Trauma or Nostalgia? ‘The Past’ as Affective Ontological Security Seeking Playground in the South Caucasus

Crises could be understood as dislocations of hegemonic identity narratives. One strategy of seeking ontological security, as re-ordering process to calm and sooth these displacements, is ‘defending memory’. But how does ‘defending memory’ play out? This article argues that to understand those mnemonic processes, one also has to look at the affective investments into these identity narratives informing processes of politicisation and securitisation. The article proposes to look at those processes through the lens of affective geopolitics to shed light onto those in the South Caucasus. In so doing, it explores the affective reproduction of memory and shows how investing, subscribing, questioning or rejecting identity-positionalities is a patch-work process of discursive emotion norm contestations. What emerges is a mosaic of emotion cultures drifting apart (between the South Caucasus countries) and away (internationally) linked to how ‘the past’ is re-felt either in agony or in gloriousness within presidential discourses

Brand Identity and Brand Image in Film Brands: A case study of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World

This study explores brand identity, brand image and their relationship within the modern film brand of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World (JKRWW). The research builds upon literature into media and film brands (e.g. O'Reilly and Kerrigan 2013; Andreea 2013; Farhana 2014) as well as applying the body of academia around the relationship of brand identity and brand image (e.g. Aaker 1991; Kapferer 2004; de Chernatony 1999; Nandan 2005) to the area of film brands. A qualitative methodology is adopted consisting of ten in-depth interviews, three with film managers to understand brand identity, and seven with film consumers to understand brand image. Findings reveal the importance of the writer in the creation of JKRWW’s film brand identity and highlight how consumers relate to the brand’s characters regarding the brand image. There is a strong relationship between identity and image within the JKRWW brand which is to be recommended within film branding

Lost in a Transmedia Storytelling Franchise: Rethinking Transmedia Engagement

In the age of media convergence, transmedia storytelling - the distribution of story elements across multiple media platforms in the service of crafting an overarching narrative - is increasingly prevalent. This dissertation examines transmedia engagement through a focus on Lost's transmedia storytelling franchise and a confluence of technological, industrial, and cultural shifts, including the advent of podcast technologies, the rise of alternate reality game storytelling, and increasing producer-audience communication. Taken together, these transformations create new terrain on which normative understandings of producer-text-audience relationships are continually challenged, reconfigured, and even reinforced. This dissertation views these relationships through the concept of "viewsing" (Harries, 2002) - a hybrid form of engagement encouraged by transmedia storytelling franchises in which the qualities of "viewing" and "computer use" merge. Although viewsing provides an important conceptual framework, previous scholarship stops short of applying to concept to the producer-audience and audience-audience relationships. Using a thematic analysis methodology, this study examines the fan cultures surrounding two podcasts dedicated to Lost - The Official Lost Podcast and The Transmission - and expands the concept of viewsing to include text-audience interactivity, producer-audience participatory storytelling, and audience-audience collaboration and antagonism. It concludes that transmedia storytelling franchises encourage viewsing - interactive, participatory, and communicative multi-platform engagement

Professional Perspectives: placing lived experience at the heart of journalism education

This paper will consider the importance of the blend of theory and practice in journalism education. It posits that in order to be equipped for a lifetime in journalism, students need to operate as reflective practitioners, with a well-­‐‑formed sense of professional and personal identity. Now more than ever, in a post-­‐‑Leveson landscape, they need to know who they are, what they stand for and to have their own individual ‘voice’. Drawing on the example set by the BBC College of Journalism and my own doctoral research, for context, I also use a case study from my own teaching to illustrate the point: Professional Perspectives operates a programme of visiting speakers from industry that provides students with differing perspectives on current and key issues in journalism, such as ethics, original storytelling, impartiality. In the final assignment, students address a key challenge, placing quotes and ideas from the practitioners into a theoretical context supported by wider reading. In addition, they reflect on their own sense of self as a journalist. The paper will conclude that active learning from the lived experiences of others can enhance the lifelong education of journalists, informing their self-­‐‑understanding and encouraging an ethical approach to their craft

Storylines: a narrative study of young adolescents making meaning of their writing experiences

This study used a narrative inquiry model to explore the writing experiences of a diverse group of eight middle-school aged participants by responding to three research questions: 1) How do young adolescents experience learning to write?, 2) How do they narrate their writing experiences?, and 3) What meaning do they make of writing and learning to write? Data comprised transcripts of 24 60-90 minute semi-structured one-on-one interviews, or three interviews with each of the eight participants. Interviews were conducted at roughly six-week intervals following these young adolescents’ participation in a two-week Young Writers’ Camp held at a medium-sized university in the Southeast. The study design and data analysis procedures built upon Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) three-dimensional model of narrative inquiry, which interprets participants’ narratives on three planes: across time, with consideration of the individual within his or her social context, and with attention to place. Analysis and interpretation, conducted within a sociocultural paradigm, yielded three storylines – collections of narratives drawn across participant interviews that resonate with one another and combine to tell a larger story. These storylines elicited the meanings young adolescent writers made of the intersections of family and school narratives around writing; the role of language exposure, appropriation, and use; and the use of writing as a tool for identity negotiation

SPHERES OF SIMULTANEITY IN ADRIANA LISBOA’S NOVEL HANÓI

Abstract: This essay has as its focus the interweaving of immigrant life stories and layers of human spaces in Adriana Lisboa’s novel Hanói (2013). Relying on Ana Martins Marques’ map-bending poems from Cartografias and on Doreen Massey’s geographical concepts of “multiple trajectories” and “spheres of dynamic simultaneity” articulated in For Space, I analyze the sense of place in the novel, as well as the presence of elements denoting belonging, displacement and un-belonging, especially from the point of view of the two main characters and their interconnecting, yet disparate, worlds.Keywords: Belonging; Displacement; Spheres of simultaneity; Adriana Lisboa.Resumo: Este ensaio tem como foco o entrelaçamento de histórias na vida de imigrantes e nas camadas de espaços humanos presentes no romance Hanói de Adriana Lisboa (2013). Baseando-me nos poemas-mapas que se desdobram na série Cartografias de Ana Martins Marques e nos conceitos geográficos articulados em For Space de Doreen Massey, como “trajetórias múltiplas” e “esferas de simultaneidade dinâmica,” analiso o sentido de lugar no romance, assim como a presença de elementos que indicam pertencimento, deslocamento e não-pertencimento, especialmente do ponto de vista dos dois protagonistas e de seus mundos interligados, ainda que distintos.Palavras-chave: Pertencimento; Deslocamento; Esferas de simultaneidade; Adriana Lisboa

Consuming Pleasures: Active Audiences and Serial Fictions from Dickens to Soap Opera

“To be continued . . . Whether these words fall at a season-ending episode of Star Trek or a TV commercial flirtation between coffee-loving neighbors, true fans find them impossible to resist. Ever since the 1830s, when Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers enticed a mass market for fiction, the serial has been a popular means of snaring avid audiences. Jennifer Hayward establishes serial fiction as a distinct genre—one defined by the activities of its audience rather than by the formal qualities of the text. Ranging from installment novels, mysteries, and detective fiction of the 1800s to the television and movie series, comics, and advertisements of the twentieth century, serials are loosely linked by what may be called “family resemblances.These traits include intertwined subplots, diverse casts of characters, dramatic plot reversals, suspense, an such narrative devices as long-lost family members and evil twins. Hayward chooses four texts to represent the evolution of serial fiction as a genre and to analyze the peculiar draw that serials have upon their audiences: Dickens’s novel Our Mutual Friend, Milton Canif’s comic strip Terry and the Pirates, and the soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live. Hayward argues that serial audiences have developed active strategies of consumption, such as collaborative reading and attempts to shape the production process. In this way fans have forced serial producers to acknowledge the power of the audience. This remarkable study gives us, for the first time, the full story of serial fiction from the point of view of its audiences. By taking the long, historical view, Consuming Pleasures shows what we have missed in focussing on the local, short-term evolution of serial genres. Many of the cherished assumptions of genre criticism may need to be revised in light of this book\u27s findings. —Andrew Ross, New York University An excellent and much-needed study. . . . an important contribution to the study of genre as an interaction between texts and their readers. —Choice Hayward\u27s section on Dickens is of substantial importance to readers of Dickens. —Dickens Quarterly Hayward\u27s work breaks new ground in discussing the serial text. —JASAT Hayward aims to establish common features of mass-market serials across historical eras and genres, and to counteract scholarly dismissal of mass culture forms like soap operas, by elucidating audiences\u27 active roles. She succeeds in both aims. —Nineteenth-Century Literature Hayward\u27s thesis is a provocative one . . . a strong case is made here for the value of studying popular fiction in all its forms. —Ohioana Quarterlyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_film_and_media_studies/1008/thumbnail.jp

Making Narrative Theory Teachable : Experiments and Overlaps in Lost, Arrested Development, and A Visit From The Goon Squad

The goal of this thesis is to identify a theoretical approach for teaching narrative theory with television as a strategy. I argue that television serves as an accessible introduction to narrative theory and that following the template in study prepares students to transfer their new understanding of popular television narratives to the reading of complex novels. This thesis asks whether the critical acclaim attached to American television shows of the New Golden Age should push us to reconsider the place of television within the context of English studies as a pedagogical tool. It addresses the current relationship between television and the novel in America as understood by television critics, literary critics, students, and teachers while recognizing the ways in which popular television can inform student understanding of narrative theory. The selected texts for this case study include Lost (2004), Arrested Development (2003), and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. All three texts were chosen because of their mainstream success combined with critical acclaim, along with their similarities in structural experimentation and innovative storytelling methods, and have proven a successful grouping in my own teaching practice as part of a Contemporary Novels course. During development of the course, I recognized the need for an understanding of formal plot structures and theories of narrative, and this thesis responds to that pedagogical concern. I conclude with suggestions for broadening the scope of the teaching approach I describe to include alternate narratively complex television shows and/or televisual novels