scholarly journals Making Sense of Complex Narration in Perfect Blue

Animation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
Antonio Loriguillo-López ◽  
José Antonio Palao-Errando ◽  
Javier Marzal-Felici
Keyword(s):  
Information Flow ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Cognitive Illusions

Although identified as a feature of the film by both critics and researchers, the narrative complexity of Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, Madhouse, 1997) has been ambiguously defined. In this article, the authors examine the complex narration in Kon’s first feature film, equivocal and obscure in its more confusing points, through a narratological analysis of the film’s most ambiguous scenes. Using cognitive film theory as introduced by David Bordwell and Edward Branigan, they link its approach in terms of the modulation of information flow throughout the film – high knowledgeability, high self-consciousness and (occasionally) low communicativeness – with the conventions of the slasher genre. Their analysis of the more perplexing scenes in Perfect Blue is reinforced by monitoring the veiled changes of focalization between the film’s three focalizers: Mima, Uchida (aka Me-Mania) and Rumi. In order to do this, they explore how the narration – in the tradition of contemporary puzzle films – makes use of judgements, preconceptions and cognitive illusions in the spectators’ activity to conceal Rumi’s involvement in the persecution of Mima and the murders committed. In the conclusion, they associate the film’s complex narration with its critical commentary on the representation of Japanese pop idols (and former idols) and the state of audiovisual entertainment in Japan.

The Hardest Part: Creating a Right of Secession

2020 ◽  
pp. 219-241
Author(s):  
Timothy William Waters
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Rule ◽  
The State ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Legal Right

This chapter explores strategies to achieve acceptance of a right to secede, whether as a legal rule or as a model for individual states. Secession is a hard sell, and the principal battleground is moral and political. A shift in attitudes must precede the legal project; only then will people see doctrinal arguments lining up and making sense. And, after all, the goal is not a new legal right for its own sake, but a change in how societies and states behave. The chapter then considers why a formal right of secession is implausible, and what that implies about the best strategies to adopt—the narrow but real possibilities that exist. The path is indirect: It relies on transnational diffusion of norms, and for this people can draw lessons from once-improbable projects that have become orthodoxies, such as decolonization and human rights; also, recent secession attempts suggest that constitutional projects could serve as models. The path leads through many small changes, rather than a single, quixotic swerve toward a new legal rule. But because the existing global norm limits the ability to create change within states, people cannot abandon the idea of a new rule: Advocates of secession need a point of triangulation outside the state to advance their cause, and that point will be found in international law.

scholarly journals The “Children of Crisis”: Making Sense of (Post)socialism and the End of Yugoslavia

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ljubica Spaskovska
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Special Section ◽  
The State ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Media ◽  
Conservative Values ◽  
Socialist Politics

This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak The article traces certain mnemonic patterns in the ways individuals who belonged to the late-socialist Yugoslav youth elite articulated their values in the wake of Yugoslavia’s demise and the ways they make sense of the Yugoslav socialist past and their generational role a quarter of a century later. It detects narratives of loss, betrayed hopes, and a general disillusionment with politics and the state of post-socialist democracy that appear to be particularly frequent in the testimonies of the media and cultural elites. They convey a sense of discontent with the state of post-Yugoslav democracy and with the politicians—some belonging to the same generation—who embraced conservative values and a semi-authoritarian political culture. The article argues that an emerging new authoritarianism and the very process of progressive disillusionment with post-socialist politics allowed for the emergence and articulation of such alternative, noninstitutionalized individual memories that, whilst not uncritical of the Yugoslav past, tend to highlight its positive aspects.

Informed Democracy

2014 ◽  
pp. 8-23
Author(s):  
Insa Haidn ◽  
Helen Partridge ◽  
Christine Yates
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Information Flow ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Personal Politics ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry

This chapter presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative study exploring people’s information experiences during the 2012 Queensland State election in Australia. Six residents of South East Queensland who were eligible to vote in the state election participated in a semi-structured interview. The interviews revealed five themes that depict participants’ information experience during the election: information sources, information flow, personal politics, party politics, and sense making. Together these themes represent what is experienced as information, how information is experienced, as well as contextual aspects that were unique to voting in an election. The study outlined here is one in an emerging area of enquiry that has explored information experience as a research object. This study has revealed that people’s information experiences are rich, complex, and dynamic, and that information experience as a construct of scholarly inquiry provides deep insights into the ways in which people relate to their information worlds. More studies exploring information experience within different contexts are needed to help develop our theoretical understanding of this important and emerging construct.

Challenges to Qualitative Researchers in Information Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 240-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Is Research ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
The Future

A conventional “trends” chapter on qualitative research in information systems (IS) would review the state of the art (the methods and findings) of such research, laud its achievements, criticize its shortcomings, and then specify what it should do in the future to add to its achievements and rectify its shortcomings. However, I will write this chapter unconventionally instead, so that the reader will be able to gain a sense of my own engagement with issues in qualitative IS research. Furthermore, although the editor of this volume originally commissioned me to write a chapter on trends, the chapter has evolved as a critical commentary on qualitative IS research. The chapter’s turn in this direction resulted from the editor’s guidance to me about how to account for the comments of the anonymous reviewers of the initial draft.

scholarly journals Changing research on research evaluation: A critical literature review to revisit the agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-288
Author(s):  
Duncan A Thomas ◽  
Maria Nedeva ◽  
Mayra M Tirado ◽  
Merle Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Research Evaluation ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Practical Interest ◽  
The State ◽  
Institutional Research ◽  
Institutional Performance ◽  
Research On Research ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Change Of Perspective

Abstract The current range and volume of research evaluation-related literature is extensive and incorporates scholarly and policy/practice-related perspectives. This reflects academic and practical interest over many decades and trails the changing funding and reputational modalities for universities, namely increased selectivity applied to institutional research funding streams and the perceived importance of university rankings and other reputational devices. To make sense of this highly diverse body of literature, we undertake a critical review of over 350 works constituting, in our view, the ‘state-of-the-art’ on institutional performance-based research evaluation arrangements (PREAs). We focus on PREAs because they are becoming the predominant means world-wide to allocate research funds and accrue reputation for universities. We highlight the themes addressed in the literature and offer critical commentary on the balance of scholarly and policy/practice-related orientations. We then reflect on five limitations to the state-of-the-art and propose a new agenda, and a change of perspective, to progress this area of research in future studies.

Embodied meaning construction

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Kappelhoff ◽  
Cornelia Müller
Keyword(s):  
Film Theory ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Expressive Movement ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Basic Tenet ◽  
Embodied Meaning ◽  
Sensory Qualities ◽  
The Spectator

In this article, we argue that multimodal metaphors are grounded in the dynamics of felt experiences. Felt experiences are inherently affective, with immediate sensory qualities and an affective stance. We suggest that as such, they ground the emergence and activation of metaphors. We illustrate this idea with analyzed data from a film and face-to-face conversation. Our consideration of expressive movement in speech, gestures, and feature film does not therefore target the analysis of the speech and gestures of actors. Rather we suggest an approach firmly rooted in film theory, and which considers films as composed of cinematic expressive movements. The basic tenet of our proposal is as follows: seeing cinematic expressive movements trigger the same kind of felt experience in the spectator as a bodily expressive movement that comes along with speech. Expressive movements are held to provide the experiential ‘embodied’ grounds for the construction of metaphors.

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