A portrait of the audience of digitalized performance: the distinctive characteristics of the Chinese theatre audience

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a rapid shift of learning and education from traditional means to digital platforms. This paper aims to examine the impact of online learning on digital engagement and digital-related health symptoms among university students one year into the coronavirus pandemic. Methods: Data was collected through a self-administered online questionnaire after ethical approval. The questionnaire was adapted from the previously published Lifestyle Study in Youth Questionnaire. Through the questionnaire, the perception of students toward online learning was probed and recorded. Digital engagement and digital-related health symptoms were compared before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. Results: The majority (97.5%) of respondents preferred face-to-face learning. The time spent on digital devices was 1.8 times higher during COVID-19 than before the COVID-19 lockdown (t-test = -18.86, p<0.0001). The total hours of sleep were reduced during COVID-19 lockdown (0.6 hours lesser) (t-test = -3.92, p<0.0001). The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test revealed significant changes in digital-related health symptoms (15 out of 17) due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Digital eye strain, dry eye syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome, and upper quadrant postural and muscle strain emerged (p<0.05). Conclusion: Most university students favoured face-to-face learning compared to online learning. There was a two-fold rise in digital engagement during the COVID-19 lockdown. As a result, it has seemed to translate into reduced sleeping hours. The short-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic on digital-related health symptoms amongst university students was apparent. The long-term effects require further investigations to facilitate fact-based decision-making.

ABSTRACTIn recent years, China has become one of the largest film industries and in order to remain competitive, Chinese blockbusters are attempting to imitate Hollywood post-production qualities. As Australian post-production companies are internationally renowned for their expertise, Chinese filmmakers are seeking opportunities to collaborate with Australians. The Australian government recognises China’s enthusiasm and has begun highlighting the nation’s strength through various programmes targeted towards the Chinese film industry. Though efforts have been placed to promote Australia's post-production industry, there is currently minimal research on Chinese cinema audiences' opinions regarding this transnational collaboration. To examine the effects of transnationality in Chinese cinema, this paper analyses Chinese audiences' opinions, along with exploring how the Australian government and post-production companies are engaging with China, to understand the potential of this partnership. The paper utilises data collected from the Chinese social networking site Douban to understand audiences’ reception on the post-production elements of the Chinese film Hero (2002). Overall, the analysis demonstrates that Chinese audiences are not identifying Australia’s role, however the impact of Australian practitioners are being emphasised through complements on the film’s visual effects, showing great potential between this transnational collaboration.

“Does Anybody Have A Map?”: The Impact of “Virtual Broadway” on Musical Theater Composition

For a long time, Chinese audiences have not had a high opinion of hybrid Chinese and Western movies. However, the unanimous praise for Turning Red in China se ems to have reversed this situation. In order to verify whether the attitudinal behavior of Chinese audiences toward the film's hybridization of Chinese and Western cultures has changed, this study collected textual materials reflecting the Chinese audience's receptive attitudes toward the film: Douban reviews, short reviews, questionnaires and Mtime.com reviews. Through a grounded study of 664,312 words, a total of 16 initial categories and four main categories were obtained. Finally, a cognitive-emotional-attitudinal mechanism model was formed to explain the audience's receptive behavior process. The study found that Chinese audiences' positive reception of Turning Red comes more from the fact that the film touches on personal emotions and focuses on a series of issues such as growing up, family, and gender, with intergenerational conflict as the core. The audience achieves self-projection and empathy while watching the film, rather than recognizing the Chinese culture presented therein. On this basis, the research further found that the internal structure of the current cultural hybridity has not changed greatly. The reason audiences do not give a high evaluation of cultural hybridity films lies in the lack of conscious distinction between the hybridity culture and the local culture. At the same time, in terms of cross-cultural creation, we should abandon the blind pursuit of cultural symbols, take root in cultural soil and then pay attention to more specific problems. This study reveals that the key factor affecting the audience's receptive behavior toward cultural hybridity films is not necessarily the performance of local culture, which is of great significance for establishing new evaluation criteria.

Given the global demographic shifts and rapid digitalization, digital engagement has emerged as a critical determinant of healthy aging. While previous research has linked digital engagement to cognitive outcomes, the underlying mechanisms remain underexplored among Chinese older adults. This study aimed to analyze the relationships between digital engagement and cognitive function among older adults in China through a moderated mediation model guided by the technological reserve hypothesis, with digital health literacy (DHL) and social support as mediators and living arrangements as a moderator. We conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire survey using stratified multistage sampling from June to November 2024, including 8123 participants aged 55 years and older. Digital engagement, defined as older adults' use of contemporary digital technologies to support routine daily activities, autonomy, independence, and social inclusion, was assessed using a multidimensional questionnaire. The Chinese eHealth Literacy Scale, the 3-item short version of the Perceived Social Support Scale, and the Mini-Cog test were used to assess DHL, social support, and cognitive function. Guided by a directed acyclic graph based on the technological reserve hypothesis, mediation and moderated mediation analyses were performed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS (IBM Corp) with 5000 bootstrap resamples. Digital engagement was positively associated with cognitive function among older adults (β=0.241, 95% CI 0.216-0.265). This association was partially mediated by DHL (β=0.059, 95% CI 0.049-0.069) and social support (β=0.012, 95% CI 0.008-0.016), with the combined indirect effects accounting for 29.5% of the total effect (β=0.071, 95% CI 0.061-0.082). Additionally, living arrangements significantly moderated the associations between digital engagement and cognitive function (β=0.109, 95% CI 0.052-0.166), digital engagement and DHL (β=0.063, 95% CI 0.014-0.112), and digital engagement and social support (β=0.151, 95% CI 0.089-0.212). These effects were stronger among older adults living alone. This study contributes to the understanding of cognitive aging in the digital environment from the perspective of the technological reserve hypothesis and digital engagement. Digital engagement influenced cognitive function via DHL and social support, and these associations of digital engagement with cognitive function, DHL, and social support were stronger among older adults living alone. Digital health interventions and public health policies should target both DHL and social support among older populations and prioritize older adults living alone.

The purpose of this study is to understand the ways in which performing arts organizations utilize social media as a marketing tool to further audience growth and audience engagement. This study explores information provided by performing arts organizations located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States through interviews with staff members who manage the organizations' social media accounts. This study also utilizes information gathered via survey of Philadelphia performing arts audiences. The intention of gathering interview and survey data was to gain insight into the significance of social media and how important the utilization of social media is for performing arts organizations. My research findings include how social media is used by these organizations beyond marketing and how social media has kept their online audiences engaged and informed on the latest happenings. Social media marketing proved to be important but not as much as just being social with audience members.

Taking The Heidi Chronicles to China: A Dramaturgical Reflection Andrew Kimbrough (bio) and Zhiguang Liu (bio) Louisiana State University (LSU), like many North American universities and colleges aware of the growing importance of China on the international scene, instituted The Modern Chinese Commerce and Culture Initiative in 2005 in order “to provide LSU students with working knowledge of the current Chinese business and cultural environment.”1 At first, the initiative involved language and business courses, with some opportunities for student travel and study in China. But in the spring of 2006, Michael Tick, chair of the Department of Theatre at LSU and artistic director of Baton Rouge’s professional theatre, Swine Palace, decided to meet the initiative by instituting a theatrical exchange with China. He aimed to take a cast and crew of B.A. and M.F.A. students in a production of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles on a tour of major Chinese cities during the summer of 2007. Additional hope lay in an emergent and ongoing relationship with a Chinese university or theatre. Knowing of our history and relationship with China, Tick called us in May 2006 to ask for our assistance.2 We readily agreed to help, and by the end of the summer we were able to obtain tentative agreements for Swine Palace to perform the following June at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, a publicly run venue of Western-style theatre, and at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, which offers training in acting, directing, and musical theatre for Western-style theatre, as well as programs in design and theatre studies. As a dramatic text that probes women’s issues in the twentieth century—The Heidi Chronicles concerns Heidi Holland, a successful art historian with a growing feminist consciousness who nonetheless experiences setbacks in her personal life—the play resonated with its Chinese audience and enjoyed successful runs over a two-week period during that June of 2007. At first glance, such an undertaking might seem quite feasible, or at least not any more difficult than taking a production on tour to parts of Europe or South America. Universities and performing arts organizations in the United States and abroad regularly schedule touring groups from other countries in order to foster cross-cultural understanding and to expose patrons to various and different art forms. Departments of theatre in the United States pride themselves on taking student productions to the Edinburgh Festival and other arts festivals in Europe. Indeed, during the two-month period when Heidi played in Shanghai and Beijing, two other foreign-produced, English-language productions played in the same cities, even in one of the same venues.3 The personnel behind such exchanges meet cross-cultural obstacles and overcome them with various degrees of success, yet certainly without such dire consequences as reversing the trend of fostering exchange. But as we wish to point out here, intercultural relations between the United States and China, particularly in the arena of Western theatre practice, are fraught with specific pitfalls and challenges. By getting involved with the Heidi tour, we desired to position ourselves in such a way that we would be able to assist the Americans in avoiding unnecessary mishaps and misunderstandings so that they could accomplish their desired goals of cultural and artistic exchange. In this article, we discuss a few problems that Swine Palace’s Heidi tour faced, as well as some of the successes it experienced. But we frame our discussion by several of the issues that Claire [End Page 147] Conceison, a scholar of contemporary Chinese theatre, outlines in her book, Significant Other: Staging the American in China, and in her article, “Translating Collaboration: The Joy Luck Club and Intercultural Theatre.” For while the goals of the Heidi tour, like many intercultural ventures, were to foster ideals of commonality and cross-cultural understanding, Conceison warns that such ideals may in some cases serve to mask colonial or hegemonic beliefs that practitioners unknowingly bring to a project: As the young postmodern discourse of interculturalism is nurtured, we who participate in the scripting of its vocabulary and the shaping of its manifestations must ask ourselves not only what we are doing...

Tennis, long associated with grace and tradition, is increasingly struggling to maintain its market position and cultural relevance in Chinas rapidly evolving sports and media environment, particularly among younger audiences. This study explores the current branding and marketing challenges facing tennis as a niche sport in China and investigates which strategic approaches may help reactivate its visibility and audience engagement. Based on content analysis and case comparisons drawing from data between 2023 and 2025, the study examines shifts in brand positioning, media practices, and audience behaviour across leading tennis institutions, domestic events, and sponsorships. The analysis employs established frameworks, including the STP model, the marketing mix (4Ps), and brand association theory. Findings suggest that outdated elite branding, limited grassroots promotion, and insufficient localisation in digital storytelling remain significant barriers to audience connection. However, strategies such as lifestyle rebranding, cross-industry collaborations, and integration with domestic social media platforms demonstrate growing potential in revitalising the sports image. By analysing these trends and offering case-based insights, this study contributes to the existing literature on niche sport marketing and provides practical guidance for repositioning tennis within a more inclusive and digitally responsive cultural context in China.

This study investigated the impact of social media and digital technology on sex-related conflicts among Christian couples in the Good Message Baptist Association, Lagos, Nigeria. In recent years, increased digital engagement among Christian couples has been linked to emotional disconnection and declining sexual intimacy, yet limited empirical research has addressed this issue within faith-based marital contexts in Nigeria. This gap has hindered the development of effective ethical and pastoral responses to marital crises related to digital life. The study argued that digital engagement, particularly through social media, disrupts sexual intimacy in marriages but can be addressed through targeted interventions like digital literacy and faith-based counselling. Adopting a descriptive mixed-methods approach, the research combined quantitative and qualitative data collection. A total of 300 participants were selected from a population of 1,200 Christian couples married for 5 to 25 years, using stratified and purposive sampling techniques. Quantitative data were gathered through a 20-item structured questionnaire, while qualitative data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with 20 participants. The results revealed a significant negative correlation between time spent on social media and sexual satisfaction (r = -0.58), and a strong positive correlation between technoference (digital distractions) and conflicts stemming from online interactions (r = 0.66). Thematic analysis highlighted recurring issues such as emotional disconnection, jealousy linked to social media activity, body image concerns influenced by idealized online personas, and the role of faith-based counselling in conflict resolution. The study concluded that excessive digital engagement erodes marital intimacy and contributes to sex-related conflicts among Christian couples. However, digital literacy and religious counselling were identified as effective interventions. These findings underscore the importance of setting clear digital boundaries, encouraging open communication, and incorporating social media awareness into marital counselling. The study offered relevant empirical evidence from a Nigerian Christian context and contributed to the broader discourse on technology’s impact on marital intimacy, particularly sexual intimacy.

The impact of verbal behavior on audience engagement in Chinese talk shows: Based on a novel mediation model

The rapid advancement of digital technologies has significantly transformed the methods by which adolescents engage with one another, learn, and entertain themselves. This review paper delves into the relationship between digital engagement and techno wellness among youth in the contemporary era. Digital engagement encompasses a wide range of online activities, while techno wellness refers to the optimal health and well-being achieved through balanced technology use. By synthesising existing research, this paper highlights critical factors influencing techno wellness, identifies gaps in the literature, and proposes future research directions. It discusses theoretical frameworks and the impacts of digital engagement on various dimensions of techno wellness—including mental, physical, and social health—and offers strategies and recommendations to promote Techno wellness. Therefore, this paper has analysed the impact of this Digital Engagement on various Dimensions of Techno Wellness. The findings emphasize the necessity of a comprehensive approach to understanding both the positive and negative impacts of digital engagement. The paper aims to inform educators, policymakers, parents, and youth on how to develop tailored strategies to enhance youth well-being in the digital age.

This paper examines how audiences experience live opera performance and the behaviours they exhibit during live-streaming of the performance. It aims to contribute to our understanding of how audiences, who increasingly inhabit an environment saturated with digital media, respond to contemporary opera performance. Based on a comparative study of audience experiences and behaviours during a live opera performance and the streamed opera screening, we investigate whether digital mediation affects audience appreciation, and whether streaming live opera means the same thing to an audience as the unmediated performance. We firstly outline the conception, design and performance of a contemporary opera and its simultaneous streaming to nearby digital screens. Then, we report the evaluation of the project as measured by a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods during the rehearsals, the live performance and the screening. As one of the few social studies of contemporary classical music in Britain, our study of opera audience behaviours sheds light on the challenges and opportunities afforded by digital technologies for opera companies. Understanding how audiences appreciate digital operas offers practical advice on how theatres and opera companies could respond to new forms of digital activities.

Chapter 6 brings the book to a close by exploring the use of black or white screens across the post-cinematic terrain, drawing on post-Deleuzian third-image interventions and broader scholarship on cinema in the digital age. As in chapter 1 of this book, the present chapter draws on a comparison between Paul Virilio’s account of integrative accident and technological progress, on the one hand, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of creative malfunction and abstract machining, on the other. Once the essence of analog cinema, black or white screens now take on different roles, as the architecture of the cinematic apparatus has been reconfigured into various post-cinematic assemblages. In line with the cartographic and diagrammatic inquiry undertaken in the book, this chapter approaches black or white screens as post-non-images, analyzing them in relation to spatiality, multiplicity, film installations, and participatory aesthetics. The computing and streaming culture has also introduced new ways of image interruption in our cinematic experience, such as the monochrome blue, white, or red “screens of death” combined with other error screens—indicating buffering, denial of access, or image erasure on the internet. As the chapter shows, in the context of media art practices, these error screens can be approached as new interface interstitials. Additionally, we have now notably shifted from the light-suffused white cinema screens to the black (screen) mirrors of electronic light-emitting devices: TV monitors, computers, tablets, and smartphones. As the cineplex went over to the “dark side” during the Covid-19 lockdowns, the black (screen) mirrors became our new digital darkness, giving rise to what the chapter conceptualizes as “co-vid cinema.”

Theatre Squared:Theatre History in the Age of Media Sarah Bay-Cheng (bio) Recordings deal with concepts through which the past is reevaluated, and they concern notions about the future which will ultimately question even the validity of evaluation. —Glenn Gould, "The Prospects of Recording" In 1964, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould quit live performance in favor of perfecting recordings of his performances. In an essay published two years later, "The Prospects of Recording" (1966), Gould explained his decision by predicting that in the next century, the live concert would reach "extinction." Far from a lamentable course of events, Gould embraced the end of the live performance as the opportunity for "a more cogent experience [of music] than is now possible" (47). The end of the live concert may never come, but Gould's comments are eerily prescient of contemporary performance and its reliance on recording technology: first film, then video, and, more recently, digital recording. Much attention has been paid to the impact of these technologies on live theatre production and reception, but little criticism to date has considered the impact of recording technology on theatre history, on the archive in the making. And yet, moving images on screens have become a dominant, arguably the dominant, mode of viewing throughout our increasingly mediatized culture. From portable DVD players to video iPods to cellular phones, modern culture communicates onscreen. This essay is a preliminary consideration of the impact of recording technology on the study of theatre history, and a proposal for a critical means for assessing the phenomenon and effect of recorded, or mediated, theatre. "Mediated theatre" may be broadly defined as any theatrical performance originally created for live performance (that is, live actors in visual proximity to a live audience, although this distinction is hardly absolute) and subsequently recorded onto any visually reproducible medium, including film, videotape, or digital formats, presented as two-dimensional moving images on screens. There is a danger, of course, in too broadly grouping various recording technologies. Variations in recording processes (collaborative, individual), apparatuses (celluloid, analog videotape, digital devices), and receptions (public projections, private viewings) have discrete histories, methods, and results, not to mention very different modes of viewing in social, economic, and cultural contexts. While undoubtedly distinct, these media share certain characteristics of image construction, conventions of time and space, and mutual reliance on screens that we may usefully juxtapose against embodied performance in the theatre. At the risk of oversimplifying, then, I would like to introduce a discussion of mediated theatre, broadly construed, for the purposes of understanding the process of capturing live performance in moving images, and the methods by which these images within the frame of the screen—the theatre squared—can be used in theatre history analysis and teaching. The Rise of Mediated Theatre Perhaps the most obvious influence of visual-recording technology on theatre history is the emergence and growth of the moving-image archive, an expanding collection of mediated-performance representations that includes film, television broadcasts, rehearsal videotapes, documentaries, [End Page 37] and digitally recorded productions. These collections are diverse, including institutional collections in libraries as well as private video and film collections. The professional organization, the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), asserts that such an archive will eventually provide the same archival value as textual artifacts currently do. According to the AMIA web site (amianet.org), "[a]s our culture is increasingly shaped by visual images in the digital age, historians may soon rely on moving images as much as on the printed word to understand 21st-century culture." Within theatre studies, the use of videos is already widespread. Drama anthologies, for example, increasingly list not only examples of further reading, but also video resources for plays within them.1 Many theatre and performance classes—from Shakespeare to contemporary performance art—use videos to illustrate aspects of theatre performance. Given the limitations of theatre productions in many locations, mediated theatre is often the best way to expose students to a range of performance traditions, styles, and genres. Even within a major theatre city, one cannot always ensure access to a Greek tragedy, a Restoration play, and Bunraku puppetry in the course of a single term, so video...

Classical saxophone music (or CSM) is understood as Western art music, composed for the saxophone, which includes a variety of global influences and has developed since the invention of the instrument in the 1840’s. In Australia, a number of entrepreneurial musicians are specialising in this unique genre and showcasing new Australian music in a variety of live performance situations. Further to this, understanding exactly what knowledge and skills currently required by young classical musicians to build successful and sustainable careers is a strong industry focus. With the increasing need for entrepreneurial mindsets to be adopted and the acceptance of the portfolio career model as common practice for classical musicians, early career performing musicians need to develop a multi-dimensional approach to their future careers. Responding to these current realities, this thesis explores the live performance activities of Australia’s leading classical saxophonists and through four key areas: Logistical Considerations, Artistic Relationships, Digital Engagement, and Performer Satisfaction. In order to address these four areas, the thesis presents nine case studies of leading Australian classical saxophonists and saxophone ensembles; showing insights into how they navigate modern challenges in the industry. Drawing on research in a variety of fields including portfolio career models, the integration of technology into live performances, and the everyday management of live performance activities, the thesis presents the conclusions which are most pertinent to musicians actively striving to build a performance based career in the current industry.