The pandemic as a narrative resource: content and discourse analysis of two audiovisuals products

Abstract

This text aims to show how the COVID-19 pandemic created new narratives that reflect everyday issues involving the world in one way or another. Furthermore, it shows how different cinematographic resources and emerging narratives allow for the telling of real and emotional stories, with a sarcastic and ironic edge, which help re-evaluate human relationships. The theoretical framework of this article focuses on cinematic narratives, genres, and cinema during the pandemic, and the advent of streaming platforms. This study is carried out through a qualitative methodology based on content analysis of the film Together and the BBC television series Staged. The study found that these two audiovisual products reliably portray what happened during the era of pandemic-driven stay-at-home orders. It also found Zoom to be an innovative resource for narrating these series. This platform became popular for working from home and, in this case, the program uses it intelligently. Finally, by way of conclusion, this article suggests that cinematographic resources, realistic scripts, and the working of narratives give the entertainment industry, particularly cinema and television, opportunities to create new content starting from historical moments.