Since the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990 and the commercialization of the internet, numerous scholars and cultural critics have interrogated the cultural and economic role of attention, as both a psychobiological ability and a psychosocial good. In particular, commentators from many disciplines posit contested theories of an attention economy, a socioeconomic regime in which, since information and communications technologies make information abundant, the attention needed to acquire information becomes the world's most scarce economic resource. This dissertation argues that a parallel body of postmodernist narratives has emerged from the same conditions, in which technologies of attention enmesh individuals in illegible systems of production, consumption, surveillance, and thought management. Intensified strategies for focusing individual and collective attention are essential components of these narratives, and thus attention, as a means and an end, plays a central role in dramatic tensions between power and resistance. At a time of increased concern for what happens to the long narrative in the age of the text and tweet, my analyses of the film The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998), novels Glamorama (Bret Easton Ellis, 1998) and Dead Stars (Bruce Wagner, 2012), and graphic novel series Transmetropolitan (Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson, 1998-2003), explore both continuities and disjunctions in how different media represent this narrative, since diverse institutional codes dictate conditions of production and reception. Despite the different physiological, technological, temporal, and spatial demands these texts place upon their readers' attention, in the main they share an emblematic suspicion of attention's relationship to the governing institutions of American life, which ask subjects to attend to their bodies, minds, schedules and life objectives according to a digitized ideology of perpetual labor, consumerism, and efficiency. This dissertation also intervenes in debates about the value of close textual analysis, arguing that paying attention to narrative forms and themes forces readers to pay attention to the act of paying attention, increasingly important at a time when large institutions find new ways to monetize attention as a form of unpaid labor.

Includes bibliographical references / Philip Glass is best known for his role in the establishment of the 1960s minimalist movement, which was characterised by an extensive reduction of musical means. Since the mid-1970s, the composer has adopted a richer, more complex musical language, and distanced himself from the minimalist label. Academic scholarship on the composer's more recent compositions is severely limited, with the result that he is often still viewed as a minimalist. This dissertation's focus is on a more recent work by Glass, the Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2000), and thus seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the composer's more recent stylistic development and the extent to which it is minimalist. The research approach entails compositional analyses of the concerto's second movement from both literary and theoretical perspectives. The movement's conception, its background and factors that had an influence on its compositional content are explored through literature studies. This is followed by theoretical investigations of its musical characteristics through the application of functional harmonic analysis and neo-Riemannian theory. Findings from the research provide evidence that the composition's title stems from the 'Tyrolean character' that was requested by its commissioners. However, relations between the movement and the film The Truman show (1998) challenge the composer's affirmations of a Tyrolean folk-song basis. Musically, the movement consists of a simple, repetitive structural and harmonic framework that undergoes superficial variations through melodic, textural and rhythmic changes. Transformational coherence within a functional structure is an essential component of the movement's harmonic content. This dissertation concludes that the piece contains musical characteristics consistent with all of Glass's stylistic periods, including minimalism, as well as new compositional devices that have not been identified previously. It recommends further study of the composer's more recent output , especially through transformational perspectives, and a reconsideration of the ontology and appropriateness of stylistic labels such as minimalism.

Filmmanus är begränsade till sitt format, vilket skapar utmaningar för manusförfattare att anpassa texten efter tekniska beskrivningar inför den potentiella filmen och samtidigt lyckas förmedla komplexa narrativ som kan engagera läsare. Samtidigt är det just komplexa narrativ som inte bara vinner priser utan även skapar stort engagemang. Denna uppsats undersöker därför verktyg som manusförfattare kan använda för att skapa komplexa filmmanus och förmedla djupare narrativ. Genom att närläsa filmmanuset The Truman Show (1998) undersöker uppsatsen hur manustexten förändras beroende på berättarnivå för att synliggöra hur subtext kan förstärka tematik. På så sätt belyser undersökningen hur komplexa narrativ skapar engagemang och visar hur en texts formatering kan ge verktyg för subtil kommunikation med läsaren. Studien undersöker komplexitet genom att bland annat definiera The Truman Shows berättarnivåer i en cirkelmodell, vilket möjliggjorde en djupare analys av komplexitet i manusets actiontext och dialog. Genom distanseringseffekter i textens berättarperspektiv undersöks hur komplexitet i actiontexten påverkar läsarens engagemang, vilket påvisade att läsaren blir aktivt analyserande på grund av att berättaren skapar en ideologisk spänning genom att tvinga läsaren att sympatisera och samtidigt våldföra sig på Truman. Dialogen analyserades utefter hur karaktärers språkbruk skiftar beroende på vilken berättarnivå de tillhör och därav finner undersökningen att filmmanuset har vad som ska efterlikna konstruerat och autentiskt tal, vilket anknyter till narrativets makttematik. Undersökningen kommer fram till att tematiken är genomsyrad i manusets samtliga beståndsdelar och att komplexiteten i filmmanuset medför större engagemang genom att skapa en aktiv läsare. Slutligen presenteras olika konkreta verktyg som manusförfattare kan använda för att skapa komplexitet i filmmanus.