This thesis document provides an historical overview of the internationalization of theatre for young audiences (TYA) in the United States, which has been largely influenced by international populations and organizations since the early 1900’s. Contemporary practices and theories of international education are examined in order to consider its intersections with international TYA. Emphasizing Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and the research of established and emerging TYA scholars, I examine international TYA’s potential to increase the global consciousness of young audiences in the U.S. Through developing global sensitivity, global understanding, and global self (Veronica Boix Mansilla and Howard Gardner’s three components of global consciousness), international TYA presents diverse cultures and stories to young audiences, potentially dispelling stereotyping and ethnocentrism, promoting a global consciousness through theatre’s provocation of empathy. / text

This research is an in-depth look into a museum striving to put into practice qualities of a socially responsible museum by providing educational programs for an underserved audience. The purpose of this research is to study the qualities and characteristics of two Community Partnership programs for court-involved youth at the San Diego Museum of Art. Identifying the qualities and characteristics of this particular museum program could be utilized by other museums in creating similar programs. Detailed data collection in the form of observations, interviews, and documentation provided a comprehensive view of this program. The research concludes with recommendations for other museums implementing similar programs and is based on the findings from the San Diego Museum of Art's work with court-involved youth. / text

A critical culture requires that the site of appearance, the temporal coincidence of the subject, the object and the site, be acknowledged as a ground for meaning. Through a built investigation and a theoretical address this thesis examines the site of appearance for contemporary creative practice; the extent to which it continues to be defined by and contained within the conceptual frame of the Enlightenment aesthetic as the privileged discourse of the object. In a detailed analysis of the architecture of the exhibition, the 18th century Academy Salon and the Parisian bourgeois hotel are juxtaposed with examples from the late 20th century practice of site-specific exhibition. This comparison reveals an essential connection between art and architecture, between architectural form and social representation. An alternative concept of the exhibition as a site of appearance thereby acknowledges individual, temporally specific interpretation as a potential ground for critical discourse within the contemporary art institution.

The thesis begins by acknowledging the writer's status as a fan. The stimulus for the enquiry emerges from the discrepancy the writer encounters between his fan experience and the ways in which the academy conceptualises fandom. Such theories serve to position the fan at extremes of the field of reader response: as either a passive, cultural dupe or as a radical, textual freedom fighter. By contrast, this thesis aims to take the diversity of fan response into consideration, and situate its analysis in very real concepts of people's lives. In the first of three parts, a typology is developed that examines the contested and disputed nature of fandom. Reference points are drawn from academic writing, popular media and a focus group session with fans of diverse interests. The second part is devoted to fieldwork. Fan conversations, observations and reflections are combined to create six intimate pen-portraits that convey differing ideas of fandom. Topics covered include fans of Doctor Who, The Adventure Game, Sheffield Wednesday football club; the users of archive TV website The Mausoleum Club; attendees at a Kirsty MacColl get-together;Panopticon( a Doctor Who convention); Forbidden Planet (a collector's shop). The final part, `Fandom and Modem Life', draws together the ideas of the thesis to propose a series of maxims on how fandom operates that emphasise complexity, diversity, the significance of emotional attachment, and fandom's interrelation to capitalism (of it, but not about it). Fandom's role is considered in relation to notions of religiosity and sexuality. Fandom is defined ultimately as a form of social identity possible in contemporary western society. The thesis concludes by speculating on how fandom may evolve in the future.

What is at stake for female fans and followers of horror cinema? This study explores the pleasures in horror film viewing for female members of the audience. The findings presented here confirm that female viewers of horror do not refuse to look but actively enjoy horror films and read such films in feminine ways. Part 1 of this thesis suggests that questions about the female viewer and her consumption of the horror film cannot be answered solely by a consideration of the text-reader relationship or by theoretical models of spectatorship and identification. A profile of female horror film fans and followers can therefore be developed only through an audience study. Part 2 presents a profile of female horror fans and followers. The participants in the study were largely drawn from the memberships of horror fan groups and from the readerships of a cross-section of professional and fan horror magazines. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups, interviews, open-ended questions included in the questionnaire and through the communication of opinions and experiences in letters and other written material. Part 3 sheds light on the modes of interpretation and attempts to position the female viewers as active consumers of horror films. This study concludes with a model of the female horror film viewer which points towards areas of female horror film spectatorship which require further analysis. The value of investigating the invisible experiences of women with popular culture is demonstrated by the very large proportion of respondents who expressed their delight and thanks in having an opportunity to speak about their experiences. This study of female horror film viewers allows the voice of an otherwise marginalised and invisible audience to be heard, their experiences recorded, the possibilities for resistance explored, and the potentially feminine pleasures of the horror film identified.

This is a revisionist audience study examining the everyday media cultures of twenty-four young teenage girls from Melbourne in Australia. It argues that in an era of proliferated and convergent media, audience studies cannot restrict its vision to a single media text, technology, or genre. / It takes a broad approach to girls’ media culture and considers the full range of media that girls engage with on a daily basis. It identifies a hegemonic discourse about girls’ media use which it calls “(feminist) new media effects”. This anxiety takes as its key concern the proliferation of media and mediated representations of girls across the spaces of everyday life. (Feminist) new media effects discourse renders girls passive and unable to cope with such media presence without the guidance of adults to teach them how to correctly engage with the media. In order to challenge this construction, the thesis examines participants’ engagements with a range of convergent media texts and technologies, including Internet social networking, repeat DVD spectatorship, young female celebrities, and discourses of moral panic. It shows how mediated representations of girls across these sites are embedded in the fabric of participants’ everyday lives. Apart from highlighting the challenge that this poses to the practice of conducting audience research, it demonstrates the ways that girls both resist and incorporate mediated constructions of femininity within their everyday negotiations of teenage girlhood. It argues that the representation of girlhood constructed in (feminist) new media effects discourse – the vulnerable girl overwhelmed by toxic media messages – is key to girls’ media culture. My findings indicate that participants are primarily invested in resisting this construction of youthful femininity.

Thesis (M.A.). / Written for the Dept. of Art History and Communication Studies. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/03/12). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2002. / Typescript. Includes appendices: volume 2. Volume 2 contains transcripts of interviews. Transcripts of interviews also recorded onto 19 cassettes. Oral history tapes available from University of Wollongong Archives, no. B99. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 285-301.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Communication and Culture. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 364-375). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR29524

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 238-246). Also available on the Internet.