IMPARTER, Phase 1 of an intervention to improve patients’ understanding of gene expression profiling tests in breast cancer

Purpose To compare participants’ knowledge about gene expression profiling (GEP) tests and recurrence risks after reading an information leaflet with that following viewing of an information film. Methods Using a randomised cross-over design, at time-point one (T1), women aged 45–75 years without breast cancer either read leaflets or watched information films about Oncotype DX or Prosigna tests. Participants answered nine questions assessing knowledge (maximum score 18). Next-day information in the opposite modality was provided and knowledge re-assessed. Additional questions probed which format was easiest to understand, participants’ preferences for film or leaflet and their reasons for these. Results 120 women participated (60 received OncotypeDX films and leaflets; 60 received the Prosigna versions). T1 mean knowledge scores were higher following film viewing (13.37) compared with that after reading leaflets (9.25) (mean difference 4.1; p < 0.0001; 95% CI 3.2, 5.0). When participants read leaflets first and subsequently viewed films, all increased their scores (mean + 6.08, from T1 of 9.25, p < 0.0001; 95% CI 5.44, 6.72). When films were viewed first, followed by leaflets, (36/60, 60%), participants’ scores declined (mean-1.55 from T1 of 13.37, p < 0.001; 95% CI -2.32, -0.78). A majority of participants expressed preferences for the films (88/120, 73.3%) irrespective as to whether they described OncotypeDX or Prosigna. Reasons included the clarity, ease of understanding, visual material and reassuring voice-over. Conclusion Discussions between oncologists and patients about recurrence risk results can be challenging. Information leaflets may aid understanding but often employ complex language. Information films significantly improved knowledge and were preferred by participants.

Television Sharknados and Twitter Storms: Cult Film Fan Practices in the Age of Social Media Branding

<p>This thesis examines the Syfy channel’s broadcast of the television movie Sharknado and the large number of tweets that were sent about it. Sharknado’s audience engaged in cult film viewing practices that can be understood using paracinema theory. Paracinema engagement with cult films has traditionally taken place in midnight screenings in independent movie theatres and private homes. Syfy’s audience was able to engage in paracinematic activity that included making jokes about Sharknado’s low quality of production and interacting with others who were doing the same through the affordances of Twitter. In an age where branding has become increasingly important, Syfy clearly benefited from all the fan activity around its programming. Critical branding theory argues that the value generated by a business’s brand comes from the labour of consumers. Brand management is mostly about encouraging and managing consumer labour. The online shift of fan practices has created new opportunities for brand managers to subsume the activities of consumers. Cult film audience practices often have an emphasis on creatively and collectively engaging in rituals and activities around a text. These are the precise qualities that brands require from their consumers. Sharknado was produced and marketed by Syfy to invoke the cult film subculture as part of Syfy’s branding strategy. This strategy can be understood using the theory of biopolitical marketing. Biopolitical marketing creates brands by encouraging and managing consumer activity on social media. Instead of simply promoting itself, a brand becomes an online platform through which consumers can engage. An active consumer base raises a brand’s profile and puts forward the image of happy, loyal customers. An equally important advantage of biopolitical marketing is that it can mask the marketing aspect of branding. Consumers who are cynical towards marketers may be less defensive towards a group of fellow consumers enjoying a product online. Developing a consumer community around a business where every consumer interaction enhances the brand and there is no semblance of marketer involvement is the end goal of biopolitical marketing. The subculture around cult films not only has brand-friendly practices, but is also positioned as being rebellious, a quality that can be particularly valuable in trying to mask the presence of marketing.</p>

Television Sharknados and Twitter Storms: Cult Film Fan Practices in the Age of Social Media Branding

<p>This thesis examines the Syfy channel’s broadcast of the television movie Sharknado and the large number of tweets that were sent about it. Sharknado’s audience engaged in cult film viewing practices that can be understood using paracinema theory. Paracinema engagement with cult films has traditionally taken place in midnight screenings in independent movie theatres and private homes. Syfy’s audience was able to engage in paracinematic activity that included making jokes about Sharknado’s low quality of production and interacting with others who were doing the same through the affordances of Twitter. In an age where branding has become increasingly important, Syfy clearly benefited from all the fan activity around its programming. Critical branding theory argues that the value generated by a business’s brand comes from the labour of consumers. Brand management is mostly about encouraging and managing consumer labour. The online shift of fan practices has created new opportunities for brand managers to subsume the activities of consumers. Cult film audience practices often have an emphasis on creatively and collectively engaging in rituals and activities around a text. These are the precise qualities that brands require from their consumers. Sharknado was produced and marketed by Syfy to invoke the cult film subculture as part of Syfy’s branding strategy. This strategy can be understood using the theory of biopolitical marketing. Biopolitical marketing creates brands by encouraging and managing consumer activity on social media. Instead of simply promoting itself, a brand becomes an online platform through which consumers can engage. An active consumer base raises a brand’s profile and puts forward the image of happy, loyal customers. An equally important advantage of biopolitical marketing is that it can mask the marketing aspect of branding. Consumers who are cynical towards marketers may be less defensive towards a group of fellow consumers enjoying a product online. Developing a consumer community around a business where every consumer interaction enhances the brand and there is no semblance of marketer involvement is the end goal of biopolitical marketing. The subculture around cult films not only has brand-friendly practices, but is also positioned as being rebellious, a quality that can be particularly valuable in trying to mask the presence of marketing.</p>

Film distribution by video streaming platforms across Southeast Asia during COVID-19

The pandemic of COVID-19, which forced cinema theaters to close and left exhibitors without revenue over a long period, may have dramatically changed the film business and its future. This paper seeks to examine the changing dynamic of film distribution through video streaming in the Southeast Asia region as a result of the impact of the pandemic. Some films may be chosen for video streaming media platforms as their alternative option for release into theatrical distribution. This pandemic also has changed film-viewing habits and behaviors among audiences. Several news reports have substantiated that Southeast Asian viewers are streaming more online video content due to COVID-19. As a result of the pandemic it appears that there is an accelerated shift to streaming media platforms across Southeast Asia countries. Local streaming platforms feed users their unique and culturally distinctive locally produced content which could be distinguished from that offered by global players. In 2020, some new streaming media platforms were launched for distributing film content to their targeted markets locally and internationally. Through the use of a review of trade and business press as well as interview, this paper attempts to identify and present areas of regional change and regional players which deserve systematic discussion and analysis.

Beyond “Feeling Blessed”: Using International Documentary Film to Foster Global Awareness in an Online College Course

As US colleges and universities incorporate an international requirement for undergraduate students, this study assesses the value of an online international documentary course. The effect of documentary viewing was evaluated using students’ reflective essays, noting possible shifts in perspectives on international issues after film viewing. Findings show that students gained new knowledge, displayed empathy, felt “blessed” for their privileges, and were inspired to help others. Findings also reflected an ignorance about inequitable power relationships between the United States and other countries, producing an “othering” effect. Recommendations are provided for engaging students in more critical research and reflection about local-global connections.

IMPARTER, Phase 1 of an intervention to improve patients’ understanding of gene expression profiling tests in breast cancer

Purpose To compare participants’ knowledge about Gene Expression Profiling (GEP) tests and recurrence risks after reading an information leaflet with that following viewing of an information film. Methods Using a randomised cross-over design, at time-point one (T1) women aged 45–75 years without breast cancer, either read leaflets or watched information films about Oncotype DX or Prosigna tests. Participants answered nine questions assessing knowledge, (maximum score 18). Next day information in the opposite modality was provided and knowledge re-assessed. Additional questions probed which format was easiest to understand, participants’ preferences for film or leaflet and their reasons for these. Results 120 women participated (60 received OncotypeDX films and leaflets; 60 the Prosigna versions). T1 mean knowledge scores were higher following film viewing (13.37) compared with that after reading leaflets (9.25) (mean difference 4.1; p < 0.0001; 95% CI 3.2, 5.0). When participants read leaflets first and subsequently viewed films, all increased their scores (mean + 6.08, from T1 of 9.25, p < 0.0001; 95% CI 5.44, 6.72). When films were viewed first, followed by leaflets, (36/60, 60%) participants’ scores declined (mean-1.55 from T1 of 13.37, p < 0.001; 95% CI -2.32, -0.78). A majority of participants expressed preferences for the films (88/120, 73.3%) irrespective as to whether they described OncotypeDX or Prosigna. Reasons included the clarity, ease of understanding, visual material and reassuring voice-over. Conclusion Discussions between oncologists and patients about recurrence risk results can be challenging. Information leaflets may aid understanding but often employ complex language. Information films significantly improved knowledge and were preferred by participants.

Funny Games

This chapter is concerned with Michael Haneke’s Funny Games and the role of imagination in cinematic engagement. Drawing upon the work of Richard Moran, the chapter shows how Funny Games makes the case that a film’s audience is, through its imaginative engagement, morally implicated in the events depicted on screen. I demonstrate that Funny Games develops certain themes found in Moran’s “The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.” While the bulk of Moran’s article is devoted to attacking a particular trend in the philosophical aesthetics literature, wherein film viewing is understood as an exercise in make-believe, Moran ends on a constructive note, recommending additional ways that imagination might be deployed for the purpose of appreciating art. My suggestion is that Funny Games uses the resources of its medium to investigate the role of imagination in our engagement with film in ways first suggested by Moran, thereby engaging philosophically with questions about aesthetics, art, and the philosophy of film.

Sanctuary: documentary in virtual reality (VR)

Sanctuary is a documentary film in virtual reality (VR). The film uses 360-camera technology to offer a sensory immersive viewing experience. The film attempts to transcend the borders of filmmaking by merging new 360-camera technology and a nonlinear form of storytelling. The film is an observational piece. 360-degree videos are an emerging technology, which offers the viewer a sensory, immersive experience in virtual reality. Influenced by the 360-panoramic mural paintings created in 1860s, the use of the 360-camera breaks away from the syntax of documentary filmmaking and gives the audience an active role in the film-viewing experience. It breaks the traditional semantics of filmmaking and sets new rules of viewing which are personal and unique to each viewer. Sanctuary documents the Juhasz family, which has been living in a church since November 2014. The film is an eight-minute experience that gives the audience a 360- degree glimpse into the Juhasz family’s life and their living conditions. The film is presented as an installation, using Samsung’s Gear VR as the exhibition technology.

Sanctuary: documentary in virtual reality (VR)

Sanctuary is a documentary film in virtual reality (VR). The film uses 360-camera technology to offer a sensory immersive viewing experience. The film attempts to transcend the borders of filmmaking by merging new 360-camera technology and a nonlinear form of storytelling. The film is an observational piece. 360-degree videos are an emerging technology, which offers the viewer a sensory, immersive experience in virtual reality. Influenced by the 360-panoramic mural paintings created in 1860s, the use of the 360-camera breaks away from the syntax of documentary filmmaking and gives the audience an active role in the film-viewing experience. It breaks the traditional semantics of filmmaking and sets new rules of viewing which are personal and unique to each viewer. Sanctuary documents the Juhasz family, which has been living in a church since November 2014. The film is an eight-minute experience that gives the audience a 360- degree glimpse into the Juhasz family’s life and their living conditions. The film is presented as an installation, using Samsung’s Gear VR as the exhibition technology.

A Study on Viewers' Viewing from the Angle of Desire—An Interpretation of Xiaofeng Li 's "Calm sea"

As a visual feast, the sound and light images created by film viewing have different interpretation meanings for different levels of viewers.As the latest work directed by Li Xiaofeng, "calm sea" not only continues the framework of the previous crime film with the nature of the author's film, but also contains the spiritual core that the obsessive can only leave the scene, which is of far-reaching significance.In this film, the protagonist and the outsider are in the unity of opposites, leading their own viewing behavior and self-examination under the peep of desire, and stripping the cocoon of visual images to reveal the source of pleasure obtained by the viewers from the perspective of desire.