further research. In spite of a long tradition in cataloguing documents in libraries, it
is not totally clear how the process of determining subject effectively occurs (Sauperl, 2002, p.
1), what leads to the need of investigating its methodological dimension.
References
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11th International ISKO Conference: Paradigms and conceptual systems in KO
Rome 23-26 February 2010
GRAZIE!
THANK YOU!
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