Subtil. Stereotyp. Sexualisierend.: Geschlechtsrepräsentanz in populären Medien für Kinder und Jugendliche

Mit Begriffen wie „niedlich“, „schlank“ oder „häuslich orientiert“ beschreiben aktuelle Studien den generellen Eindruck, den Mädchen und junge Frauen in sozialen Medien gegenwärtig hinterlassen. Diesen Untersuchungen nach sind die Darstellungen vor allem eins: rückschrittlich. Die mediale Repräsentanz von jungen Frauen wird entsprechend häufig kritisiert: Bereits seit den 1970er Jahren befassen sich Studien mit Gender in Werbung, Nachrichten, Kinofilm oder Computerspielen. Die Untersuchungen kommen seit jeher zu ähnlichen Ergebnissen und bemängeln bis heute, neben deren geringer Quantität, auch die stereotype und sexualisierte Darstellung von Frauen und Mädchen in Medien und Journalismus. Ein Problem, auf das gerade aktuelle Studien jedoch häufig stossen, ist die Quantifizierung eines teils subtilen Phänomens: Studien, die oberflächlich betrachtet ,Entwarnung‘ geben, weisen so gleichzeitig auf ein nach wie vor vorhandenes Ungleichgewicht hin, das auf einer eher subtilen, schlechter quantifizierbaren Ebene stattfindet. Dies erscheint gerade in Zusammenhang mit einer jungen, adoleszenten Zielgruppe populärer Formate besonders bedenklich. Denn nachweislich beeinflussen Aussehen und Verhalten medial verbreiteter Figuren Selbstwahrnehmung oder Handlungen von Rezipientinnen und Rezipienten signifikant. Speziell populäre, (computer-)animierte Formate liefern potentiell problematische Inhalte, die nicht zwingend auf den ersten Blick zu erkennen sind – und finden dabei weltweit Anklang bei einem adoleszenten Publikum. Der Artikel stellt ein Modell vor, anhand dessen ein alle filmischen Ebenen umfassendes Bild erstellt werden kann, das auch subtile Hinweise und Wirkungsebenen berücksichtigt. Dabei wird deutlich, dass ein Ungleichgewicht in der Frauen- und Geschlechtsrepräsentanz omnipräsent ist und dass alternative Figurenentwürfe lediglich den sidekicks der Filme vorbehalten bleiben. Das Ausmass des Einflusses solcher Darstellungen – besonders auf junge Zuschauer*innen – lässt sich nach bisherigem Stand der Forschung nur erahnen. Betrachtet man Kindermedien als Vermittlungs- oder Sozialisationsinstanz, kann der Einfluss dieser konventionalisierten und subtilen Stereotypisierung und Sexualisierung auf Kinder und Jugendliche im Allgemeinen und auf Mädchen oder junge Frauen im Speziellen kaum überschätzt werden

Human Understanding of Robot Motion: The Role of Velocity and Orientation

A general problem in human-robot interaction is how to test the quality of single robot behavior, in order to develop robust and human-acceptable skills. The most typical approach are user tests with subjective measures (questionnaires). We propose a new experimental paradigm that combines subjective measures with an objective behavioral measure, namely viewing times of images viewed as self-paced slide show. We applied this paradigm to human-aware robot navigation. With three experiments, we studied the influence of two aspects of humans' understanding of robot motion: velocity profiles and the robot's orientation. A decreasing velocity profile impaired observers' comprehension of observed motion, and robot orientations diverting from the robot's motion vector caused reduced perceived autonomy ratings. We conclude that the viewing time paradigm is a promising tool for studying human-aware robot behavior and that the design of human-aware robot navigation needs to consider both the velocity and the orientation of robots

Shot scale and viewers’ responses to characters in animated films

Characters and their conflicting desires are fundamental to fictional narratives. According to Smith, “Characters constitute a major ›entry point‹ into our engagement with narratives: we look for characters (i.e., we search for human or human-like agency); we sort major from minor characters; we seek to establish the desires and goals of such characters; and we project and anticipate their destinies.” Formal features of character presentation, especially those that regulate visual access to facial information, can have a huge impact on the way viewers perceive and emote with animated figures on screen. We propose a chapter that first reviews the accumulating findings on how visualization of characters influence character engagement in viewers, and then presents the findings of two empirical studies. The novelty of these studies is that we collaborated with professional animation and virtual reality designers so we could manipulate the visual material with high accuracy and aesthetic quality. The first study (N = 439) employed 2D animation and focused on the close-up shot that is a type of shot scale by which a particular detail of the object is enlarged on the screen. Shot scale, defined as the apparent spatial distance of characters from the camera, is one of the most effective visual devices to regulate the relative size of characters’ faces, the relative proportion of the human figure to the background, as well as to arrange film content according to its saliency. It is thus reasonable to assume that shot scale, in being able to regulate audiences’ visual access to fictional characters’ faces, may influence character engagement responses in viewers. We conducted an experiment that manipulated the location a close-up shot in an animated narrative film. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the five versions of the same animation film, and then were asked to respond open and closed questions. Results suggest that the location of close-up has an effect on the perceived emotional impact and personal relevance reported by viewers. The second study (in progress) employed animation in virtual reality setting and concentrated on the gaze behaviour of the animated character, the mutual gaze behaviour in particular. We assumed that the opportunity to engage in a mutual gaze with the character would significantly affect viewers’ character engagement responses, such as parasocial relationship and perceived psychological reality. These findings contribute to the understanding of how visual properties of narratives affect the viewer-character relationship, and activate particular psychological processes. The results of these experiments provide empirically sound information about how shot scale, facial expression and gender affects theory of mind response and emotional experience in film viewers. The results suggest that shot scale indeed affect viewers’ awareness of characters’ mental states, and the perceived relevance of the film narrative. The findings of this project provide empirically sound information for media producers on the role of visual elements in the activation of particular viewing processes, and it informs our understanding of social cognition

Emotion elicitation: A comparison of pictures and films

AbstractPictures and film clips are widely used and accepted stimuli to elicit emotions. Based on theoretical arguments it is often assumed that the emotional effects of films exceed those of pictures, but to date this assumption has not been investigated directly. The aim of the present study was to compare pictures and films in terms of their capacity to induce emotions verified by means of explicit measures. Stimuli were (a) single pictures presented for 6 s, (b) a set of three consecutive pictures with emotionally congruent contents presented for 2 s each, (c) short film clips with a duration of 6 s. A total of 144 participants rated their emotion and arousal states following stimulus presentation. Repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed that the film clips and 3-picture version were as effective as the classical 1-picture method to elicit positive emotions, however, modulation towards positive valence was little. Modulation toward negative valence was more effective in general. Film clips were less effective than pictorial stimuli in producing the corresponding emotion states (all p < .001) and were less arousing (all p ≤ .02). Possible reasons for these unexpected results are discussed

Culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness predicts higher or lower well-being

Pursuing happiness can paradoxically impair well-being. Here, the authors propose the potential downsides to pursuing happiness may be specific to individualistic cultures. In collectivistic (vs. individualistic) cultures, pursuing happiness may be more successful because happiness is viewed--and thus pursued--in relatively socially engaged ways. In 4 geographical regions that vary in level of collectivism (United States, Germany, Russia, East Asia), we assessed participants' well-being, motivation to pursue happiness, and to what extent they pursued happiness in socially engaged ways. Motivation to pursue happiness predicted lower well-being in the United States, did not predict well-being in Germany, and predicted higher well-being in Russia and in East Asia. These cultural differences in the link between motivation to pursue happiness and well-being were explained by cultural differences in the socially engaged pursuit of happiness. These findings suggest that culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness is linked with better or worse well-being, perhaps via how people pursue happiness