The dynamics of audience practices: mobilities of film consumption

This article addresses a dynamic of audience practice in engaging with film and identifies that this is characterised through mobilities in film consumption. It draws on rich mixed methods data to argue that not only is film an accessible and highly popular cultural activity, but that it is engaged with in various ways, and shaped by particular configurations of social, cultural, economic, and political factors as well as personal choice. The article develops a novel theoretical approach, combining audience studies and New Cinema History literature. For this, it draws on Hartmann’s (2006) notion of a triple articulation of media, treating screens as technological objects, films as media texts, and the social, spatial, and temporal contexts in which films are watched as particular environments. Each of these are considered equally important to understanding film consumption. The article also incorporates Urry’s (2008) concept of ‘mobilities’ to account for how people move between triple articulations. Here, mobilities can be: corporeal with audiences physically travelling to watch at particular venues, or in adjusting their environment around bodies; social in as far as people share films, both as material objects and in the shared experience of watching together; virtual where audiences discuss films online, share on-demand platform logins, or watch simultaneously in different places; and/or integrative, where digital technologies provide new affordances for watching films while carrying out other practices, e.g. watching via a smartphone while commuting on a train. By combining triple articulation with mobilities to examine interview and survey data, the article identifies and examines five triple articulations of film: (1) going to watch films at the cinema; (2) watching films on television at home; (3) watching films on laptop or tablet whilst in bed; (4) watching films on a smartphone when away from home; and (5) watching films on an in-flight entertainment system (e.g. on long-haul flights). It contends that people move and migrate between triple articulations of film in various ways through a diverse set of mobilities. Overall, the article argues that film consumption is best explored not just through a focus on the film as text, or on the social, temporal and/or spatial environments in which film-watching takes place, but through an understanding that the two are related and framed by wider cultural and economic factors - as well as various interactions between films, people, places, platforms, screens, and venues

Being part of an audience: patterns of contemporary film audience experience

Although audiences are often defined as being multiple, diffuse, and fragmented, in terms of film audiences there are five distinct patterns of experience within that multiplicity. These are individualised, group, venue-specific, global, and digital, and people are flexible in moving between them. Drawing on Livingstone’s (1998) notion of audiences being interactive and relational, we show that these patterns are created through the ways people interact with and relate to film. This is seen in the way people choose which film to watch, when, where, and with whom. People create and seek out specific audience experiences by choosing to take up opportunities to watch film at cinemas, at home, and through mobile devices. To understand how and why people create and select specific film audience experiences, we undertook 200 semi-structured interviews that explored audience members’ own experiences. This identified five patterns of experience, which our large sample survey confirmed occurred at scale. In general, people enjoy film through five distinct audience experiences, selecting and moving between these experiences

Inequalities in regional film exhibition: policy, place and audiences

This article questions the variety of film exhibition in four English regions. While a regional and national frame is the focus of cultural policy in relation to film audience development in the UK, our analysis examines relational, localised and sub-regional film cultures in order to understand how differing levels of film exhibition influence people's sense of place. This is framed within a discussion of cultural inequality more generally. In the UK, questions of engagement with different types of film exhibition have gained greater prominence recently, but there has been limited attention paid to how audiences understand their geographic relationship with film exhibition. Drawing on 200 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with a wide range of film viewers across four English regions, the North East, North West, South West and Yorkshire and the Humber, we assess perceptions of film exhibition in these regions. In doing so, we characterise five different modes of place in relation to the breadth of film exhibition, from distinctive film cities to mainstream multiplex towns. In particular, we focus on how access to film is simultaneously narrated through both localised proximity to cinemas of different types and virtual access to film through online platforms. This work provides further evidence of the uneven provision of diverse film in England but shows how film audiences relationally interpret their engagement within film as a cultural form

Towards a rhizomatic understanding of the desistance journey

Although the ‘desistance as a (zigzag) journey’ metaphor has proved useful in terms of translating theory into practice, this article makes the case that it is insufficient for conveying the truly complex, social, unpredictable and ‘messy’ process of desistance from crime. The article uses what we know about the process of desistance to discuss the utility of Deleuze and Guattari’s (2013) rhizomatic theory in recasting the desistance journey metaphor. In doing so it is suggested that the desistance journey should be understood in terms of its endless and multiplicitous nature, a symbol of metamorphosis, and it argues that our focus should be on understanding the ‘desister as nomad’. This, the article concludes, holds important ramifications for the way in which we understand and implement desistance-focused practice in the criminal justice system

Using mixed-methods, a data model and a computational ontology in film audience research

This paper discusses a methodology that seeks to address one of the challenges in working with a range of data in mixed-methods audience research, which is how to sort, order and categorise different data so that it can be systematically combined and interrogated. The methodology was developed as part of the ‘Beyond the Multiplex: audiences for specialised films in English regions’(BtM) project . This project sought to explore the richness of audience experiences and the broad audience trends in the context of regional film policy. This required a mixed methods approach using surveys, interviews, focus groups and document analysis. The project utilised a data model approach that uses the principles of a computational ontology in order to sort, order and categorise data for systematic interrogation. The paper discusses methods, data, coding, and the use of a data model to support data analysis. We argue that this approach enables the cross referencing of data that provides a rich, multi-layered and relational understanding of film audiences but it requires time and attention to data management and coding. Although, additionally it also forms the basis of an open access data resource for future research

Atmospheric Ice‐Nucleating Particles in the Dusty Tropical Atlantic

Desert dust is one of the most important atmospheric ice-nucleating aerosol species around the globe. However, there have been very few measurements of ice-nucleating particle (INP) concentrations in dusty air close to desert sources. In this study we report the concentration of INPs in dust laden air over the tropical Atlantic within a few days' transport of one of the world's most important atmospheric sources of desert dust, the Sahara. These measurements were performed as part of the Ice in Clouds Experiment-Dust campaign based in Cape Verde, during August 2015. INP concentrations active in the immersion mode, determined using a droplet-on-filter technique, ranged from around 10² m⁻³ at -12°C to around 10⁵ m⁻³ at -23°C. There is about 2 orders of magnitude variability in INP concentration for a particular temperature, which is determined largely by the variability in atmospheric dust loading. These measurements were made at altitudes from 30 to 3,500 m in air containing a range of dust loadings. The ice active site density (n s ) for desert dust dominated aerosol derived from our measurements agrees with several laboratory-based parameterizations for ice nucleation by desert dust within 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. The small variability in n s values determined from our measurements (within about 1 order of magnitude) is striking given that the back trajectory analysis suggests that the sources of dust were geographically diverse. This is consistent with previous work, which indicates that desert dust's ice-nucleating activity is only weakly dependent on source

The transfer and fate of Pb from sewage sludge amended soil in a multi-trophic food chain: a comparison with the labile elements Cd and Zn

The contamination of agroecosystems due to the presence of trace elements in commonly used agricultural materials is a serious issue. The most contaminated material is usually sewage sludge, and the sustainable use of this material within agriculture is a major concern. This study addresses a key issue in this respect, the fate of trace metals applied to soil in food chains. The work particularly addresses the transfer of Pb, which is an understudied element in this respect, and compares the transfer of Pb with two of the most labile metals, Cd and Zn. The transfer of these elements was determined from sludge-amended soils in a food chain consisting of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea), the mustard aphid (Lipaphis erysimi) and a predatory beetle (Coccinella septempunctata). The soil was amended with sludge at rates of 0, 5, 10 and 20 % (w/w). Results showed that Cd was readily transferred through the food chain until the predator trophic level. Zn was the most readily transferred element in the lower trophic levels, but transfer to aphids was effectively restricted by the plant regulating shoot concentration. Pb had the lowest level of transfer from soil to shoot and exhibited particular retention in the roots. Nevertheless, Pb concentrations were significantly increased by sludge amendment in aphids, and Pb was increasingly transferred to ladybirds as levels increased. The potential for Pb to cause secondary toxicity to organisms in higher trophic levels may have therefore been underestimated

The association of acrocentric chromosomes in 1000 normal human male metaphase cells

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65834/1/j.1469-1809.1967.tb00544.x.pd