Social inclusivity,cultural diversity and online film consumption

It has been argued that the circulation of film online is a “democratising process”, evident in the breadth and depth of international film now available online, and in the greater ease of access to this content for audiences across the world. This is seen by some to present greater commercial opportunities for film-making from countries marginalised by previous distribution networks, and to foster a more globally diverse and inclusive film-viewing culture, with particular benefits for diasporic populations. Others, however, have pointed to the way in which audiences’ engagement with film online may be constrained by the economics and technology of online distribution and cultural competencies rooted in social stratification. These factors may limit how and what audiences watch, extending beyond issues of physical access to those of cultural access. As such, they raise questions regarding the demographic composition of the audience for online methods of film distribution and different types of international film. We lack sufficient understanding of these issues, however, due to the limited emphasis upon socio-demographic variables in existing academic research into online film consumption, and the limited consideration of particular film content in relevant market research. This article uses original audience research to interrogate the extent to which online distribution is able to connect audiences to a diversity of international film in comparison to other methods of distribution. It also considers some of the socio-demographic characteristics of the audiences for different methods of distribution and types of international film. In doing so, the article grants us a clearer understanding of the degree to which online film distribution fosters diversity and inclusivity through the connections it facilitates between audiences and content.     

The Persuasive Influence of Nollywood Film in Cultural Transmission: Negotiating Nigerian Culture in a South African Environment

The popularity and viewership of Nollywood films have expanded across African and Western cities especially those with considerable Diaspora population. This study seeks to investigate whether watching Nollywood films is likely to lead to cross-cultural transmission of Nigeria’s cultural heritage to audience members in South Africa. Data for the study were collected using observation and surveys with Likert-type scales involving participants from a South African college. Results show that watching Nollywood films was significant in increasing participants’ knowledge and appreciation of Nigerian culture. Observed patterns indicate that a small portion of participants could mimic or reproduce some common Nigerian expressions and exclamations while a negligible percentage of participants could actually speak a smattering of Igbo, one of Nigeria’s three major languages.     

Mumford on aesthetic–moral interaction in sport

Stephen Mumford argues that aesthetic and moral values in sport are interdependent, focusing on cases where immorality taints beautiful performance. This interdependence thesis is insightful but, I argue, in need of refinement, as its normative implications are unclear and perhaps implausible (e.g. the Nazi aesthetics problem). I also challenge Mumford’s perspective on the infamous Dynamo Kiev death match. Whereas Mumford claims that the match’s morally oppressive circumstances detract from it so that ‘it was not something knowingly we should have admired aesthetically’, I argue that, on the contrary, and in light of what Mumford says about other cases, such circumstances actually enhance the game’s aesthetics such that it would be wrong not to appreciate it aesthetically.     

Revulsion and awe: charting the development of the moral economy of capitalism and its hero in the American imagination,from the protestant ethic to ecstasy of the entrepreneur

ABSTRACT

The spirit of capitalism shifted throughout the twentieth century, Boltanski and Chiapello place it sometime in the period between the 1960s and 1990s [2005, The New Spirit of Capitalism, Verso, London], for Bell it had happened by the mid-1970s and its contradictions were already apparent [1998, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Basic Books, New York]. David Harvey is more specific and cites 1979 as the dawn of the new era [2005, The New Spirit of Capitalism, Verso, London]. This paper seeks to build on this scholarship of the changing spirit of capitalism and read it through the development of the heroic figure of the American imagination, through the representation of the capitalist hero. Its aim is to situate the figure of the capitalist hero in the post-crash era and ultimately to understand the seductive power of the new capitalism that enables it to thrive. My thesis is that the seductive power of the new capitalism can be understood as an oscillation between revulsion and awe, we are both morally repulsed by the venality of capitalism yet also captivated by it. Revulsion and awe are at the core of the libidinality of the new capitalism and can be seen through the representation of the heroic object of the capitalist imagination.     

English education in the Indian multi-lingual classroom

In Britain, film studies came on the agenda in the 1970s, when it served as a terrain for the formulation of a critical understanding of how cinema functioned within the broader context of industrial capitalism and the nexus between that and the reshaping of people's habits and lives. However, during that decade, a different agenda was also at work, which, from the early 1980s, began to receive support from neo‐liberal ‘free‐market’ ideologues. Over a period of 30 years, the overall direction of the inquiry into cinema, now firmly sealed into institutional networks, has become such that the critical language of ‘film theory’ has been hollowed out and the industrial agenda of British national television and cinema wrapped around it. Today, with the opening of film studies departments across Asia, the question is not whether outside Britain the language of film studies will became available for instrumentalization by the forces of an expanding Euro‐American capital, but how it will do so. This paper argues that the recovery of film from the bureaucratization of its study and its rediscovery as one of the modalities of modernization require both a framework of analysis that is fully conscious of its own historicity and critical role, and a new topography of cinema.     

A true original

Abstract

This study analyzes Japanese and Korean ethno-national (minzoku-kokumin) education in postwar Japan. During a period of political unrest in Japan (1945–1955), some of the Korean residents and Japanese worked together to overcome the culture of Imperial Japan and its assimilative education. They also regarded themselves as people colonized by the United States, and pursued a political-cultural movement for their liberation and independence from American imperialism. The Koreans in Japan rejected compulsory education in the Japanese language. As a result, since 1956, Korean schools (Chōsengakkō), funded and supported by North Korea, were founded all across Japan. Their ethno-national education was in fact incorporated into North Korean politics, and has been considered in many studies as having overcome Japanese assimilation and ethnic inequalities. Such a view was a result of many academic Zainichi Korean studies that come from an “insider's perspective” to criticize Japanese colonialism and discrimination. In order to go beyond this insider's view, I focus on the political alliance between Zainichi Koreans and the Japanese people in their pursuit of ethno-national education. Since 2010, the Japanese state funding for Korean schools has become a major controversy in Japan. By tracing the historical background, this article intends to explain why this political issue has arisen. The ultimate purpose of this article is to suggest an ethical perspective to resolve the current political conflict regarding Korean schools in Japan.     

论影视文化对青少年思想道德的影响

青少年思维活跃、对信息的需求量大、具有强烈的好奇心、模仿能力强,但是知识经验比较少、鉴别是非的能力较弱、正处在价值观形成的阶段,这使得他们会将加工整理过的大众传媒作品误认为是真实的,容易受到传媒中负面信息的影响。因此,必须高度重视影视文化作品的影响。     

浅谈纪录片创作实践教育的三个方面

纪录片创作的实践教育将成为高校新闻传播教育的重要课题,理念教育建立复杂的真实观、素质教育培养道德修养、技术教育构建职业基础构成了纪录片创作教育的基本要素.     

0.9Pb(Sc_(0.5)Ta_(0.5))O_3-0.1PbTiO_3/PbTiO_3多层薄膜制备及铁电性研究

以LaNiO3做缓冲层,用射频磁控溅射法在SiO2/Si(100)衬底上制备出0.9Pb(Sc0.5Ta0.5)O3-0.1PbTiO3/PbTiO3铁电多层薄膜.采用两步法在峰值温度750℃对薄膜进行退火.通过电滞回线和漏电流曲线对薄膜的铁电性能进行了测量.研究发现,原位生长的薄膜已经具备了较好的铁电性,这为(1-x)Pb(Sc0.5Ta0.5)O3-x0.1PbTiO3薄膜的低温制备提供了可能性.经过退火后,薄膜的铁电性略有下降,高温下铅的损失可以很好的解释这一现象.     

电影《地心游记》的改编艺术

凡尔纳的小说《地心游记》一再被改编成电影,充分体现了他幻想小说经久不衰的艺术价值。无论是1959年版抑或2008年和2012年的两部新作品,这三部不同时期的电影,都是基于原著的原则上体现各自的改编特色。三部电影的成功改编都离不开电影导演对原著精髓的挖掘和想象的发挥。同时,在对电影美学充分展现的基础上也不忘把握观众的接受心理,使电影成为艺术性与商业性的结合,充分体现了电影改编的独特魅力。