[Publik.ims] Next week's IMS seminar: Signe Jensens final seminar, 21. april
by publik.ims@lists.sunet.se
Dear all,
This is a quick reminder that next week we have an extended IMS seminar, starting at 9.00, where I, Signe, will present and discuss my thesis draft. Kim Christian Schrøder, Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, Denmark, professor in Audiences and Mediated Life, is the opponent.
If any of you have not received the thesis, and want to have a look at it before the seminar, please email me at ims at lnu.se.
Abstract:
This thesis is an audience reception study of film music and animation film, centered around the ways that animated characters are constructed as psychological beings which children can understand and identify with – as if they were real humans. The analysis considers the narrative context of a character but is particularly focused on the musical and multimodal construction of a character, meaning particular attention is put on how character traits are communicated by the use of music, voice, colours, camera perspective, etc. This analysis of the construction of characters is then compared to actual child audiences’ expressions of their experiences and interpretations, obtained through observations and interviews, in order to highlight how children understand and relate to the material they are presented to.
Understanding and interpreting an animated film is conditioned by the structure of that film, but interpretation is also conditioned by the communicative situation and social position of the audience, as well as personal experiences, and as such no ‘absolute’ interpretation can be made, not even within a uniform group. This does not mean that we shouldn’t aim to understand how people process and relate to media, however, or to understand how children experience the animated films that are so immensely popular, overflowing our mainstream culture. By analysing the multimodal semiotic potential of three selected films, Frozen (2013), Up (2009) and Shrek the Third (2007), and comparing these analyses with children’s multimodal expressions (children often communicate through gestures or by humming or signing, necessitating multimodal interview transcriptions) of their understandings and opinions, it is the goal of this thesis to shed light on the ways that children relate to and use filmic form, particularly music, in negotiating the content, particularly characters, of the film, in a process where meaning is created in the active reception process of a child in a communicative situation
The seminar is on the 21 April. Note that it starts 1 hour early at 9.00 CEST. As always the seminar will be on zoom: https://lnu-se.zoom.us/j/940933326
I hope to see many of you there!
Best wishes,
Signe – on behalf of myself and of IMS
Signe Kjaer Jensen
PhD student in Comparative Literature
Centre for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies (IMS)
Linnæus University
Department of Film and Literature
351 95 Växjö
Sweden
https://lnu.se/personal/signe.kjaerjensen/
signe.kjaerjensen at lnu.se<mailto:signe.kjaerjensen at lnu.se>
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