Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin-Stout., 2003. / "December, 2003". "A research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree with major in Global Hospitality; Approved: 3 semester credits (signature) professor Lynnette Brouwer; The Graduate School, University of Wisconsin-Stout." Description based on 2005 edition printed on Aug. 2, 2007 from http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/55215981?page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uwstout.edu%2Flib%2Fthesis%2F2003%2F2003straussa.pdf&title=&linktype=digitalObject&detail= Bibliography p. 36-40. Also available online (viewed 2 Aug. 2007) at address: http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/55215981?page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uwstout.edu%2Flib%2Fthesis%2F2003%2F2003straussa.pdf&title=&linktype=digitalObject&detail=

A revision of the author's Thesis (doctoral)--University of Amsterdam, 2000. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. [437]-451) and indexes.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on November 18, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Roger Cook. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the confusion of reality and unreality in contemporary media discourses, and focuses specifically upon the medium of cinema. The art of our time, cinema reflects the postmodern fusion between machine and culture. As such, a crucial concern of this work, which addresses the impact of digital and visual technological developments in western societies and examines how such advances have come to supersede the historical and cultural imperatives, is precisely this resultant confusion/fragmentation. The thesis analyzes how audiences interpret the current cinematic evolution, based on computer generated imagery, and how their subjectivity influences and impacts upon knowledge, ideology, culture and society as a whole. The creation of (un)realities in fictional spaces is most apparent in such concurrent places as the Internet, videogames and Virtual Reality, spaces which are certainly of interest to this thesis. However, it is also crucial to note that recent years have seen a proliferation of films based on the confusion between reality and unreality; and, further, that these have enforced a fear of being deceived by technology. Indeed, such post-classical films as Total Recall (Verhoeven, 1990), The Lawnmower Man (Leonard, 1992), The Matrix (Wachowski and Wachowski, 1999) and eXistenZ (Cronenberg, 1999) materialize this fear cinematographically; a fear which is arguably then assimilated by the spectators because this fear is projected onto their lives. In this respect, it is essential to be aware of the creation of new spaces, identify related boundaries and understand our own creations in order to have control over our destiny. Concepts such as (un)reality, a hybrid of reality and fiction, are essential to refer to the inventions, contexts and information that appears in a world where atoms and a binary of 0s and 1s constitute a dual code to which our lives conform. The production of an original film, Luna (Diaz Gandasegui, 2007), works in synergy with the written text to illuminate the complexities of (un)reality and the vital influence of technology on its confusion.

Motivated by a concern as to why Zambians are attracted to foreign media in the form of Nigerian movies, this thesis is a qualitative audience study which investigates the popularity of Nigerian movies in Zambia with a focus on Lusaka viewers. Against the dominance of Western media and most especially Hollywood movies, this study explores the popularity of Nigerian movies in Zambia which highlights the circulation of media within and between non-Western countries. This is an aspect of trans-national cultural flows that has been ignored in theories of media imperialism. The thesis argues that the widespread popularity of Nigerian movies in Africa and in Zambia in particular necessitates a revision of the conceptions of global cultural flows that privilege the centrality of the West but ignore other centres engaged in contemporary cultural production.

No description available.

The roles that women perform as depicted in African films are often dictated to by the type of society they find themselves in. At first glance traditional societies can be seen as oppressive because of the presence of certain cultural practices. Alternatively modern urban settings appear to offer women authority and empowerment through employment. However, with a closer examination one sees that the situation is not so simplistic. Such is the case when certain traditional practices that are deemed oppressive through a Western perspective, are still found in urban societies. Films on the subject of African women have to be cautious not place their characters in stereotypical roles. Therefore, it is not enough to merely portray African women as ‘oppressed’. African films that engage in a feminist critique need to present ‘realistic’ portrayals of African women. Such characters are layered and complex. The film Faat Kine (2000) depicts such a character in the authoritative protagonist Kine. The film La Vie est Belle (1987) examines the issue of polygamous marriages and patriarchy from the point of view of two African women living in France. Touki Bouki (1973) examines two young characters living in Senegal and questions the possibility of escape from ones circumstances. Traditional practices such as polygamous marriages are explored in Xala (1975), and Finzan (1989) explores cultural practices such as forced marriages and female circumcision. This treatise will consider women and work in both traditional society and urban settings. African feminism will also be investigated for the purpose of exploring common social perceptions of women in Africa.

In many societies in developing countries, women are not given a chance to communicate their issues. The organisation within these societies places men at the top, giving them the opportunity to make all the important decisions. This situation is reflected in the two films which fall under this study, namely, Water and Moolaadé both of which are fictional representations of the oppression of women. In this study, an attempt is made to explain communication struggles in the two films: Water, reflecting Indian society and Moolaadé, reflecting African society. To understand the outcome of these struggles against patriarchy, the study looks at two types of feminism: Indian feminism and African feminism and attempts to find the sense that characters in the film can be understood. The analysis also looks at what the women, who act as feminists in the films have achieved out of their struggles to break the silence and how their voices have influenced or sensitised the silenced majority of women in their societies. Feminist communication theories have been used to analyse the female voice in the films. In the conclusion, I have argued that in both films women have managed to transform their respective societies. However more potential to social transformation are revealed by women depicted in Moolaadé than in Water, where there is very slow pace of change.

Despite enormous informational complexity in the optical environment, the visual world is effortlessly seen as coherent. Indeed, an object may change in virtually all of its physical properties and in its spatial location and yet maintain a constant perceptual identity. Apparently pieces of information registered in different segments of space-time, but referring to the same object, are perceptually integrated. Kahneman, Treisman and Gibbs (in progress) explored the cognitive organization corresponding to this perceptual organization; the present thesis represents an extension of their work. To study the spatiotemporal integration of information regarding moving objects they developed the preview paradigm. The prototypical visual display of this paradigm consists of three phases: (a) Letters are presented, each within a line-figure object, and are then removed (field-1), (b) the empty objects move to new positions, (c) letters are again presented in the objects and a marker appears, cueing one of them (field-2). The task is to name the letter in the cued object. The critical reaction time (RT) comparison is between consistent conditions (the target letter is previewed in the target object) and inconsistent conditions (the target letter is previewed, but in another object). An RT advantage for consistent conditions is termed the object effect because it represents object-specific facilitation. Object effects were generated in many experiments, including one utilizing only apparent motion to create objects. Certain experiments suggested that the object effect does not occur at a lexical or semantic level, but involves information concerning physical properties. The present thesis further explores the physical nature of the information integration underlying the object effect. Preview experiments were conducted, typically not with a letter-naming task, but with tasks requiring stimulus identification on the basis of a particular physical property. In experiments utilizing four moving line figures, object effects were obtained with presence and size. These effects were not artifacts of attending to field-1 or of confusing field-1 with field-2. In experiments utilizing apparent motion, object effects were obtained with color and with letters. Duodimension experiments elaborated the paradigm by introducing variation on a response-irrelevant dimension. The presence object effect was reduced by response-irrelevant shape inconsistency; the size object effect was eliminated by response-irrelevant shape inconsistency; the color object effect was unaffected by response-irrelevant letter-shape inconsistency; the letter object effect was slightly reduced by response-irrelevant color inconsistency. The duodimension results suggest that the object-specific representation underlying the object effect consists of somewhat conjoined properties. This has implications for the role of attention in the object effect, and inspires the speculation that motion might be special with respect to attention. Accounts of the object effect rival to Kahneman et al.'s can be proposed: that it results from the integration of response tendencies rather than stimulus information, that it is based on a decrease in apparent distance between stimuli rather than on their unitization, and that its seeming retroactivity is an illusion produced by the relative quickness with which low spatial frequencies are processed. The present results support arguments against each of these accounts. The general conclusion of this thesis is that the spatiotemporal integration underlying the object effect does involve information about physical properties. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.