4:11 p.m.
Dear IMS, IFL and friends of IMS
As some of you are probably aware, my PhD defence is coming up.
The defence will take place on the 10 September from 13.00-16.00 (Swedish time), and it
will be possible to join either in person on campus or online via zoom.
For those of you who want to participate online, the link will be published on the same
day here:
https://lnu.se/en/meet-linnaeus-university/current/events/2021/public-defen…
The thesis (including a comprehensive appendix with summaries of the transcriptions)
Musicalized Characters: A study of music, multimodality, and the empiric child perspective
on mainstream animation is now available online for those of you who want to read it, and
you can find it here: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-106204.
For those of you who want to participate in person, the defense will be in Weber at the
LNU campus in Växjö. After the defense, we will have a small reception, and in the
evening, I hope many of you will join me in town for dinner and/or drinks (but,
unfortunately, at your own expense) to celebrate.
If any of you already know that you plan to come to the reception and/or dinner in town,
could you please email me so I can have some idea about how many people to expect?
Thesis abstract:
This thesis is an audience reception study of film music and animation film. It focuses on
the musical construction of characters, looking at how music becomes meaningful in film
and how this meaning becomes part of child audiences' interpretation of filmic
characters.
To examine these questions, the thesis combines an interdisciplinary theoretical framework
based on audience studies, multimodality, and film music studies with an empirical enquiry
into child audiences' reception. Drawing on this theoretical and empirical synthesis,
the thesis proposes two models of relevance to our understanding of reception and film
music:
1. A new model for conceptualising film music as a multimodal system that combines with
other semiotic systems to construct a multimodal dimension – the way this multimodal
dimension is constructed affects the film's interpretive openness.
2. A general model for understanding reception as an active encounter between a
multimodal text and an active audience. The model proposes that reception is constrained
on three interconnected levels: 1) the affordances of the multimodal text, 2) the framing
following from the communicative situation as well as from the social position, personal
experiences, and knowledge of the audiences, and 3) the multimodal dimension.
In the thesis, the musical strategies and multimodal semiotic potential of Frozen (2013),
Up (2009) and Shrek the Third (2007) are discussed and compared with Danish children's
(aged 7-11) expressed understandings of the films (obtained through interviews). In this
way, the thesis sheds light on how children relate to and use filmic form, particularly
music, in negotiating the films’ content. The thesis shows that children are active and
critical viewers with a broad film-musical literacy. The children draw on knowledge of
film-musical conventions for creating mood and narrative expectations, and they comment on
leitmotif techniques and make references to famous film music. The aesthetic elements of
music and visuals are moreover a motivational factor for their enjoyment of the films, and
the children use their personal experiences and cultural background for creating a frame
within which to evaluate both the music, the characters, and the film as a whole.
You can find more information about the thesis and the defense here:
https://lnu.se/en/meet-linnaeus-university/current/events/2021/public-defen…
I look forward to seeing you on the 10!
Best wishes,
Signe
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>