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This dissertation is concerned with the spectators of the Roman chariot races throughout the empire. It addresses how the sport was experienced and engaged with in the Roman context, with consideration of the everyday lives of circus fans, social networks and consumer patterns. By making use of a variety of sources, including the structural remains of circuses, material culture, epigraphic evidence, and both literary and historical writings, it is possible to gain a picture of a vibrant community of circus fans that as a group were able to make an impact on the sport as well as on Roman society and culture more broadly. Circus spectators were confronted with an array of stimuli from the moment of their arrival at the venue - from the sights to the sounds and even the feel of the seats - all of which added to their shared experience. Audience members engaged not only with the sport but also with one another, finding common ground in their collective interest in the races. Aside from the casual spectator, many audience members identified themselves to be within a community of fans with common views and beliefs concerning the popular spectacle. Fans of the races passionately followed the sport and its competitors, and offered their support when in attendance at the circus and in their actions outside of the venue. An examination of the phenomena of Roman sport spectators further reveals a rich sub-culture of racing fans that offered an active social experience at the circus and various methods of engagement with the sport at the venue and beyond. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No / Maurizio Nichetti¿s comedy, Ladri di saponette/The Icicle Thief (1989) has been read as a mordant satire on commercial television and the world of consumerism it represents in late-1980s Italy. The context in which Nichetti¿s cinema was originally created and consumed is examined here in some detail. This is followed by an analysis of how a new frame of reference (the television screening of the film on commercial UK television in the 1990s) impacted on this work and what this can tell us about spectatorship and the problematic intermedial relationship between film, television and advertising.

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This thesis examines the desire for inclusion in association football amongst minority ethnic communities in England. The thesis is based on two case studies informed by semi-structured qualitative interviews. These case studies focus on two minority ethnic groups, the Asian community in Bury and the black community in the City of Liverpool, and the relationship of these respective communities with local professional football clubs (specifically Bury FC and Everton FC). The thesis notes that despite, by most objective measures, football grounds being less dangerous places to visit nowadays, members of minority ethnic groups continue to reject live spectatorship. Such rejection exists despite evidence of engagement in football amongst the male members of these minority ethnic groups. Asian respondents expressed little civic pride in Bury or interest in Bury FC, and thus their rejection of spectatorship opportunities was unconscious. Data from black respondents identified widespread sense of belonging and identification with the City of Liverpool, but conscious rejection of spectatorship at Everton FC. Despite recognition of the clubs anti-racist work black respondents argued that the idea persists that Everton are institutionally racist with racist fans. While such a perception had also previously been ascribed to Liverpool FC (Everton s near neighbours), such perceptions had changed quicker at Liverpool FC, who appear more effective at attracting minority ethnic spectators. A number of factors emerged that contribute to the continued rejection of spectatorship amongst British minority ethnic groups at professional football clubs. One of these is the perception that football clubs are unwelcoming places and white spaces . Fear of racism and fear of violence were also often cited although these were found not to be absolute in nature for either minority ethnic group. Indeed, evidence from both groups found that they are developing their own we image rather than internalising their own group disgrace , though it is also argued that Elias and Scotson s notion of two groups, the established (white s) and the outsiders (blacks), is too simplistic and a more fluid conceptualisation is called for. Overall, the data illustrated that the identities of members of minority ethnic groups are complex, multifunctional, context specific and fragmented and thus so are their relationships with football.

Our goal was to create an enhanced spectator experience to better engage the rapidly growing audience for Esports, through the use of Virtual Reality (VR) technology. In this study, we delve into the ways in which VR can do this. To test this hypothesis, we created a VR spectator add-on for a game and gathered data using semi-structured interviews. The data from the interviews were then analyzed using thematic analysis. The results of our study show that VR provides more engagement through a combination of possible factors including proximity to the action, novelty of VR experiences and the harder controls in VR. The results also show that the terms "immersion" and "spatial presence" were quite possibly used interchangeably by the participants and also that there may not be a correlation between the terms "engagement" and "spatial presence". In conclusion, we believe that the increased sense of engagement through VR technology can be taken even further and has the potential to be something more than what traditional modes of spectating can offer.

Student Number : 9803476V - MA research report - School of Arts - Faculty of Humanities / By drawing on contemporary scholarship that addresses spectatorship in the cinema generally, and in the horror genre specifically, I analyze the perverse pleasure afforded by The Blair Witch Project. To do this I argue that pleasure in horror is afforded through the masochistic positioning of the viewer, especially in relation to psychoanalytic theories surrounding gender in spectator positioning. I also look at the way the film re-deploys conventions, both documentary conceptions of the ‘real’, as well as generic expectations of horror, to activate the perverse pleasure of horror.

This thesis examines the differences regarding thereception between American and Swedish reviews of the Swedish film, The Square (2017, Ruben Östlund). It explores whether or not their differences and similarities reflect different cultural contexts. By analyzing twelve reviews, six from each country, and using a qualitative analysis and reception studies as a theoretical foundation, the thesis have looked at what impacts our cultural understanding of a film like The Square. Janet Staiger’s theories on different type of readers (such as coherent readers, ideal readers, misreaders and competent readers) have also been brought to discussion. Furthermore, four themes have been identified as constantly present throughout the reviews, and they are: modern times, political correctness, the art world, and the disconnection from others. I have compared these themes with each other in order to approach the differences and similarities between the reviews in both countries. The conclusion is that the reviews differ due to what type of reader the reviewers are, and if they are willing to go beyond their cultural framework to try to understand the cultural context, displayed in the film. The thesis is also written from a post-structural perspective, awknowleding how each interpretation says something essential about the themes in the film

This study explores the patriarchal unconscious underlying the Korean horror genre through a critical feminist psychoanalytical reading of the family dynamics and female agency in three landmark texts, namely, The Public Cemetery under the Moon (Kwon, Chul-hwi, 1967), Mother's Han (Lee, Yusup, 1970) and Woman's Wail (Lee, Hyuksu, 1986). By closely examining these horror film texts using insights from feminist psychoanalytic approaches and situating the texts within historical events and popular culture in the Park Chung Hee era, this study produces an understanding of the cultural dilemmas of women's desire and agency, and especially those of mothers. These textual analyses demonstrate that Confucian virtues, especially as been reinvented under Park Chung Hee's leadership to facilitate developmentalist goals, have formed the roots that shape the mother-child relationship into one that both parties want to dissolve. Through placing the cinematic representation of the monstrous feminine within a historical understanding of Korean horror cinema, this dissertation also demonstrates that the sacred, perfect image of the mother as it is known in Korean popular culture today is in fact historically produced formation within the genre. Besides, with Woman's Wail, a very characteristic Confucian female monster is discussed, namely, the mother-in-law. With this very rare type of the female monster, the misogynistic gender politics within Confucian patriarchy is saliently represented. The feminist psychoanalytic discussion on the spectatorship focuses on the interplay between the image and the Confucian female spectator. In a close reading of the two women's desires in The Public Cemetery under the Moon, this study explores the ways in which the female spectator may find visual pleasures in Korean horror cinema and the ways in which they are communicated and negotiated vis-à-vis the matrix of gender politics in Confucian culture. Taken together, this work demonstrates how the Confucian value system re-invented in the Park Chung Hee era has been a crucial apparatus for women's oppression, and at the same time, how women's agency is nonetheless evinced despite the strictures of Confucianism.

This thesis explores what I call 'physical spectatorship' as it is generated by a group of films concerned with the mutilation of the human body. Focusing on the representation of mutilation on the screen and the physical responses this evokes, the thesis is organised around the study of a series of dynamic engagements that reconfigure the film-viewer relationship; these include: corporeal mimicry and the cinematic visualisations of mutilation; generalised anxiety and experimental use of sound; and the nausea generated by audio-visual techniques that both signify and locate the filmic gut in the viewer's body. Combining close textual analyses with theoretical approaches, this thesis draws upon psychoanalytic, phenomenological and feminist theories of film and spectatorship. Throughout the chapters, my argument builds upon the work of Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks in order to interrogate further what might be meant by the notion of the embodied spectator. The chapters explore this notion, alongside that of the film viewer, to generate a dialogue with previous theorists of the cinematic spectator, including Christian Metz and Richard Rushton. Exploring through close textual analyses the specific filmic techniques that generate intense physical responses, this thesis argues that the mutilation film demands a rethinking of some of the key categories in theories of spectatorship. Extending across national cinemas and reaching beyond conventional generic distinctions, the mutilation film produces a visceral aesthetic that has yet to be analysed. Focusing on particular aspects of the mutilation film, such as the assault narrative sequence, use of extreme frequencies and haptic sounds and images, the thesis offers detailed readings of the following texts: Dans Ma Peau (Marina de Van, 2002), Irréversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002), Saw II (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2005) Saw III (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2006) Saw IV (Darren Lynn Bousman, 2007) Saw V (David Hackl, 2008) Saw VI (Kevin Greutert, 2009) Saw 3D (Kevin Greutert, 2010), Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005), À l'intérieur (Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, 2007), The Human Centipede: First Sequence (Tom Six, 2009) and The Human Centipede: Full Sequence (Tom Six, 2011).The analyses that form this thesis demonstrate the problems with separating notions of the 'spectator as textual construction' from that of the 'viewer as physically embodied'; yet these readings also indicate the necessity of continuing the task of conceptualising their interrelatedness, rather than simply using them interchangeably. The conclusion argues that the concept of physical spectatorship offers one way to understand how particular contemporary aesthetics have reconfigured the boundary between viewer and film.