Showing papers on "Audience response published in 1999"

Evaluating Visitors' Reactions to Interpretation in Australian National Parks.

Abstract: Interpretive services are accepted elements of recreational experiences in natural areas. But what do we really know about the effectiveness of interpretation? By evaluating their services through ...

Studying emotional expression in music performance.

Abstract: Musicians were asked to perform short monophonic pieces of music so as to express different emotions. Listeners were usually able to recognize the intended emotions. Analysis of the performances indicated that all performance variables—tempo, timing, dyna

Contexts of the Aesthetic in Walter Benjamin

Abstract: How to talk about the aesthetic today?' In many circles the term meets with either suspicion or lack of interest. Discussions of the aesthetic are viewed as a diversion from cultural-political considerations in favor of merely formalist or antiquarian preoccupations. Aesthetics has been displaced on all sides-by cultural and media studies, by sociology of the arts, by psychology and biography of artists, by audience response, by various "anti-aesthetics" (including the postmodern). And the sponsorship which conceptual thought had provided for aesthetics at least up to Hegel is now seen as one of its principal liabilities. One difficulty, of course, is the diversity of meanings attached to the term. The modern origin of the problematic lies in the midand later eighteenth century, the period from Baumgarten to Hegel, a moment when the "aesthetic" was integrated within a comprehensive philosophical system, and in fact, when it assumed a key function therein. In the wake of the English Empiricists and of the French philosophes, the turn to aesthetics in German Romantic and Idealist thought may be seen as an effort to rehabilitate a sense of wonder, of divinity in nature, in a time of skepticism and disbelief. The effort of philosophy in this period was directed to awakening the "moribund language of nature" (Hamann) and giving it a place of honor in the system of philosophy.2 It is in this sense that aesthetic thought in this period-and preeminently Kant's Critique ofJudgment-came to view art and nature in strict analogy. The opening pages of Derrida's "Parergon" very properly put us on

Disney's "Pocahontas": Conversations with Native American and Euro-American Girls.

Abstract: This study analyzed girls' reactions to Disney's animated feature film "Pocahontas" in light of conclusions drawn from a previous critical textual analysis of the movie. The research addressed three questions: (1) how do Disney's claims to creation of positive prosocial representations of women and Native Americans in the movie "Pocahontas" hold up or collapse when viewed from a critical perspective which takes gender and class into account? (2) how do girls of different ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds relate to the romanticized story Disney has chosen to tell? and (3) how do the girls' responses to the movie compare between groups and with those of the researcher? Participants, ages 9 to 13, were middle-class Euro-American girls from a midwestern university town, urban working-class Native American girls from a large midwestern city, and girls of working-class families from a rural reservation in the southwest with one Native American parent and one Euro-American parent. Results from the focus groups with participants indicated that although there were points of agreement, in general, the girls' responses and attitudes toward the movie varied widely both between the groups and with respect to the researcher's conclusions about the movie. While the Euro-American girls produced a reading that could be labeled as "negotiated" in some respects, they appeared to accept the colonialist lessons learned about U.S. history and to view the movie as somewhat comical. For the urban Native American girls, "Pocahontas" was an important movie to which they related strongly. The Native American girls from the rural reservation were not as enthusiastic about the movie, perhaps because the culture of their daily lives strengthens their personal and cultural identities in such a way as to make media representations of Native Americans less significant for them. (This report includes background information concerning the story of the historical figure Pocahontas and the Disney movie based on her, followed by a textual analysis of the movie. Contains 19 references.) (EV) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) *-his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have heen made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position. or policy. Disney's Pocahontas: Conversations with Native American and Euro-American Girls

Yeah, and I'm Scared, Too

Abstract: (This is not what I would have presented at Chris Connery's "Left Conservatism" workshop. And the fact that I am calmer now doesn't necessarily mean that this is more interesting to read.) I'm writing in the wake of the workshop, the audience response, the articles and letters that ran in the Nation, the postings on various Internet list serves, and the conversations I've both taken part in and only heard about. I hear provocations, I hear what I consider to be indecorous arguments, and I hear, sometimes even in my sleep, my own responses-often subsumed in the responses of others.

Young Children's Comprehension of Television: The Role of Visual Information and Intonation.

Abstract: Several current television series for preschool children convey stories, not through meaningful dialogue, but through visual information and intonational cues embedded within nonsensical dialogue. This study examined young children's ability to construct meaning from such materials. Participating were 135 preschoolers, 3 to 5 years old. Subjects viewed two 5-minute television segments about a family of chickens; approximately one-half of the sample viewed the segments with all dialogue spoken in nonsensical "chicken-talk," and one-half viewed it with key English words and phrases inserted among the "chicken-talk" dialogue. In addition, one segment was expected to be easier to understand because the central educational message (concerning cooperation) was primarily visual, while the other (telling the truth) was primarily verbal. After viewing each segment, the children were interviewed to assess their comprehension of the overall storyline, as well as the central messages embedded within the segment. The findings indicated that comprehension was significantly stronger among the older children and (across the age range) for the more visual story about cooperation. However, contrary to expectations from past literature, comprehension was not significantly enhanced by the inclusion of English words and phrases. Thus, it appears that preschool children can use visual information and intonational cues to construct meaning from televised narratives. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/KB) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) )(I-his document has been reproduced as eceived from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Young children's comprehension of television: The role of visual information and intonation Shalom M. Fisch, Susan K. McCann Brown, and David I. Cohen Children's Television Workshop