Book, Image, and Social Presence

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-128
Author(s):  
Stuart Sillars
Keyword(s):  
Social Presence ◽  
Book Club ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
Political Stance

In the early 1920s, the literary editor Sidney Clark wrote about English classic texts as moral guides for new readers. In 1932, Q. D. Leavis bemoaned the growth of popular fiction as simple escape. More positive overall was the growth of books as constructions of word and image, not just through illustrations but in all aspects of design, layout and increasingly through pictorial dust jackets in books of all kinds. Design of covers and binding revealed much about contents, with the Left Book Club and its rival Right Book Club the most extreme, declaring their content and political stance. In new homes, books became a way of presenting the owners’ tastes to visitors; the design of Penguin Books in particular made purchasing easier and cheaper, and also offered books of many kinds, identifiable by colour-coded covers, to new readers.

‘It actually painted a picture of the village and the sea and the bottom of the sea’: Reading groups, cultural legitimacy, and description in narrative (with particular reference to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl)

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Allington
Keyword(s):  
Book Club ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Reading Groups ◽  
Cultural Legitimacy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Descriptive Writing

This article proposes a form of research that integrates reader study with textual analysis. Its purpose is to investigate the social production of literary value, potentially providing cultural sociology with a systematic means by which to study the formal features of texts in relation to their social significance: a means arguably required by (but not necessarily supplied in) the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of reading group (or ‘book club’) discussions reveals an association between descriptive writing, cultural legitimacy, and a focus on the form, rather than the content, of fictional texts. In order to understand this association, the analysis then turns to two paragraphs from John Steinbeck’s The Pearl (2000 [1946]), which had been read by most of the groups involved and which many group members had referred to as involving ‘description’. It is argued that a long-standing tradition of association between descriptive writing and visual art has served as a resource both for consumers and for producers in distinguishing literature from popular fiction.

Effects of Human vs. Computer-Controlled Characters and Social Identity Cues on Enjoyment

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Peña ◽  
Jannath Ghaznavi ◽  
Nicholas Brody ◽  
Rui Prada ◽  
Carlos Martinho ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
Virtual Character ◽  
Character Type ◽  
Computer Controlled ◽  
Media Enjoyment ◽  
Identification Processes

Abstract. This study explored how group identification, avatar similarity identification, and social presence mediated the effect of character type (avatars or agents) and social identity cues (presence or absence of avatars wearing participants’ school colors) on game enjoyment. Playing with teammate avatars increased enjoyment indirectly by enhancing group identification. In addition, the presence of social identity cues increased enjoyment indirectly by augmenting identification with one’s avatar. Unexpectedly, playing in multiplayer mode in the presence of social identity cues decreased enjoyment, whereas playing in multiplayer mode in the absence of social identity cues increased enjoyment. Social presence was not a reliable mediator. The findings supported media enjoyment and social identity theories, and highlighted how virtual character type and identification processes influence enjoyment.

Using a book club paradigm in the classroom

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth M. Schwartz ◽  
Holly Tatum
Keyword(s):  
Book Club

Evaluative social presence can improve vigilance performance, but vigilance is still hard work and is stressful.

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 616-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria L. Claypoole ◽  
Alexis R. Neigel ◽  
Grace E. Waldfogle ◽  
James L. Szalma
Keyword(s):  
Social Presence ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
Vigilance Performance

Manga Shakespeare and Cervantes: Trash or Reclamation?

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 155-167
Author(s):  
Penny Brown
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Authority ◽  
Multimodal Texts ◽  
Page Layout ◽  
Don Quijote ◽  
Size And Shape ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
La Mancha ◽  
Visual Skills

This paper considers the merit of manga versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Cervantes' Don Quijote de la Mancha which employ the impressionistic techniques of the Japanese comic format to create new, dynamic texts. Such multimodal texts demand different verbal and visual skills to decode the synergy between word and image and elements like the page layout, the size and shape of images and speech balloons and the style of lettering. Far from debasing the cultural authority of the originals by blurring the boundaries between high and popular culture, these versions can be seen as an act of salvage of the original texts from the perceived difficulties of challenging language and content, reinvigorating them with a vibrant immediacy. By making demands on the imagination and intellect in exciting ways, they may also salvage the act of reading itself by encouraging a young or reluctant readership, as well as the already enthusiastic, to explore new ways of engaging with a text.

Women at Work: Innkeeping in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland 1790–1840

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Rural Women ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Travel Patterns ◽  
Economic Diversity

Between 1790 and 1840 Scotland's Highlands and Islands saw a rise in the number of travellers due to transportation changes, war on the Continent, and popular fiction. Consequently, the number of inns increased in response to this shift in local travel patterns and influx of visitors. By examining where the growth in inns happened, who managed them, and what services were offered, this article argues that the Highlands and Islands economy was both complex and commercial. It establishes that rural women were innkeepers of multifaceted hospitality operations responding to market demands and enabling economic diversity in their communities, the result of which was the hospitality infrastructure for tourism.

A, B and (not) Seeing: Animals and Other Ironies in Alphabet Books

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-237
Author(s):  
Jennifer Ford
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Early Literacy ◽  
Word Play ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
Alphabet Books ◽  
Child Readers

For generations, alphabet books have been widely used by parents, librarians and teachers as early literacy tools for young children. Through images, word play and the interactions between word and image, alphabet books have the effect of introducing preliterate young children to the names, images, symbols and concepts regarding animals, what Matthew Calarco has called ‘symbolic mechanisms’ of animals—names, images, concepts, cultural associations of animals—yet they can also be deconstructive of those same mechanisms. Derrida's insights into the contradictory logic of the supplement and parergon as well as the ‘destabilising synergies of word and image’ offer deconstructive readings of alphabet books for adult and child readers. Recognising what Derrida calls the ‘childlike’ in texts such as alphabet books creates unique polymorphous spaces for the further interrogation of notions of animals.

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