Narrative music: towards an understanding of musical narrative functions in multimedia

As the computer screen is replacing the book as the dominant medium for communication (Kress, 2003), questions about how meaning is constituted by the multimodal interaction of different media (including music) is becoming increasingly important in contemporary research of pedagogy, sociology and media studies. The overall aim with this licentiate thesis is to explore musical narrative functions as they appear in multimedia such as film and computer games. The thesis is based on three publications. Publication 1 proposes a classification of musical narrative functions, with 6 narrative classes(the Emotive, Informative, Descriptive, Guiding, Temporal and Rhetorical classes) and 11 categories. The relational interplay of music with contextual factors is emphasized. Publication 2 describes the design of a software tool, REMUPP (Relations Between Musical Parameters and Perceived Properties), to be used for experimental studies of musical expression. REMUPP is used for real time alteration of musical expression, by the manipulation of musical parameters such as tempo, harmony, rhythm, articulation, etc. Publication 3 describes a quasi-experiment using REMUPP, where a group of young participants (12-13 years old) were given the task of adapting musical expression – by manipulating 7 parameters – to make it fit 3 visual scenes shown on a computer screen. They also answered a questionnaire asking about their musical backgrounds and habits of listening to music, watching movies and playing computer games. Numerical data from the manipulations were analyzed statistically with regards to the preferred values of the musical parameters in relation to the different visual scenes. The results indicated awareness and knowledge about codes and conventions of musical narrative functions, and were to some degree affected by the participants’ gender, musical backgrounds and media habits

Singing Corporate Social Responsibility: A Multimodal Analysis of the 2018 Budweiser Super Bowl Commercial

The 2018 Super Bowl Commercial of the Budweiser Beer is entitled “Stand by You” and revolves around the pluriannual Water Donation Program of the Anheuser-Busch brewing company. The video features images of the employees of the Budweiser Cartersville, GA brewery organizing the emergency drinking water delivery with the help of American Red Cross, its partner in such disaster-relief efforts over the past 30 years. The images are accompanied by a cover of the 1961 Ben E. King iconic song “Stand by me”. Adopting a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective, the paper aims at analyzing the meaning-making construction of the video in its YouTube contextualization. In detail, the focus of the paper is to understand how the sound and the lyrics of the cover, with their cultural, linguistic and semiotic layers of meaning, constitute the semiotic entry point in the narration and create the soundscape for the framing of Corporate Social Responsibility

Post-blast explosive residue : a review of formation and dispersion theories and experimental research

The presence of undetonated explosive residues following high order detonations is not uncommon, however the mechanism of their formation, or survival, is unknown. The existence of these residues impacts on various scenarios, for example their detection at a bomb scene allows for the identification of the explosive charge used, whilst their persistence during industrial explosions can affect the safety and environmental remediation efforts at these sites. This review article outlines the theoretical constructs regarding the formation of explosive residues during detonation and their subsequent dispersal and deposition in the surrounding media. This includes the chemical and physical aspects of detonation and how they could allow for undetonated particles to remain. The experimental and computational research conducted to date is discussed and compared to the theory in order to provide a holistic review of the phenomeno

Language Ideologies and Minority Language Policies in Sweden : historical and contemporary perspectives

This thesis concerns the nature and functioning of language ideologies in Sweden, principally as regards beliefs and attitudes of the majority group towards minority language issues. This includes a study of the history of Sweden's minority language policies towards the Saami and the Finnish-speaking Tornedalians. The historical changes in such policies and language ideologies - evolving from a state of pragmatism and 'indifferent tolerance', via a nationalistically motivated assimilationist ideology, to a contemporary state of official 'pluralism' as well as conflicting perspectives and policies - provide a background to studies of contemporary issues, especially the media debates on mother tongue instruction ('home language teaching') for minority children. Furthermore, the controversial question of language requirements for naturalization (citizenship acquisition) is approached, where the rationale behind such requirements as well as the problems of assessing language competence in this context are discussed. Such aspects were further studied in a large-scale questionnaire survey investigation among a randomly selected sample of the Swedish population. The primary purpose of the survey was to explore and correlate language attitudes (or ideological components) in order to investigate the structure of different language ideologies. For this reason, variables concerning both 'internal variation' (of the Swedish language) and 'external variation' (e.g. the status and allocation of minority languages) were included. In this context, the question of 'paradoxes' or inconsistencies in ideological systems is raised, which includes a discussion of possible contradictory components in majority-based, 'monolingualist' ideologies of language