Moral and Cognitive Dissonance in Cinema

Author(s):  
Wyatt Moss-Wellington

Cognitive dissonance provides a model for understanding how we experience film texts as profound. This chapter looks at the ways in which filmmakers might motivate or exploit the pleasure of resolving familiar narrative dissonance to inspire emotions associated with profundity, sublimity, or transcendence. David Lynch scholarship is presented as a primary case study in the conflation of cognitive dissonance and transcendence; however, it is contended that moral obligations to rape and trauma victims are sublimated in the process. Alternative moral dissonances across a range of cinematic modes are subsequently addressed. Comparative analysis of vigilantism in American revenge and “social cleansing” films, Ken Loach’s social realism, and John Sayles’s Lone Star (1996) permits an exploration of variability in filmic dissonance and narrative comprehension, as well as alternative approaches to filmmaking ethics and responsibility. The chapter concludes with suggestions for an applied ethics extended from theories of cognitive dissonance.

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (8) ◽  
pp. 922-939
Author(s):  
N.V. Malinovskaya ◽  
M.D. Malinovskii

Subject. This article deals with the issues relating to improving integrated reporting in terms of dovetailing strategic objectives with capital changes. Objectives. The article aims to develop a system of indicators for disclosure of capital types in integrated reporting of electricity generating companies, as well as recommendations aimed at implementing the fundamental concepts and guiding principles of integrated reporting. Methods. For the study, we used the methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison, generalization, and abstraction. As a case study, we conduct a comparative analysis of the disclosure of six types of capital by the largest electricity generating companies, namely PAO Inter RAO, AO Rosenergoatom and PAO RusHydro. Results. The article formulates proposals for disclosure of capital information to address such a lack of accountability as a contradiction to the principle of coherence. It proposes a system of indicators (core and additional) for disclosure of six types of capital by electricity generating companies. Conclusions. A significant reporting problem is the lack of correlation between key strategic objectives and capital changes. The formulated recommendations for disclosure of capital information can help solve this problem, and increase the attractiveness of the integrated report for capital providers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 2448-2471
Author(s):  
S.V. Anureev

Subject. This article examines the functions and management structures of central financial bodies and related parliamentary and governmental structures in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, France and Italy. Objectives. The article aims to identify non-standard functions and structures that go beyond the classical responsibility of finance ministries as a central part of the budget process arising from current economic challenges. Methods. For the study, I used a comparative analysis. Results. The article describes the important new functions of financial authorities and treasuries of Western governments aimed at economic growth and economic recovery. Conclusions. The organizational and management structures and functions of the ministries of finance go far beyond the budget process, overlap with and dominate the functions of central banks and ministries of economic development.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Comeau

A study of seasonal activity cycles in a pre-urban society, examined through the lens of an early medieval Welsh case study. It examines how these cycles shaped patterns of power and habitual activity, defining spaces and structuring lives. Its multidisciplinary, comparative analysis identifies focal zones and challenges commonly applied interpretations.


Author(s):  
Kathryn M. de Luna

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how historians study language movement and change through comparative historical linguistics. The first case study stands as a short chapter in the larger history of the expansion of Bantu languages across eastern, central, and southern Africa. It focuses on the expansion of proto-Kafue, ca. 950–1250, from a linguistic homeland in the middle Kafue River region to lands beyond the Lukanga swamps to the north and the Zambezi River to the south. This expansion was made possible by a dramatic reconfiguration of ties of kinship. The second case study explores linguistic evidence for ridicule along the Lozi-Botatwe frontier in the mid- to late 19th century. Significantly, the units and scales of language movement and change in precolonial periods rendered visible through comparative historical linguistics bring to our attention alternative approaches to language change and movement in contemporary Africa.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 679
Author(s):  
Avi Bar-Massada

The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) is where human settlements border or intermingle with undeveloped land, often with multiple detrimental consequences. Therefore, mapping the WUI is required in order to identify areas-at-risk. There are two main WUI mapping methods, the point-based approach and the zonal approach. Both differ in data requirements and may produce considerably different maps, yet they were never compared before. My objective was to systematically compare the point-based and the zonal-based WUI maps of California, and to test the efficacy of a new database of building locations in the context of WUI mapping. I assessed the spatial accuracy of the building database, and then compared the spatial patterns of WUI maps by estimating the effect of multiple ancillary variables on the amount of agreement between maps. I found that the building database is highly accurate and is suitable for WUI mapping. The point-based approach estimated a consistently larger WUI area across California compared to the zonal approach. The spatial correspondence between maps was low-to-moderate, and was significantly affected by building numbers and by their spatial arrangement. The discrepancy between WUI maps suggests that they are not directly comparable within and across landscapes, and that each WUI map should serve a distinct practical purpose.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001458582098650
Author(s):  
Gloria De Vincenti ◽  
Angela Giovanangeli

Researchers examining nationalistic conceptions of language learning argue that nationalist essentialism often shapes the way languages are taught by educators and understood by learners. While numerous studies focus on how frameworks informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and intercultural education offer alternative approaches to national stereotyping, these studies tend to focus on theoretical approaches, teacher perspectives or innovative teaching and learning resources. The literature to date, however, does not provide case studies on student responses to activities designed by the teacher to open up the classroom with opportunities that move beyond essentialist representations. This article responds to the need for such scholarship and presents a case study involving a focus group with tertiary students in an Italian language and culture subject. It reveals some of the ways in which students enacted and reflected upon alternatives to nationalist essentialising as a result of language learning activities that had been informed by the discursive processes of CDA. The findings suggest that students demonstrated skills and attitudes such as curiosity, subjectivities and connections with broader social contexts. Some of the data also indicates student engagement in critical inquiry and their potential for social agency.


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