Rhythm in literary apps

This article addresses how rhythm may function in literary apps. The article has two aims: increasing the knowledge of how literary apps work as texts, by exploring their aspects of rhythm, and developing the understanding of the theoretical term of rhythm. The authors propose a rhythmanalysis in which two different types of rhythm – reading rhythm and narrative rhythm – are taken into account. The two types of rhythm may both occur at different structural levels in the text. This approach is applied to the analysis of rhythm in the popular literary app, Florence (Wong et al., 2018, Florence Tablet application software), drawing on concepts from multimodal social semiotics (Van Leeuwen, Introducing Social Semiotics, 2005), although leaning towards a more reception-oriented approach than the traditional text-oriented analysis in social semiotics. Literary apps are defined in this context as multimodal fictional narratives that can lead to an aesthetic experience for the reader (Iser, 1984, Der Akt des Lesens); however, non-narrative apps, such as poetry, may also be defined as literary apps. These apps may be read on a tablet or a smartphone. This article elucidates some of the many facets of rhythm related to the multimodal design of a literary app, which invites different forms of interactivity than the linear reading and page-turning of print-based picture books. The findings of the analysis show how rhythm not only contributes to the multimodal cohesional aspects of literary apps, but is fundamental to the meaning potential of the literary app

Back to where we came from: evolutionary psychology and children’s literature and media

In 2010, The New York Times ran an article which announced that ‘the next big thing in English [Studies]’ was ‘using evolutionary theory to explain fiction’. This announcement may be considered somewhat belated, given that the interest in the potential relevance of evolutionary psychology to literary studies might be traced back to a considerably earlier date than 2010. Joseph Carroll first published on the subject as far back as 1995, and by 2002 Steven Pinker could claim that ‘within the academy, a growing number of mavericks are looking to Evolutionary psychology and cognitive science in an effort to re-establish human nature as the center of any understanding of the arts’. Nevertheless, The New York Times’s announcement may be taken as a measure of an increasingly visible trend in both popular and academic thinking. We argue in this chapter that this trend is motivated specifically by nostalgia, or the longing for a past which seems forever lost. A second aspect of this nostalgia will also be discussed to do with the way that we argue that this supposedly ‘new’ area of research repeats exactly a long history of prior claims of many eminent children’s literature critics with respect to ideas of childhood, language and children’s literature and media. Despite the repeated, insistent claims of several of the Literary Darwinists, including, for instance, Joseph Carroll, one of the founders of this way of thinking, that they are working in heroic opposition to a dominant, obscurantist and anti-science ‘literary theory’, we argue here that in fact there is a high degree of convergence between the claims made about childhood, language and children’s literature in Literary Darwinism and much children’s literature criticism. We therefore see Literary Darwinism and (children’s) literature studies as not being in any sense about an opposition or separation between science and literary or humanist studies, but about a convergence underpinned and driven by the same nostalgia for a singular, stable, uniform and universal past, leading to a singular, stable, uniform and universal present. Finally, we suggest that it is not just in these two fields in which this nostalgia operates, but that this can currently be seen in sub-streams within many disciplines – in both in arts, sciences and humanities -- as a founding, powerfully political, driver

Shared reading of children's interactive picture books

We report on a study of children and parents shared reading of interactive printed books. We investigated the differences between books with interactive features and books with expressive typography in order to evaluate which features within a book encouraged interaction between the reading participants and the book. 11 parent and child groups took part in the study that involved three observed reading sessions. From our observations we offer suggestions for the development of books and eBooks to encourage shared reading practices

Sustain Arts/SE Michigan: A Portrait of the Cultural Ecosystem

This report discusses the potential use of data in arts organizations for strategic purposes. Data currently available on the cultural sector can lead to useful insights about the increasing proliferation of small arts organizations; the almost monolithic focus of private foundations on supporting a highly select group of large, well-established arts organizations; and the fact that established arts organizations are poorly positioned to satisfy emerging consumer preferences for cultural experiences. Such insights should provoke frank discussion and galvanize field leaders to advocate appropriate actions, both in response to existing disconnects and proactively, in anticipation of coming change. The data that are now available to the field are not perfect. In fact, that's part of the story that needs to be told about the cultural sector. Systematic data collection on artists, cultural organizations, and audiences receives only a token amount of government funding. Instead, it is left largely up to private organizations to document trends in both the nonprofit and for-profit cultural arenas. This leads to multiple non-overlapping data collection strategies, making it difficult to construct a coherent picture of the field. There are gaping holes in the puzzle, and the tales we tell with existing data must be told with caution

WSAmacd handbook 2012-13 PDF edition

The story, syllabus and course information handbook for the MA in Communication Design at Winchester School of Art. www.facebook.com/WSAmac

Engineering stories? A narratological approach to children's book apps

With the rise of smartphones and tablet pcs, children's book apps have emerged as a new type of children's media. While some of them are based on popular children's books such as Mo Willems’ Pigeon books or Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, others were specifically designed as apps. This paper focuses on examining book apps under the aspects of implied user strategies and narrative structure. Using a narratological framework that also takes into account the unique characteristics of the medium, a terminology for the analysis of book apps will be sketched out. Furthermore, an exemplary analysis of iOS books apps for pre- and grade school children comes to the conclusion that, far from offering the child users room for individual creativity, a large number of apps rather train their users in following prescribed paths of reading

Translating the Book App’s icono-letter

This research focuses on the heuristic value of new digital products, book apps, which are changing contemporary reading habits, especially for the so-called ‘digital natives.’ their plurisemiotic nature, and the fact that they are available in bilingual/multilingual versions, invite further reflection about their translation. this study proposes a qualitative analysis of two book apps, recently published by two french pure players. book apps are a new ‘technogenre’ that produces a plurisemiotic environment characterized by a multimodal signifying way. this signifying specificity stimulates a reflection about the nature of the linguistic sign inspired by benveniste’s definition of ‘icon.’ the translation of what is called in this study the book app’s ‘icono-letter’ is thus presented as a real challenge: translators do not have to translate only a text, but the complicated synergic relationship between text, images, animations, sounds, and music. textual examples from the two book apps examined offer useful evidence of the difficult task of translating this new genre, which highlights the need to rethink digital translation through the effective dialogue between linguistic and visual semiotics, as well as between translation ethics and Semio-translation theories

Bury me, my love: (non)choosing reading paths

This contribution falls within the domain of children’s and young adults’ digital literature and, in particular, in that segment of the field aimed at exploring both the potential and the limits of reading digital literary works at school. In order to describe the actual reception process (and eventually to accompany the formal introduction of e-lit creations in the French literature school programs), a selection of literary apps was presented to eight groups of young readers, across different school levels: two adaptations of contemporary picturebooks were read in four primary school classes (I can’t wait [France Télévision, 2013] and With a few bricks [Dieudonne, 2014]), while an interactive literary narrative experience (Loss of grasp [Bouchardon, 2016]) and a scrolling graphic novel (Phallaina [France Télévision, 2016]) were respectively analyzed in two middle and high-schools groups. If those experiences lead to describe how young readers handle the narrative interface and manage to combine the multimodal materials composing the message to build their comprehension, they couldn’t clarify how non-linear reading paths and discontinuous narrative flows may be perceived and analyzed in a school reading situation. We thus involved a sample of 32 high-school students in the reading of Bury me, me love [Plug In Digital, 2017], a non-linear fictional creation(inspired from a true story) partially determined by the literary device, that offers different issues according to the readers’ choices.Defined as a game of reality , the story follows the vicissitudes of Nour, a young Syrian woman who tries to flee her country, and appears as a conversation via a messaging app between the protagonist and his companion, who is embodied by the reader him/herself. By following the flow of the exchanges, the story progresses, and the journey of the protagonist is at the same established and addressed towards one of its 19 possible endings. The time of the narration also depends on the reader, who can either respect the rhythm of the conversation, intended to reproduce the actual chronology of the journey, or accelerate the narration in order to read the sequence of sms in a continuous flow. In both cases, each choice is irreversible and has unexpected consequences on the narrative. A double discontinuity in the reading is thus installed: one concerns the narrative, whose deployment may abruptly deviate from its most likely issue; the other concerns the reading itself, quickly but systematically interrupted by the necessity of selecting a crucial preference among a limited set of options. In this context, it is worth observing if the role of the device, the programmed choices and the discontinuity of the narrative plot are effectively considered as part of the literary construction. In order to answers to those questions, we will analyze the verbal exchanges held by the students during thethree-week reading sessions, the reading diaries written during the experience and the 50 answers they submitted in the final questionnaire. The interpretation of the data will lay out different positions and, globally, a certain resistance at accepting a renewed reading role. Literary apps With a few bricks,Dieudonne, 2014. Loss of grasp, Bouchardon, 2016. I can’t wait, France Télévision, 2013. Phallaina, France Télévision, 2016. Bury me, me love, Plug In Digital, 2017