scholarly journals “The soundtrack of their lives”: The Music of Crno-bijeli svijet

Author(s):  
Ana Đorđević

Crno-bijeli svijet [Black-White World, HRT, 2015–] is an on-going Croatian television series set in the early 1980s depicting the then-current pop music scene in Zagreb. The storyline follows several characters whose lives are intertwined by complex family relations, while also following the beginnings of new wave/punk rock bands and artists, and their influence on the Yugoslav youth who almost religiously listened to their music, like some of the series’ characters do.The role of music in television series is a complicated question that caught the attention of film music scholars in recent years. The significance – and, at the same time, the complexity – that music produces or can produce, as the bearer of cultural, social and/or political meanings in television series brings its own set of difficulties in setting out possible frameworks of research. In the case of Crno-bijeli svijet that is even more challenging considering that it revolves around popular music that is actively involved in, not just the series soundtrack, but several aspects of different narrative elements.Jon Burlingame calls the music of American television “The soundtrack of our lives”, and I find this quote is appropriate for this occasion as well. The quote summarizes and expresses the creators’ personal note that is evident in the use of music in this television series and myriad ways music is connected to other narrative and extra-narrative elements, and in a way, grasps the complicity of the problem I will address. Article received: March 31, 2018; Article accepted: May 10, 2018; Published online: October 15, 2018; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Đorđević, Ana. “'The soundtrack of their lives': The Music of Crno-bijeli svijet." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 17 (2018): 25−36. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i17.267 

Author(s):  
Heidi Lexe

Artikelbeginn:[English title and abstract below] Zu den bitteren Erfahrungen einer Corona-Erkrankung kann der Verlust des Geschmackssinns gehören. Es hat sich jedoch gezeigt, dass Menschen auch aufgrund vorangegangener Geschmackserfahrungen schmecken können. Kann der Geschmack eines Gerichts im Gehirn erinnernd abgerufen werden, ist es also möglich zu schmecken, obwohl der Geschmackssinn (temporär) verloren gegangen ist? Ein solches Aufrufen sinnlicher Erfahrungen ist integrativer Bestandteil rezeptionsästhetischer Lektüreaspekte und kann die Bereiche aller Sinneskanäle umfassen: Wird eine innerdiegetische Saite angeschlagen, überträgt sich der Klang aufgrund von Erfahrungswerten in unsere Wahrnehmung. Open the Book, Strike Up the MusicForms and Functions of a Literary Soundtrack This article is based on the premise that literary texts exhibit a diversity of sounds that are not audible in the strict sense of the word. Instead, the literary sound experience is delegated to readers’ imaginations. It is only during the reading process that, depending on the readers’ experiences, sounds can be made ›audible.‹ Within the text, sounds are evoked by different literary devices. These include the use of literary soundtracks, which are generated when individual (pop) songs are quoted or alluded to in the text or the paratext. They also encompass references to band names, song titles or lyrics, or to sound storage media and their specific characteristics or to objects of everyday and popular culture (e.g. T-shirts). For the text analysis, a tool from the field of film music studies is employed: Georg Maas’s differentiation between a tectonic, a syntactic, a semantic and a mediating function of film music is used to discriminate between the diverse functions of pop music literary soundtracks. Thus, a theory that spans different media is deployed across another media boundary in order to illustrate the role of pop music in contemporary literary texts for young adults.


Geografie ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-194
Author(s):  
Tomáš Hendrych ◽  
Alois Hynek

Landscape acoustics is nothing new for zoologists - their research is well known. However, other landscape specialists, including geographers, prefer to visualize landscape both in material and spiritual concepts. At the same time, landscape is a source and a consumer of sound and environmentalists emphasize the role of noise in it from the point of environmental pollution. Landscape acoustics could be intended on diffraction, refraction, reflection, interference and absorption of sound in landscape produced by various agents, e.g. animals, humans, water, electricity etc. Landscape acts as modulator, music body in the style of hard/art/punk rock bands of geo/bio physical anthropogenous origin from a quiet landscape via natural beauty echo to silence in landscape. Maybe silence is the target of many urban residents searching it in rural landscape. The Czech debate on landscape character could include the issue of landscape acoustics. Cultural geographers are welcome.


Author(s):  
Marek A. Motyka ◽  
Ahmed Al-Imam

Drug use has been increasing worldwide over recent decades. Apart from the determinants of drug initiation established in numerous studies, the authors wish to draw attention to other equally important factors, which may contribute to augmenting this phenomenon. The article aims to draw attention to the content of mass culture, especially representations of drug use in mass media, which may influence the liberalization of attitudes towards drugs and their use. The role of mass culture and its impact on the audience is discussed. It presents an overview of drug representations in the content of mass culture, e.g., in film, music, literature, and the occurrence of drug references in everyday products, e.g., food, clothes, and cosmetics. Attention was drawn to liberal attitudes of celebrities and their admissions to drug use, particularly to the impact of the presented positions on the attitudes of the audience, especially young people for whom musicians, actors, and celebrities are regarded as authorities. Indications for further preventive actions were also presented. Attention was drawn to the need to take appropriate action due to the time of the COVID-19 pandemic when many people staying at home (due to lockdown or quarantine) have the possibility of much more frequent contact with mass culture content, which may distort the image of drugs.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Anell

AbstractIn 2007, a new wave of local reforms involving choice for the population and privatisation of providers was initiated in Swedish primary care. Important objectives behind reforms were to strengthen the role of primary care and to improve performance in terms of access and responsiveness. The purpose of this article was to compare the characteristics of the new models and to discuss changes in financial incentives for providers and challenges regarding governance from the part of county councils. A majority of the models being introduced across the 21 county councils can best be described as innovative combinations between a comprehensive responsibility for providers and significant degrees of freedom regarding choice for the population. Key financial characteristics of fixed payment and comprehensive financial responsibility for providers may create financial incentives to under-provide care. Informed choices by the population, in combination with reasonably low barriers for providers to enter the primary care market, should theoretically counterbalance such incentives. To facilitate such competition is indeed a challenge, not only because of difficulties in implementing informed choices but also because the new models favour large and/or horizontally integrated providers. To prevent monopolistic behaviour, county councils may have to accept more competition as well as more governance over clinical practice than initially intended.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (62) ◽  
pp. 353-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Terres-Trindade ◽  
Clarisse Pereira Mosmann

AbstractInternational studies have shown effects of family relations on Internet addiction in young people. This research aimed to outline a discriminant profile of young people classified as dependent and not dependent on the Internet regarding to socio-biodemographic variables to parenting practices, parent-child conflict and interparental conflict. The sample consisted of 200 students (152 girls and 48 boys), between 15 and 24 years of age, 85.5% reside in Rio Grande do Sul and 14.5% in other Brazilian states. Participants responded individually to the protocol available online. The results showed that interparental conflict, parent-child conflict and the educational practice of supervision of paternal behavior discriminate dependents on Internet. The educational practice of maternal emotional support was the only discriminating variable for non-dependents. These national findings corroborate the international context studies and reinforce the importance of including the family in promotion and prevention of mental health of young people.


Author(s):  
Robyn M Stuart ◽  
Romesh G Abeysuriya ◽  
Cliff C Kerr ◽  
Dina Mistry ◽  
Daniel J Klein ◽  
...  

Objectives: To evaluate the risk of a new wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a setting with ongoing low transmission, high mobility, and an effective test-and-trace system, under different assumptions about mask uptake. Design: We used a stochastic agent-based microsimulation model to create multiple simulations of possible epidemic trajectories that could eventuate over a five-week period following prolonged low levels of community transmission. Setting: We calibrated the model to the epidemiological and policy environment in New South Wales, Australia, at the end of August 2020. Participants: None Intervention: From September 1, 2020, we ran the stochastic model with the same initial conditions (i.e., those prevailing at August 31, 2020), and analyzed the outputs of the model to determine the probability of exceeding a given number of new diagnoses and active cases within five weeks, under three assumptions about future mask usage: a baseline scenario of 30% uptake, a scenario assuming no mask usage, and a scenario assuming mandatory mask usage with near-universal uptake (95%). Main outcome measure: Probability of exceeding a given number of new diagnoses and active cases within five weeks. Results: The policy environment at the end of August is sufficient to slow the rate of epidemic growth, but may not stop the epidemic from growing: we estimate a 20% chance that NSW will be diagnosing at least 50 new cases per day within five weeks from the date of this analysis. Mandatory mask usage would reduce this to 6-9%. Conclusions: Mandating the use of masks in community settings would significantly reduce the risk of epidemic resurgence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Nicolás Medina ◽  
Miklós Kiss

Abstract This article focuses on the musical dimension of experimentation in the creative space of science fiction film, concerning its uncanny, new and fantastic places, and otherworldly encounters within fictional, but possible worlds. The aim is to consider the function and potential of the audible – to examine how sound is used in the filmic exploration of the boundaries between the human and the alien (the unknown). More particularly, we are interested in the role that human voice-like and human vocal sounds can play in this divide, as we believe manipulations with such audible qualities contribute greatly to the emotional dimension of cinematic stories of otherworldly encounters. For that purpose, we concentrate on Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) and its soundtrack composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson, who resorts to different singing practices and vocal techniques to accompany a story charting the territories between the human and the alien.


Author(s):  
Christina Lane

The 1954 American television series Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954–1955) capitalised on the star power of its lead Ella Raines, business heft of CBS executive William Dozier, and cache of film producer Joan Harrison. Though a brainchild of Raines’, the series relied heavily on Harrison’s decades of nuts-and-bolts experience producing Hollywood films. It became a vehicle for both women to pool their creative talents, advance a growing medium, and comment on contemporary social issues. This contribution to the dossier considers the methodological challenges posed by analysing this instance of female collaboration in 1950s television production. It represents an effort to excavate undocumented production practices and women’s creativity, while decentring prevailing historical narratives surrounding the “great genius” male executive.


Author(s):  
Marta Dynel

AbstractThis article gives a comprehensive theoretical account of deception in multimodal film narrative in the light of the pragmatics of film discourse, the cognitive philosophy of film, multimodal analysis, studies of fictional narrative and – last but not least – the philosophy of lying and deception. Critically addressing the extant literature, a range or pertinent notions and issues are examined: multimodality, film narration and the status of the cinematic narrator, the pragmatics of film construction (notably, the characters’ communicative level and the one of the collective sender and the recipient), the fictional world and its truth, the recipient’s film engagement and make believing, as well as narrative unreliability. Previous accounts of deceptive films are revisited and three main types of film deception are proposed with regard to the two levels of communication on which it materialises, the characters’ level and the recipient’s level, as well as the intradiegetic and/or the extradiegetic narrator involved. This discussion is illustrated with multimodally transcribed examples of deception extracted from the American television seriesHouse.In the course of the analysis, attention is paid to how specific types of deception detailed in the philosophy of language (notably, lies, deceptive implicature, withholding information, covert ambiguity, and covert irrelevance) are deployed through multimodal means in the three types of film deception (extradiegetic deception, intradiegetic deception, and a combination of both when performed by both cinematic and intradiegetic narrators). Finally, inspired by the discussion of Hitchcock’s controversial lying flashback scene inStage Fright, as well as films relying on tacit intradiegetic, unreliable narrators (focalising characters) an attempt is made to answer the thorny question of when the extradiegetic (cinematic) narrator can perform lies (through mendacious multimodal assertions) addressed by the collective sender to the recipient, and not just only other forms of deception, as is commonly maintained.


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