Tese de mestrado. Multimédia. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2010

<p>August Underground is one of the sickest series of movies that ever been made. We try to understand what makes them so chocking to its audience. Critics says that the August Underground movies imitates Snuff, and we ask the question; How do people know what Snuff looks like.</p>

Att snusa är något som kan leda till ett beroende och kan innebära en ökad risk för att få sjukdomar. Studien syftar till att dels undersöka snusares attityder och förklaringar till fortsatt användning av snus, dels förklaringar till att börja snusa. Sammanlagt åtta intervjuer genomfördes och analyserades med tematisering. I intervjuerna var det framträdande att gemenskap var anledningen till att börja snusa. Respondenterna utryckte flera faktorer till snusandet idag som ett bättre välmående, vanor eller att personen är beroende.  En slutsats är att en persons snusande verkar bero på attityden och inställningen till snus. Deltagarna framhåller att avgörande för om en person börjar snusa är de egna egenskaperna men också det sociala inflytande som andra har på personen. Studien bidrar med kunskaper om hur föräldrar, skolan och politiker kan jobba preventivt, det bidrar också till lärdomar i olika tobaksavvänjande miljöer.

August Underground is one of the sickest series of movies that ever been made. We try to understand what makes them so chocking to its audience. Critics says that the August Underground movies imitates Snuff, and we ask the question; How do people know what Snuff looks like.

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La présente étude propose une analyse historique de la légende urbaine des snuff movies. En premier lieu, elle se penche sur l’émergence de cette rumeur dans le paysage médiatique américain des années 70 tout en focalisant sur certains objets filmiques l’ayant crédibilisée, principalement les stag et les mondo movies. Ce mémoire analyse par la suite l’influence majeure de deux événements sur l’implantation de la légende urbaine dans l’imaginaire collectif, soit l’assassinat de Sharon Tate et la circulation du film de Zapruder. Après avoir étudié la persistance de la rumeur, cet essai focalise sur la promotion et l’exploitation de Snuff (1976) en plus de proposer une analyse de ce long métrage. Ensuite, il se penche sur deux types de représentations du snuff dans le cinéma de fiction ainsi que leurs impacts sur l’authentification de la légende urbaine. Il est d’abord question des mises en scène du snuff dans le cinéma populaire qui s’inspirent de la rumeur pour ensuite l’actualiser. Sont ensuite étudiées les représentations du snuff à titre de faux documents, soit ces œuvres qui tentent par divers procédés de se faire passer pour de véritables films clandestins et, de ce fait, authentifient l’objet auquel ils se réfèrent. Puisque cette étude analyse l’évolution médiatique de la légende urbaine, elle se conclut sur son déplacement du cinéma vers Internet et de sa nouvelle crédibilisation grâce aux vidéos macabres, à la pornographie juvénile et au récent cas Magnotta. / The following study proposes a historical analysis of the urban legend of snuff movies. First, it examines the emergence of this rumor in the American media landscape of the 1970s, while focusing on the cinematic objects having reinforced its credibility, mainly stag and mondo movies. This memoir subsequently analyzes the major influence two events had towards implementing this urban legend into the collective imaginary, namely the assassination of Sharon Tate and the circulation of the Zapruder film. After studying the persistence of the rumor, this essay focuses on the promotion and exploitation of Snuff (1976), offering, in addition, an analysis of this feature film. Following this, this essay addresses two types of snuff representation in fiction film, as well as their impact on the authentication of the urban legend. First, there is the issue of the staging of snuff in popular cinema, taking inspiration from the rumor in order to update it in return. Secondly, is studied the representations of snuff as fake documents, namely the works attempting, through various processes, to pass for genuinely illegal films, thus authenticating the objects they are a reference to. Because this study analyzes the evolution of the media surrounding the urban legend, it concludes on its displacement from the cinema to the Internet, and the new credibility allowed by macabre videos, child pornography and the recent Magnotta case.

La présente étude propose une analyse historique de la légende urbaine des snuff movies. En premier lieu, elle se penche sur l’émergence de cette rumeur dans le paysage médiatique américain des années 70 tout en focalisant sur certains objets filmiques l’ayant crédibilisée, principalement les stag et les mondo movies. Ce mémoire analyse par la suite l’influence majeure de deux événements sur l’implantation de la légende urbaine dans l’imaginaire collectif, soit l’assassinat de Sharon Tate et la circulation du film de Zapruder. Après avoir étudié la persistance de la rumeur, cet essai focalise sur la promotion et l’exploitation de Snuff (1976) en plus de proposer une analyse de ce long métrage. Ensuite, il se penche sur deux types de représentations du snuff dans le cinéma de fiction ainsi que leurs impacts sur l’authentification de la légende urbaine. Il est d’abord question des mises en scène du snuff dans le cinéma populaire qui s’inspirent de la rumeur pour ensuite l’actualiser. Sont ensuite étudiées les représentations du snuff à titre de faux documents, soit ces œuvres qui tentent par divers procédés de se faire passer pour de véritables films clandestins et, de ce fait, authentifient l’objet auquel ils se réfèrent. Puisque cette étude analyse l’évolution médiatique de la légende urbaine, elle se conclut sur son déplacement du cinéma vers Internet et de sa nouvelle crédibilisation grâce aux vidéos macabres, à la pornographie juvénile et au récent cas Magnotta. / The following study proposes a historical analysis of the urban legend of snuff movies. First, it examines the emergence of this rumor in the American media landscape of the 1970s, while focusing on the cinematic objects having reinforced its credibility, mainly stag and mondo movies. This memoir subsequently analyzes the major influence two events had towards implementing this urban legend into the collective imaginary, namely the assassination of Sharon Tate and the circulation of the Zapruder film. After studying the persistence of the rumor, this essay focuses on the promotion and exploitation of Snuff (1976), offering, in addition, an analysis of this feature film. Following this, this essay addresses two types of snuff representation in fiction film, as well as their impact on the authentication of the urban legend. First, there is the issue of the staging of snuff in popular cinema, taking inspiration from the rumor in order to update it in return. Secondly, is studied the representations of snuff as fake documents, namely the works attempting, through various processes, to pass for genuinely illegal films, thus authenticating the objects they are a reference to. Because this study analyzes the evolution of the media surrounding the urban legend, it concludes on its displacement from the cinema to the Internet, and the new credibility allowed by macabre videos, child pornography and the recent Magnotta case.

<p>The purpose of this essay has been to examine whether attitudes and behavior among Swedish people who takes snuff are dissonant or not and how their attitudes are affected by the media debate about the health risks snuff can cause. Furthermore, we were interested in finding out how different reference groups´ attitudes would influence the attitudes and the willingness of people to stop taking snuff and investigate how much control the people who take snuff think they have. To answer these questions we chose to ask primarily students at Stockholm University and Södertörns Högskola. The students were asked to fill out a questionnaire with 22 questions and the 100 responses we collected were worked up in a statistic program, SPSS, on the computer. The main models used for the essay and for the questionnaire were the Theory of Planned behavior and the Dissonance theory. Later, theories about rationality, risks and health were added to the essay.</p><p>The results showed that the media debate does not influence the respondents to stop taking snuff and since the majority of the respondents had many friends that took snuff as well, the respondents didn’t feel any great dissonance which made their intention to stop even smaller. The answers to the question about the perceived behavior control tended to be quite contradictive. The respondents admitted to be addictive to nicotine but at the same time they said that they were able to quit taking snuff tomorrow if they wanted to. It seems like they underestimated the power of nicotine and overestimated their ability to quit. This is according to earlier research a very common thing among addicts.</p><p>The results are not statistically significant since the number of respondents were very few. This essay may serve as a preliminary investigation for further research in this area. </p>

Most oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is believed to develop via a multistep process of cumulative gene damage in epithelial cells. Increasing incidence of OSCC and evidence that traditional risk factors may not be responsible directed us to investigate the prevalence of virus in pre- and malignant samples.The integration of the DNA from human papillomavirus (HPV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and Herpes simplex (HSV) into the human genome is associated with the expression of oncogenes and the down-regulation of tumor-suppressor genes in OSCC carcinogenesis. This thesis compared samples from India and Sudan, two countries on two continents having a documented high incidence of oral cancer, with specimens from Sweden, with its known low incidence of oral cancer. Each region has, in addition to smoking, a unique non-smoked tobacco habits with documented carcinogenic effects. These countries also typify areas of low and high socioeconomic living conditions with their expected impact on disease development. The study populations were selected from tobacco users and nonusers with OSCC, oral sub-mucous fibrosis (India), oral lichen planus (Sweden), oral leukoplakia with and without dysplasia and snuff-induced lesions (Sweden and Sudan). An expedient method was developed for extracting DNA from old formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded biopsies. The prevalence of HPV, EBV, and HSV was investigated using PCR/DNA sequencing and southern blot hybridization analysis. We found HPV and EBV to be most prevalent in samples of tissue characterized as normal, with decreasing prevalence in dysplastic and malignant lesions. This intriguing finding that prevalence decreases as neoplastic development proceeds warrants further investigation. Our data do not at first sight support the conclusion that viruses and tobacco use jointly interact with cell mechanisms in the development of oral cancer.

The purpose of this essay has been to examine whether attitudes and behavior among Swedish people who takes snuff are dissonant or not and how their attitudes are affected by the media debate about the health risks snuff can cause. Furthermore, we were interested in finding out how different reference groups´ attitudes would influence the attitudes and the willingness of people to stop taking snuff and investigate how much control the people who take snuff think they have. To answer these questions we chose to ask primarily students at Stockholm University and Södertörns Högskola. The students were asked to fill out a questionnaire with 22 questions and the 100 responses we collected were worked up in a statistic program, SPSS, on the computer. The main models used for the essay and for the questionnaire were the Theory of Planned behavior and the Dissonance theory. Later, theories about rationality, risks and health were added to the essay. The results showed that the media debate does not influence the respondents to stop taking snuff and since the majority of the respondents had many friends that took snuff as well, the respondents didn’t feel any great dissonance which made their intention to stop even smaller. The answers to the question about the perceived behavior control tended to be quite contradictive. The respondents admitted to be addictive to nicotine but at the same time they said that they were able to quit taking snuff tomorrow if they wanted to. It seems like they underestimated the power of nicotine and overestimated their ability to quit. This is according to earlier research a very common thing among addicts. The results are not statistically significant since the number of respondents were very few. This essay may serve as a preliminary investigation for further research in this area.