Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: Shelley Fisher Fishkin. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-200). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This study explores the responses of twelve fifth graders to Japanese pictorial texts - manga (Japanese comics), anime (Japanese animations), kamishibai (Japanese traditional visual storytelling), and picture books - and their connections to Japanese culture and people. This study took place Cañon Elementary School in Black Canyon City in Arizona. The guiding research questions for this study were: How do children respond to Japanese pictorial texts? and What understandings of Japanese culture are demonstrated in children's inquiries and responses to Japanese pictorial texts? The study drew on reader response theory, New Literacy Studies, and multimodality. Data collection included participant-observation, videotaped/audiotaped classroom discussions and interviews, participants' written and artistic artifacts, ethnographic fieldnotes, and reflection journals. Results revealed that children demonstrated four types of responses including (1) analytical, (2) personal, (3) intertexual, and (4) cultural. These findings illustrate that the children actively employed their popular culture knowledge to make intertextual connections as part of meaning making from the stories. They also showed four types of cultural responses including (1) ethnocentrism, (2) understanding and acceptance, (3) respect and appreciation and valuing, and (4) change. This study makes a unique contribution to reader response as it examines American children's cultural understandings and literary responses to Japanese pictorial texts (manga, anime, kamishibai, and picture books).

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日本卡通在台灣相當受到歡迎，其閱聽人不只限於兒童，更擴大到青少年甚至年輕成人的年齡層，已經是台灣重要的電視節目類型。日本卡通除了媒體文本的播映之外，同時亦挾帶大量相關產品叩關，不但創造出廣大的商機，更全面而深入的影響了閱聽人／消費者的休閒娛樂與日常生活空間。 本研究採用問卷調查的方式，以台北市國高中生為研究對象，深入探討國內青少年接受日本卡通與相關商品的情形。研究者首先探討媒介結合商品的廠商策略與市場現狀，繼而從閱聽人使用的角度，追問青少年如何將卡通相關產品使用在日常生活當中，並綜合討論日本卡通影響下的青少年消費文化。 統計結果發現青少年收看日本卡通的時間能夠有效預測日本卡通相關商品的購買頻率，因此證實了收看日本卡通確實能夠提高青少年對於日本卡通相關商品的購買行為。研究發現日本卡通結合相關產品的銷售可以互相增強，而台灣青少年購買最多的卡通相關產品，是兼媒體、商品於一身的漫畫與電動，因此卡通、漫畫、電動三者隱然表現出一種「成套」販賣、使用的特色，甚至對日本流行文化整體的接觸與好感都有互相加強的現象。研究亦發現台灣青少年購買卡通商品時，最主要的意義是「新奇流行」，可知台灣青少年受到消費主義相當的影響，尚未發展出具有真實性、抗拒性的青少年文化。然而資本主義市場邏輯與青少年文化的抗拒特性關係相當複雜，因此台灣青少年是否具有主動性？這個問題仍留下許多值得討論的空間。 / Japanese animation is so popular in Taiwan that it has become a major television genre across children, adolescents, and young adults. It is not only a media text, but also bringing lots of animation merchandise, including comic books, games, clothes, accessories, and so on. Thus Japanese animation industry has created marvelous benefit, and its influence is prevailing and deeply on many aspects of the audience/consumer*s leisure and everyday practice. This thesis takes the adolescents in Taipei for example, exploring the promotion tactics of the industry on the one hand, and discovering how the adolescents use the animation merchandise on the other; then the discussion of youth culture and consumer culture in Taiwan will be carry on. This research finds out that the animation merchandise would reinforce each other and enhance the audience/consumer*s buying frequency. Comics and games are consumed most by the adolescents in Taiwan, implying that the three (animation, comics, games) are sold and consumed in "packages". At the same time, the most important meaning adolescents inscribe to the animation merchandise is "fashion and novelty", revealing that the youth culture in Taiwan is following the market and consumerism, not a original and authentic one.