Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This dissertation examines the monologues of The Ring and the Book to describe and evaluate the role of the speaker-environment relationship in structuring the poem. Although this relationship has been studied in the shorter works of Browning, little critical attention has been devoted to its role in his major work, despite the poet's extensive comments in Book I on his dramatic method of "resuscitating" dead voices [TRUNCATED]. / 2031-01-01

A matéria de que trata esta tese é a discussão do espetáculo Teatro-Esporte (tradução artística do método de improvisação teatral criado por Keith Johnstone) e suas contribuições para o trabalho do ator e para a formação de e do público de teatro. Este trabalho (desenvolvido por meio da discussão de situações reais, vivenciadas em treinamentos e apresentações do espetáculo) examina questões pertinentes ao processo de criação teatral, vistas sob a ótica dos fundamentos do referido método de improvisação, e como estes se materializam no espetáculo e em sua relação com o público. A partir desta análise, torna-se possível considerar a aplicação das ideias de Keith Johnstone como um caminho, tanto para o trabalho do ator na criação de cenas, personagens e narrativas, quanto para a construção do espetáculo, uma experiência teatral viva, na qual a imaginação e a espontaneidade ocupam lugar de destaque, enquanto uma pedagogia do espectador. / The subject matter of this thesis is the discussion of spectacle Theatresports (artistic rendering of the method of theatrical improvisation created by Keith Johnstone) and their contributions to the actors work as well as the formation to and of a theater audience. This work (developed through discussion of real situations that are experienced in training and presentations of the show) examines the issues that are pertinent to the process of theatrical creation, from the perspective of the grounds of the above mentioned method of improvisation and how they materialize in the show and their relationship to the audience. From this analysis, it becomes possible to consider the application of Keith Johnstones ideas as a way to both the work of the actor in creating scenes, characters and narratives as well as a construction of a spectacle, a lively theatrical experience in which imagination and spontaneity occupy a prominent position as a spectators pedagogy.

This thesis presents an investigation into the experience of ESL Higher Education young writers when composing three online genres: academic text, diary texts, and blog texts. Central to this investigation is the authenticity of audience and directing texts to ‘real’ readers. Hence, technological tools are utilised in order to approximate such experience of writing for real readers. A qualitative case study was employed over three months of an academic semester at an Omani Higher Education College. Two cases participated in the study of overall 17 students across both cases: 5 males and 12 females and 10 students in case 1 and 7 students in case 2. To attain an in-depth understanding of the cases; different tools of data collection were deployed, including: interviews, classroom observation, reflective diary for recording student perceptions and experiences, and three forms of written texts were collected from the participating students: academic essay, diary, and blog. Thus the reflective diary was both a genre of writing and a data collection method. The study findings highlight that having only a teacher as an ‘audience’ restricted students’ attempts to focus on content, and most of this focus was given to shaping texts in accordance with student perceptions of teacher approved organisation and representation of text. Whereas blogging provided an opportunity to think of a wider range of readers and therefore a greater tendency to author personally selected texts. Also, diary was mostly associated with teacher-audience; though some writers enjoyed writing diary for personal use, the fact that these diary texts vary in accordance with these different understandings of audience offers further credence to claims about the role of real and assumed readers in shaping texts. The significance of the current study is that it offers practical and pedagogical thinking for teaching writing in ESL exploiting the affordances of technology in teaching process writing. It suggests that varying both audience and genres in relation to classroom writing tasks can have benefits for student writers in terms of their understanding of audience, their shaping of text for an audience and increased investment in the content of what they write. It offers insights into problems and issues felt by young writers that are usually unknown to the teachers. Based on those insights, differing issues such as collaboration, process writing and grading are re-evaluated.

Os logos de televisão são uma das mais importantes estratégias criadas e registradas pelas emissoras de televisão para proteger o conteúdo produzido e distribuído por elas. Cada logo é único, gerando robustez e segurança ao processo de medição de audiência de televisão. Estes logos podem ser considerados uma marca d\'água, que em alguns casos identificam não só a emissora, mas também o tipo de conteúdo que está sendo veiculado. Por exemplo, alguns canais mudam o logo de semitransparente para opaco quando há uma transmissão ao vivo. No reconhecimento de logos em tempo real utilizando-se sistemas embarcados, torna-se necessário o uso de técnicas que reduzam o processamento e o armazenamento de dados. Neste trabalho estudamos os principais métodos envolvidos em reconhecimento de imagens encontrados na literatura. Verificamos o uso do logo em outras aplicações, e desenvolvemos uma solução viável, técnica e economicamente. Aplicamos a técnica proposta em dados previamente gravados, e também em situações em tempo real, onde não se tem o controle do tipo de vídeo ao qual será veiculado. Avaliamos o novo método proposto e sua melhoria ao longo do processo, demonstrando a sua viabilidade. Apresentamos resultados comparativos entre o primeiro paper publicado e os novos métodos. / Television logo is one of the most important strategies used by the broadcasting companies to claim and protect the contents created and broadcasted by them. Each logo is unique, yielding robustness and security to the measurement of television audience. These logos can be considered as visible watermarks, and in some cases can identify the kind of broadcasted content, besides identifying the broadcasting company. For instance, some broadcasting company changes the logo\'s type from semitransparent to opaque to identify a live broadcast. For real time logo recognition using embedded systems, it is necessary to reduce the amount of processing and the memory storage. In this work, we describe the methods involved in logo recognition found in the literature. We verify the use of logos in other applications, and developed a technically and economically viable solution to recognize television logos in real time.

This thesis focuses on the issue of how language users refer to an entity during discourse production, by investigating representations and processes that underlie the choice between pronouns and repeated noun phrases. Past research has shown that the use of pronouns (relative to more explicit expressions) is affected by the referent’s salience in the prior linguistic context, but much less is known about how non-linguistic context affects the referent’s salience and the choice of expression. Recent research has suggested that the referent’s non-linguistic salience has no effect on the choice of pronouns and names (Arnold & Griffin, 2007). One of the major findings of the research reported in this thesis is that the referent's salience in the visual context plays an important role in the form of reference: Pronouns were less frequent (relative to repeated noun phrases) when the competitor was present than absent in the visual context. My second major finding is that similarity-based interference affects the choice of referring expressions. Pronouns are less frequent when discourse entities are similar in terms of their inherent conceptual properties as well as extrinsic properties, suggesting that the more similar the competitor to the referent, the stronger the interference, reducing pronoun usage. My third major finding is that contrary to many linguistic theories that assume that speakers choose referring expressions that are optimally helpful for their addressee (Ariel, 1990; Clark & Marshall, 1981; Givón, 1983), speakers do not choose expressions by adopting the addressee's discourse model: Pronouns are more frequent when the referent is salient to the speaker, not to the addressee. I argue that the explicitness of referring expressions is affected by the degree of conceptual access that is needed to initiate production processes: The more conceptual access is needed, the more elaborate expressions tend to be produced.

Music has been part of human culture since the beginning of civilization. All musical types, styles, and genres are products of different cultures at different times. What we refer to today as Classical Music are the musical compositions written for standard Western European orchestral instruments ranging from solo to chamber music to symphony orchestra. Towards the end of the nineteenth-century classical music gradually came to be seen as "serious" music that required deeper knowledge in order to truly appreciate it. With the rise of the popular music category, classical music itself has become less relevant and less a part of today’s society. Classical music institutions have thus been trying to find different strategies to reconnect classical music with audiences. Examples include attractive subscription schemes, varied concert formats, and community and educational projects. It is also notable that non-musical aspects connected with concerts also contribute to an audience’s overall decision making. The quality of the performance is not the only factor anymore that needs to be considered to ensure success. This dissertation explores different strategies used by some prominent Western European art music organizations, mainly orchestras, to creatively engage their audiences. These strategies are examples of successful audience engagement that can serve as a resource for other organizations in their quest to engage their own audiences.

Since 2000, there has been an explosion of "reality," or unscripted, television shows in a variety of formats. The series in which new societies are created in isolation appeared almost immediately to be influenced by certain identity constructs, particularly gender and sexual orientation. Audiences came to these shows with definite expectations already in place. I intend in this study to determine why this is so and what those expectations are. Survivor, the germinal presentation of this genre, has as its motto "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast." However, as the show has developed through many iterations, the ability to literally survive in a hostile environment has been eclipsed by what is now called "the social game" by contestant, viewers, producers and observers of the phenomenon. Because of cultural stereotypes about gender, amateur review writers, along with regular viewers who frequent internet communications spaces, began to remark on how women win (when they do) compared to how men win, and to comment upon the various player behaviors and strategies in terms of sexual orientation, race, age and other constructs. Because I was hooked in the first Survivor series, and subsequently became interested in Big Brother as well, I searched for information online and discovered the explosion of discussions. Despite all the other aspects of, and activities in, these games, the large majority of the texts seemed to center upon identity constructs. Although there is a great deal of strategy to observe and discuss, even that was frequently couched in what a viewer could expect of a person of given gender or sexual orientation. It wasn't long before I began to perceive both the programs and the writing generated by them as texts that could be analyzed in terms of rhetorical appeals. Certain texts which might be expected to demonstrate credibility were ignored in favor of emotional reinforcement. Viewers and reviewers seemed most pleased with, and attributed the most credibility to, those speech acts and behaviors which resonated with their values and beliefs systems, regardless of their effectiveness I found this trend interesting enough, and distressing enough, to examine in depth to learn how people read the texts of strategy-genre reality television. In general, there is a complete lack of critical viewing and no application of logic except by academics and journalists. Average viewers reject whatever does not match their belief system, even if that behavior wins the game. Feelings have eclipsed all else as the standard of credibility and value. I conclude that credibility may only be derived from a text when feelings match viewer values. Of paramount importance in matching these values are the behaviors of the players, in that they must meet expectations in stereotype and tradition, and of course, the gender and sexual orientation of the winner.

With the rise of the mass media over the last century, fame and celebrity seem to have evolved into ever-growing phenomena. Likewise, audience members have sought increasing involvement with people or activities related to the focus of their interest. These individuals are not content to simply watch their favorite actors or films from home. Instead, they take a more active approach, engaging in activities related to their fandom as well as seeking interaction with each other in organized groups (in person and on the Internet), attending conventions, and seeking interaction with celebrities. This study presents a discussion of fame, celebrity, and participatory fandom, to examine what motivates certain individuals to seek active involvement in fandom. Using the theories of Uses and Gratifications and Social Learning, it looks at this unique relationship and possible causes for certain members of an audience to actively participate in fandom and seek interaction with each other and with celebrities. Areas examined include social group identification, personal identification with celebrities, false intimacy with celebrities, parasocial interaction, the possibility of meeting celebrities and a feeling of empowerment as a member of a fan community. This qualitative research took an ethnographic case study approach, using in-depth interviews and participant observation of attendees and activities at DragonCon, a large annual media convention in Atlanta, Georgia. This study sought to examine what themes might emerge to identify motivations for fans' active participation in fandom. Seventeen participants were chosen using convenience sampling and interviewed about their experience at the convention. In data analysis, three major concepts emerged in regard to the participants' motivation for attending the convention: Fans seek out social interaction, interaction with celebrities, and enjoy being a part of a participation environment.

The postmodern critique has effectively called on anthropologists to reevaluate ethnographic authority when representing others. However, what is often found lacking in this criticism is an exploration of the ways in which audiences interpret anthropological knowledge. One crucial area that can be easily researched is audience reception of film in introductory anthropology classes. As professors of anthropology increasingly rely on film for illustrating anthropological concepts, we must have an understanding of how this medium is interpreted by student audiences. Film's ability to convey complex information without additional contextualization has yet to be substantiated and previous research has indicated that visual communication's messages may easily be misinterpreted by audiences. Furthermore, there is evidence that films, if used improperly, may perpetuate students' negative impressions of cultures other than their own. Finally, any research into audience reception of film in the classroom must consider the factors outside the class that shape an audience's interpretations of films. The research presented in this thesis looks at the use of film in teaching introductory classes at USF. The goal is to connect the students' interpretations of films to the contextual factors of the classroom as well as considering the larger influence that the surrounding media culture in everyday life has on the interpretation of film in the classroom. In this way, the research strives to offer recommendations that may improve the effectiveness of using film when teaching introductory anthropology classes.

Despite the long history of stand-up comedy as a distinct form of popular entertainment, there has been little sociological attention given to its cultural significance. Comedians have arguably become legitimate and visible voices in many public conversations about social issues and social justice. This dissertation explores the cultural work of women’s comedy in popular culture. Specifically, I examine narrative representation and audience reception of women’s stand-up comedy through multi-method qualitative inquiry. First, I analyze stand-up performances by popular U.S. comedians Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Margaret Cho. Through narrative analysis, I focus on the ironic performativity of Schumer and the charged styles of Sykes and Cho, and I discuss how these women use humor (in different but overlapping ways) to challenge dominant cultural narratives pertaining to gender, race, and sexuality. Second, I conduct an audience reception analysis using focus groups in order to better understand how people consume and interpret stand-up comedy. Due to the polysemic nature of comedy and satire, audiences decode these texts in a myriad of ways. My analysis shows how different audiences perceive the comedian as unpacking social “truths” in comedy. I elaborate these audience decoding positions, discuss the layers of interpretation (i.e., intersectional positionality and interpretive frameworks), and discuss how participants negotiate symbolic boundaries around what is deemed funny or topically appropriate for comics to say. My findings further highlight the importance of identity in critical referential viewing by incorporating standpoint epistemologies. In particular, audience members of marginalized social groups experience a “bifurcated consciousness” (Smith 1974) in their interpretations compared to those from dominant identity groups, and women and minority audience members are more likely to interpret these performances as counterhegemonic texts.