No description available.

The present study sought to expand current understandings of how and why participants identify with television characters, as well as how this identification is related to self-efficacy and safe sex intentions regarding HIV prevention. Based on the Entertainment Overcoming Resistance Model, it was expected that when viewers identify with characters in a media program, they would be less likely to counterargue or reject the HIV prevention Hkmessage, but more likely to have greater intentions and self-efficacy in modeling the behaviors shown in the program. This study also sought to understand whether these outcomes may be influenced by the gender of the participant. This study also examined ways of applying the EORM model to African American audiences. The levels of HIV/AIDS among African Americans make the need for prevention strategies for this specific community critical. This study sought a greater understanding of cultural influences, such as medical distrust. Medical distrust has been previously shown to influence responses of African American participants to health information messages. The African American sitcom One on One was chosen to show as a model of HIV prevention discussion and testing. The study included 142 participants. Following a pre-session survey, participants viewed the stimulus and responded to an online survey. Results showed that participants identified with the male and female lead characters in the program. A paired t-test revealed that females were more likely to identify with the female lead than they were with the male lead character. Medical distrust was related to greater counterarguing and lower self-efficacy to perform HIV prevention behaviors. Counterarguing against the message was low overall. Medical distrust did interact with identification in the prediction of counterarguing. However, counterarguing was not associated with less safe sex intentions. Identification with the characters in the program was related to greater self-efficacy for male participants. Self-efficacy was also related to greater safe sex intentions. Although identification was related to counterarguing and self-efficacy, these outcomes are also related to what aspects of the character viewers identify with and how they relate to the content of the media message.

Stories can play a crucial role in conveying health information to audiences. Several theories have been used to describe cognitive processing of narratives and subsequent belief change; yet there have been no comparative studies to date examining these theories.A primary objective was to compare transportation, flow, and AIME. A secondary objective of this study was to examine previous experience with a health issue as a possible moderator between exposure to entertainment television narratives and subsequent belief change. This is important to examine because previous experience may predispose audience members to have more durable attitudes.A pre-test/post-test experimental design was used to test theories of cognitive processing of narrative entertainment television programs with three different health topics: binge drinking, problem-eating behavior, and unprotected sexual intercourse. Stimuli were drawn from one-hour, broadcast television programming. Measures of the theories, health related beliefs, and previous experience with the three health issues were assessed.Findings revealed that different constructs represented in the three theories were significant predictors of belief change. Results showed that while most individual constructs of theories predicted belief change, the theories were not interchangeable. An analysis of the extent to which participants reported cognitive processing according to each theory revealed more flow and AIME experienced in comparison to transportation. Reports of flow and AIME were equal in a third condition. More globally, all three theories accounted for a significant portion of belief change, but no differentiation was evidenced between the theories in their ability to predict belief change.In analyses of the effects of exposure to television narratives, belief change was significant in all three treatment conditions. Previous experience with a health issue did not impede belief change following exposure to television narratives. This lends support to theorizing about cognitive processing of narratives in that previous experience with an issue may enhance story-consistent beliefs.Overall, findings demonstrate that a more fruitful endeavor in future research on the persuasive impact of narratives is to devote attention to the underlying constructs of theories, rather than assuming cognitive processes are the same among theories.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examines the theatre of Sheffield-based theatre group Forced Entertainment in terms of what art historian Robert Hewison terms 'Social Surrealism'. This term describes a politically engaged series of art practices that developed in Britain under Margaret Thatcher in the late nineteen-eighties. 'Social Surrealist' theatre makers adopted a radically different set of aesthetic strategies to the more traditional leftist political theatre tradition of 'social realism'. While Hewison links these practices to the so-called 'classical' Surrealism theorised by Andr?? Breton, I will argue that a more appropriate and useful Surrealist lineage to account for Forced Entertainment's theatre can be found in the writings of Andr?? Breton's main Surrealist rival, Georges Bataille. This thesis focuses on Bataille's notion of 'the formless' or formlessness, that which undoes and unravels the security and fixity of form, and uses this as a theoretical concept to account for the aesthetics and unravelling theatre practice of Forced Entertainment. This thesis then examines a selection of theatre works by Forced Entertainment, tracing the ways in which these works undo theatre using formlessness.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-212).

Thesis (M. Sc. (Computer Science))--Rhodes University, 2004.

No description available.

No description available.