Taking the perspective of narrative characters

An ongoing debate in the interpretation of referring expressions concerns the degree to which listeners make use of perspective information during referential processing. We aim to contribute to this debate by considering perspective shifting in narrative discourse. In a web-based mouse-tracking experiment in Dutch, we investigated whether listeners automatically shift to a narrative character’s perspective when resolving ambiguous referring expressions, and whether different linguistic perspective-shifting devices affect how and when listeners switch to another perspective. We compared perspective-neutral, direct, and free indirect discourse, manipulating which objects are visible to the character. Our results do not show a clear effect of the perspective shifting devices on participants’ eventual choice of referent, but our online mouse-tracking data reveal processing differences that suggest that listeners are indeed sensitive to the conventional markers of perspective shift associated with direct and (to a lesser degree) free indirect discourse.

Can Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Help Children Be Physically Active? Exploring the Immersive Qualities of Les Mills’ and Marvel’s “Move Like the Avengers” Video

There have been calls for more enjoyable Physical Activity (PA) interventions which focus on ensuring a positive affective response. This study explored how using a narrative, characters, and music in a video-led PA session might influence the sense of immersion and impact the affective response. One hundred and thirty-six participants (boys n = 65, girls n = 71) were recruited, 85% aged between 7 and 11 years old. Participants completed the “Move Like the Avengers” PA video created by Les Mills and Marvel, then complete a survey answering questions on their post activity affective responses, and the use of immersive elements. Positive average affective responses were found (valence mean score: 3.6 ± 2.2, arousal mean score: 5.1 ± 1.0). Analysis revealed the narrative with characters indirectly mediate the valence response through creating a sense of immersion (βstd = 0.122 [95%CI 0.013 to 0.231]; p = 0.012). Musical elements had both a direct (βstd = 0.449 [95%CI 0.264 to 0.634]; p < 0.001), and an indirect (βstd = 0.122 [95%CI 0.014 to 0.229]; p = 0.011) effect upon valence and a direct effect upon arousal (βstd = 0.244 [95%CI 0.006 to 0.482]; p = 0.021). These promising results provide justification for future research into children’s immersive PA.

Viewing I, Daniel Blake in the English Regions: Towards an Understanding of Realism through Audience Interpretation

This article examines focus group responses to Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake (2016). Situated in four English regions (North East, North West, South West and Yorkshire and Humber), the focus groups were structured around a process of film elicitation that gathered a set of plural and richly textured responses to the film. Focusing on the participants’ understanding of realism within the film, the article complements existing textual analyses of realism in order to understand better the kinds of interpretive resources that audiences bring to their engagement with films such as I, Daniel Blake. We examine in detail how participants drew on different interpretive resources as a set of personal, emotional and intellectual anchoring points that they used to situate and articulate their readings of the film. These resources ranged from related life experiences and personal memories to emotional responses and political views. In particular, we examine how participants interpreted the film through differing degrees of personal familiarity and empathy with the narrative, characters and places depicted, how the participants dealt with the emotional labours of realism and the feelings evoked through representations of place. Using film elicitation to understand the plurality of interpretations of realism has allowed us to develop a located and multifaceted understanding of the affective dimensions of realist film, and to extend the reach of audience studies to a hitherto under-explored genre.

“Shall we put the heart in now?” A comparative analysis between creature features and their single reel abridgements

Single reel abridgements of commercial feature films are entering moving image archives because home movie collections that contain them are slowly increasing in archival representation. The abridged commercial films occupy a liminal space in between sustained preservation efforts that focus on studio films and the current interest paid to preserving home movies. As a result, the abridged films are being neglected. The films’ liminal status stems from a dearth of information regarding their relationship to the original films and a clear definition of what they are narratively and aesthetically. After analyzing fourteen abridged horror and science fiction films found in the Ryerson Moving Image collection and comparing them to their original counterparts this project finds that the abridged films are heavily altered in terms of narrative, characters, and causality, and should be treated as individual objects instead of derivative works, thus absolving their liminal status.

“Shall we put the heart in now?” A comparative analysis between creature features and their single reel abridgements

Single reel abridgements of commercial feature films are entering moving image archives because home movie collections that contain them are slowly increasing in archival representation. The abridged commercial films occupy a liminal space in between sustained preservation efforts that focus on studio films and the current interest paid to preserving home movies. As a result, the abridged films are being neglected. The films’ liminal status stems from a dearth of information regarding their relationship to the original films and a clear definition of what they are narratively and aesthetically. After analyzing fourteen abridged horror and science fiction films found in the Ryerson Moving Image collection and comparing them to their original counterparts this project finds that the abridged films are heavily altered in terms of narrative, characters, and causality, and should be treated as individual objects instead of derivative works, thus absolving their liminal status.

The Role of Narrative Cues in Shaping ADT

In the current chapter, we provide additional specificity to Zillmann’s dispositional model of emotional reactivity to dramatic happenings. By integrating research on altruistic intuitions and egoistic intuitions we advance understandings of the mechanisms that underlie disposition formation processes (i.e., how viewers come to like/dislike narrative characters) and story outcome evaluation processes (i.e., whether viewers like/dislike a narrative’s resolution). We first explain how research on the disposition formation process has been advanced by applying an a priori categorization scheme of altruistic intuitions adapted from moral psychology. This scheme provides a definition of good/bad behavior as behavior that upholds/violates altruistic intuitions. We describe how audiences evaluate those upholding/violating behaviors to form liking/disliking toward narrative characters and highlight how narrative cues can amplify the effect of certain altruistic intuitions in this process. After discussion of disposition formation, we describe how an a priori categorization scheme of egoistic intuitions might similarly advance understanding of the story outcome evaluation process. We provide a more explicit definition of positive and negative story outcomes based on the satisfaction/thwarting of a character’s egoistic intuitions. Several important processes are described in better detail with such a definition, and we outline empirical investigations that could help advance disposition research considerably. We extend this discussion to examine the separate roles of altruistic and egoistic intuition satisfaction in determining audience response to more complex narratives involving conflict between two or more intuitions. The chapter concludes by discussing the potential advantages of integrating altruistic and egoistic intuitions into Zillmann’s dispositional model.

HACIA UNA TEORÍA DEL FUNCIONAMIENTO SEMIÓTICO DEL PERSONAJE EN EL TEXTO NARRATIVO. PAPELES Y FACETAS DEL PERSONAJE NARRATIVO EN TIRANO BANDERAS DE VALLE-INCLÁN

Resumen: Este artículo repasa primero las principales contribuciones teóricas al tema del personaje narrativo. Presenta luego una nueva propuesta teórica distinguiendo dos papeles (actantes / actores) y facetas (individuos / tipos) dentro de la categoría del personaje y en relación con los tres estratos del texto narrativo (fábula-función, trama-acción y relatodiscurso). Por último, esta propuesta teórica es verificada mediante el análisis del funcionamiento de tales papeles y facetas en los personajes narrativos de Tirano Banderas de Valle-Inclán.Abstract: This article first reviews the main theoretical contributions to the subject of the narrative character. It then presents a new theoretical proposal that differentiates two roles (actants / actors) and facets (individuals / types) within the category of character in relation to the three levels of the narrative text (story-function, plot-action and narrative discourse). Finally, this theoretical proposal is subsequently verified trough the analysis of the functioning of the narrative characters in Valle-Inclán’s Tirano Banderas.

Brands and Stories in Ads

Storytelling in advertising allows consumers to recall the narrative, characters, and brands related to the story. This consolidates the consumer's idea of a brand as unique and distinct from others and can also be the basis for brand distinctiveness. As such, the present chapter will firstly take into consideration the existing theoretical framework related to the use of storytelling in the creation of narrative ads, and then it will present the creation, unfolding and results of an investigation involving 326 individuals. The data collected from this study demonstrates that the structure of the narrative of a storytelling ad positively influences the distinctiveness of the brand. Moreover, this study shows the mediating role between narrative structure and the perception of brand distinctiveness. This chapter enhances knowledge on advertising, narrative, and brand distinctiveness and supports new researches in this field.

Audio describing the mental dimension of narrative characters. Insights from a Flemish case study.

Audio description (AD) is a service for people with sight loss that makes audiovisual content such as films and TV series accessible to them by verbally describing the visual elements they cannot access. This form of intermodal translation entails various challenges. One of them is how to render orally the emotions, feelings, and other mental states of narrative characters, i.e., elements that we infer from concrete actions, facial expressions, and gestures shown on screen. In practice, we can use various strategies, situated on a continuum ranging from an objective ‘describe what you see’ approach to more interpretative, subjective descriptions, explicitly naming the mental state underlying the visuals. Although early AD guidelines recommend objective descriptions, recent research has indicated that more subjective approaches may offer various advantages to target audiences in terms of immersion in the story world or imposed cognitive load. In this paper, we present the results of a case study involving the analysis of three episodes from different Dutch-spoken TV series to explore a) what strategies audio describers use to express mental states and b) where do they stand on the objective-subjective continuum. The results show that, contrary to what the guidelines recommend, the descriptions are situated nearer the subjective side of the continuum, suggesting that, when translating visual elements into a verbal form, audio describers tend to look beyond the screen to infer the implicit underlying meaning.

Interdependence of Narrative Characters: Implications for Media Theories

Affective disposition theory suggests that viewers of narratives develop dispositions toward characters through various cues, including appearance and behavior. Despite its predictive utility, the theory has yet to account for an essential component of narratives: character interdependence. Extant models treat disposition formation toward individual characters as an independent process. In the current paper, we posit that affective dispositions formed toward one character (e.g., a protagonist) are interdependent with affective dispositions formed toward others (e.g., an antagonist). We present two experimental studies that provide evidence of character interdependence. We show that dispositions toward a single character account for unique variance in dispositions toward another, and that the same character can be perceived as highly moral or immoral, depending on a comparison character. In the discussion section, we integrate our character interdependence model with extant theories to generate novel predictions for affective disposition theory and other areas of research relevant to communication.