Fictional Content Research Articles

Ne, pour ce que l’Archorant est rithmé, n’en doit estre dicte plus saincte loy. La nature poétique du Qur’ān dans le Trésor des simples (1447–1451) de Jean Germain

Abstract This article is devoted to the Trésor des simples, a treatise written around the middle of the fifteenth century by the Burgundian bishop Jean Germain and dedicated to his patron Philip the Good. Halfway between anti-Islamic polemic and crusading propaganda, the Trésor des simples offers a refutation of the Qur’ān that is, on the one hand, a reworking of the classic topics of medieval anti-Islamic polemic, and on the other, a refunctionalisation of these topics in a new context, with the production of original remarks. Among these, there is the issue of the “poetic nature” of the Qur’ān, where poetic stands for the presence of a musical/rhythmic component, associated with a fictional content. Far from representing a mere element of aesthetic inadequacy, the alleged “poetic nature” of the Qur’ān is exploited by Germain as a proof to refute the theological validity of Islam’s holy book. This article aims to trace the different paths that this issue follows in the Trésor des simples, attempting to justify them in the light of medieval anti-islamic polemical literature and, above all, of its historical, cultural and literary context.

Artistic-Stylistic Search for Cinematic Expression and Hybrid Documentary: To the Question of Genealogy of Mockumentary

The purpose of article is to analyse the artistic-stylistic search for cinema expression in connection with the emergence of hybrid documentary as an audio-visual environment and a context for the development of mockumentary. Research methodology is based on the culturological approach that allowed us to expand the context of consideration of the problem genealogy of mockumentary and special-scientific methods of art history. Considering the synthetic nature of the researched phenomenon, the work is comprehensive and interdisciplinary. Without involving knowledge in philosophy, aesthetics, the theory of cinema and television is difficult to understand such multifaceted and complex phenomena, such as hybrid documentary and mockumentary. Scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time, at the level of a single research, attention is focused on the role of artistic-stylistic searches for cinematic expressiveness and hybrid documentary in shaping the context of the formation of mockumentary as a genreform and phenomenon of audio-visual culture in the second half of the XX century. Conclusions. If is proved that they should not exclude the practice of embodying life material in a work of fiction and documentary, which is directly related to the stylistic search for cinematic expressiveness as an important determinant of the genealogy of mockumentary. It is affirmed that the advent of television convinced us that the mobility of the boundaries between the chronicle and the staged aspect is not limited to on-screen synthesis and experiments with form, but also refers to semantic hybridisation, which has led to the formation of various genreforms within television documentaries, such as mockumentaries, documentary drama, or “docudrama”. Genre mutations and convergent processes, which also encompassed hybrid documentaries, eventually led to the expansion of the documentary sphere towards the emergence of mixed forms as hybrids of the fiction, fictional and real spheres, i.e. the transformation of the artistic-aesthetic system of documentary led to the emergence of mockumentary as a fiction film with fictional content in documentary form in the audio-visual culture of the second half of the XX century.

The Poet-Creator of Philosophy: To the Methodology of Research in Philosophical Thought by Rabindranath Tagore

The Indian poet and educator Rabindranath Tagore was the creator of an original philosophy that gives additional meaning to the picture of the history of Indian philosophy in the 20th century. He usually emphasized his identity as a poet and an artist, not considering himself a philosopher. However, Tagore embodies the phenomenon of a poet-thinker who comprehends universal philosophical problems and, in the process of philosophizing, offers his own vision of them. Moreover, he owns a number of texts of a religious-philosophical and socio-philosophical nature, in addition to the content of poetry and fiction. The philosophy created by the poet requires a comprehensive holistic study, which, in turn, raises the problem of research methodology. The article proposes the author's methodology for the reconstruction of Rabindranath Tagore's philosophy, based on an understanding of his personality, the contexts of thought and the hermeneutics of texts. The methodological model of philosophy reconstruction includes three levels. The first involves analyzing the personality of R. Tagore using the categories "cross-cultural thinker" and "problematic thinker". The second is a description of the contexts of his philosophizing: external general civilizational, internal epochal and internal biographical. The third is the hermeneutics of texts, taking into account the poetic component and the philosophical problems of speeches and fiction. The novelty of the described methodological model is due to the possibilities and prospects of reconstructing Tagore's philosophical thought and concepts. 1. Description of the phenomenon of a poet and writer creating a philosophy in which the experience of artistic creation generates a universal religious and social meaning and actualizes humanistic issues. 2. Presentation of the process of formation of cross-cultural philosophy of the XX century on the material of a particular thinker. 3. The analysis of the contexts of the unfolding of philosophy helps to trace the continuity of the thinker and his ideas with the Indian philosophical tradition in a broad sense and at the same time identify innovation, not least due to his dialogue with Western culture and modernity. 4. Seeing Tagore's philosophy as a kind of quintessence of the Bengali Renaissance heritage, it is not difficult to notice its significance and relevance for modernity. 5. Reconstruction along the proposed methodological path will open up not only direct, but also comparative prospects for studying Tagore's philosophical thought in comparison with the reflections of philosophers from different cultural areas, primarily peripheral to the West and non-Western ones.

Buffering effect of fiction on negative emotions: engagement with negatively valenced fiction decreases the intensity of negative emotions

ABSTRACT Previous research has investigated how the context of perception affects emotional response. This study investigated how engagement with perceived fictional content vs perceived everyday-life content affects the way people experience negative emotions. Four studies with an experimental design tested how engagement with perceived fictional content vs perceived everyday life content affects the intensity of negative emotional response to negative emotional content, the motivation to decrease negative emotions, and cognitive reappraisal. Participants were presented with negatively valenced images and were asked to imagine either that they were witnessing them, or that a bystander was witnessing them, or that they were viewing a movie including these scenes. After the manipulation, all participants observed a different set of negatively valenced images or a set of negatively valenced videos and reported their emotional response. We found that the intensity of negative emotions and motivation to decrease them was lower among participants in the fiction condition compared to participants in the everyday life condition. Although perspective-taking had a similar effect on negative emotions, fiction condition was more successful in decreasing negative emotions. This might indicate that fiction plays a buffering role in decreasing the negative emotions people experience when facing negative emotional content.

Surfing uncertainty with screams: predictive processing, error dynamics and horror films.

Despite tremendous efforts in psychology, neuroscience and media and cultural studies, it is still something of a mystery why humans are attracted to fictional content that is horrifying, disgusting or otherwise aversive. While the psychological benefits of horror films, stories, video games, etc. has recently been demonstrated empirically, current theories emphasizing the negative and positive consequences of this engagement often contradict one another. Here, we suggest the predictive processing framework may provide a unifying account of horror content engagement that provides clear and testable hypotheses, and explains why a 'sweet spot' of fear and fun exists in horror entertainment. This article is part of the theme issue 'Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives'.

ASOMROF: A Transmedia Project of Sci-Fi Content Inspied by the Local Ethnic History for Technology Art Works

This communication depicts the evolution and transmedia of science fiction content inspired by the immigration and land reclamation history of early Hakka people who arrived in Taiwan from China in the 17th century for technology art works, including a dancing performance that combines virtual and real dancers in real-time, as well as an augmented reality exhibition. For early determined cooperation, the project was set to be related to Hakka culture. The Hakka are one of two major ethnic groups of Han Chinese immigrants who arrived in Taiwan around the 17th century, after the Hokkien, the other major ethnic group of Han Chinese. The history of Hakka immigration and reclamation, as well as the conflict between Hakka, Hokkien, and indigenous people in Taiwan, were found to be intriguing enough to be adapted into a science fiction scenario, with the consideration of how similar the situation will be in the future when human interplanetary immigrants arrive on a new distant planet, a metaphor for the Hakka people. The story of conflict and cooperation between new immigrants, previous settlers, and original inhabitants possibly echo the collective memory of ethnic groups in eastern Asia. Furthermore, the sci-fi scenarios are expanded and adapted as a novel and manga in text and graphic form based on scientific knowledge, in keeping with the current transmedia trend in the entertainment industry.

Trust but verify? A social epistemology framework of knowledge acquisition and verification practices for fictional entertainment

Abstract Fictional entertainment can serve as a vivid and easily comprehensible source of knowledge, but only if audiences are able to tell its kernel of truth apart from fantasy. In this article, we use the lens of social epistemology to develop a theoretical framework of knowledge acquisition and verification practices for fictional entertainment that integrates various extant lines of work on entertainment education, perceived realism, information processing, credibility assessment, and verification strategies. To flesh out the conceptual model derived from top-down theoretical integration, we use an inductive, bottom-up approach to theory building, assisted by qualitative research. The resulting model describes knowledge acquisition from fiction as an essentially social process characterized by a combination of epistemic trust and epistemic vigilance toward fictional content and sources, in which credibility is assessed via social knowledge sharing and verification practices.

Celebrity-Persona and its Effects on Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction

The study was conducted to examine Celebrity-Persona and its Effects on Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction among university students. Convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data. The sample consisted of 416 individuals, who were investing more than 5 hours a day on fictional content like novels, movies, dramas, and professional stars (e.g., singers, athletes, actors); 239 male participants and 177 female participants. Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), Celebrity-Persona Parasocial Interaction Scale (CPPI) (Bocarnea & Brown, 2007) and Six-Item State Self Esteem Scale (Heartherton & Polivy, 1991) were used to measure life satisfaction and celebrity persona parasocial interaction and self-esteem respectively. Life satisfaction has significant positive correlation with celebrity persona parasocial interaction and self-esteem. Parasocial interaction has positive correlation with self-esteem. Excessive exposure to fiction content is negatively correlated with life satisfaction. Simple linear regression analysis showed excessive exposure to fiction content as a predictor of life satisfaction and self-esteem among university students. Celebrity persona parasocial interaction worked as a significant mediator in the relationship between excessive exposure to fiction content and satisfaction with life among university students. Independent sample t-test showed that male students have higher life satisfaction than female students.

Against the Precisificational Approach to Fictional Inconsistencies

Fictional realists claim that fictional characters like Spiderman exist in reality. Against this view, Anthony Everett (2005; 2013) argues that fictional realists cannot determine whether characters α and β are identical if the relevant fiction states that α and β are identical and distinct at the same time. Some fictional realists, such as Ross Cameron (2013) and Richard Woodward (2017), respond to this objection by saying that the sense in which α and β are identical differs from the sense in which they are distinct. In this paper, I argue that Cameron and Woodward cannot handle all cases without undermining the theoretical foundation of their approach, namely, the thesis that the identity of fictional characters must be determined by the content of the relevant fiction.

A Multimodal Intersemiotic Translation Study of Book Covers of Translated Versions of The Three-Body Problems

As The Three-Body Problem is translated into languages overseas, the diversified features that the cover design of the translated version of The Three-Body Problem are worth exploring. The covers of a series of Chinese science fiction with different characteristics construct various narrative styles through different symbols and present the uniqueness and readability of the content of this Chinese science fiction. From the perspective of multi-modality in social semiotics, respecting the representational meaning, the cover design of these translations can be divided into two categories: low-image and high-image, and at the same time, it also presents visual continuum features; In terms of interpersonal meaning, these versions display visual patterns; Concerning compositional meaning, the designers of these covers convey the information values from different countries through layout design and visual salience. The cover design organizes meaningful elements into coherent text and creates new meanings through specific structures. Although some misunderstandings exist in some translated versions of The Three-Body Problem, most of the translated versions originally restore the original grand story about the future of the Earth, the only home to humans, reflecting reality and humanism in a unique manner with Chinese characteristics.

Video Game Fictions: A Dual-Work View

Video games fictions are interactive: some of the content is set by the game designer and some is set by the player. However, philosophers disagree over how this interaction is reflected within the fictional content of video games. First, I will show that games and playthroughs are two distinct works of fiction with their associated fictional content. Second, I argue that players engage with both fictional works when playing a video game. They imagine the fictional truths associated with the game and those associated with their playthrough. Thus, I defend what I will call a Dual-Work View of our engagement with video game fictions. To do so, I show that games have accessible fictional content, that games are distinctively incomplete fictions, and that players engage with this distinctive incompleteness. My goal is to offer a clear account of the fictional content of video games.

Research on the Transformation of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction

Research on the Transformation of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction

Prácticas de binge-watching en la era prepandémica. Escala de medición, discursos y efectos sociales relacionados a través de un estudio de caso de los estudiantes universitarios en España

The new modes of television consumption point to the interest of binge-watching as the object of study. This paper builds an intensity index that classifies users into “irregular”, “regular” or “dedicated”. Methodologically, an inter-method sequence is applied, combining descriptive and multivariate statistical analyses, as well as discussion groups from which cleavages or discursive positions derive. The results of the research indicate that most of the University population are binge-watchers so the terms have changed and a new scale is necessary for identifying the level of engagement with binge-watching behaviour in the current. Almost 30% of the university population under study corresponds to the typical-ideal category of “dedicated” and 33% with the “regular”. The growth rate of the phenomenon is exponential between 2016-2019. The triggering motivations for binge-watching are primarily hedonic; its effects affect our moods especially in “dedicated” users. Two different types of viewing are clearly identified. The first is committed or prioritized viewing (with a high attention level, high dependence and sympathy with regards to the story and characters), and secondary or complimentary viewing. The study concludes that, in a pre-pandemic context of over-audiovisual fiction content (fictoxication), the ability to select and self-assess the media diet acquires the fundamental skill status in the socio-educational framework of the younger ones.

Estetika van Televisievermaak

AGAINST the background of the indefinability of entertainment the author postulates a for questions that the researcher could ask in connection with the viewer's aesthetic exparience of television entertainment, par ticularly related to television fiction. The central question is: why and how does television entertain the viewer? This question leads on to the following questions: what is entertainment? The answer is that it is in definable. In the style of Plato the researcher should then ask the following: but what is it that leads the viewer to attach the value "entertainment", which is associated with pleasure and satisfaction, to television fic tion? Possible answer: catharsis due to the ability and needs of the viewer to identify with a make-believe world and characters. What makes this identification possible? Amongst other possibilities specific rhetorical motifs which have always been associated with communication pleasure and which are also present in the content (and forum) of television fiction. Is this the big answer? No. The aesthetic experience of a work (also of television) does not allow it to be described easily.

Violence, crime, and psychiatry in the Spanish punk imaginary; General portrait

Previous findings suggest that the mass media depictions of people with mental disorders emphasize violence and criminality, unpredictable behaviour, and social incompetence. Our overall objective was to draw a general portrait of subcultural representations of criminal and violent behavior in the context of psychiatry. The content analysis of 190 song lyrics from a sample of 7777 outlined the elements composing the depictions of crime and violence and their connections with mental disorders in Spanish punk music (1981–2010). Two approaches were identified: one group of songs emphasized descriptions of violent and criminal behavior, while the other focused on psychiatric symptoms, syndromes, or diagnoses (appearing the violent or criminal behavior as epiphenomena of mental health problems). Quantitatively, songs with themes alluding to homicidal behavior predominated, with multiple homicide being widely portrayed. Regarding psychiatric disorders, substance use prevailed and, to a lesser extent, antisocial personality traits and psychotic symptoms. The depictions found are closely related to the connotations expected in the general population. Thus, we found a predilection for violent crimes and frequent allusions to the perpetrator as ‘mentally disturbed.’ It is consistent with the greater frequency of descriptions of violent crime in the media, despite its relative infrequency to other types of crime. Likewise, it coincides with the cultural interest in homicide and how it nourishes the current entertainment industry. However, some distinctive features in punk music included positive connotations for social deviance, and even antisocial traits, as a form of identity affirmation and opposition to the social order. On the other hand, violence and crime serve fundamentally punk provocativeness rather than a mythification or aesthetic enjoyment of crime. The portrayal of crime in the punk narratives was constructed around different non-exclusive sources whose contribution varied between compositions. It included the contents learned from and transmitted through the mass media, mainly the press, films, and television. These media provide both factual and fictional content (intertextuality). Other artistic manifestations can equally contribute to the interdiscursive ambit. The influence of crime news from abroad was relevant in depictions of mass murder (particularly, mass shootings), the same as intertextuality (mainly based on non-Spanish productions) for the subcultural portrayals of serial killers. Generally, the medical and criminological sciences have limited influence on the opinions of the general population, which continue to rely mostly on biased reports from mass media. This is a pending task for the scientific, academic, and clinical fields, hence the relevance of a dialogue between art, culture, media, and psychiatry.

Young Audıences, Youtube Culture and Fandom Concept in Turkey

Günümüzde dijital teknolojiler ile gelişen dijital kültürlerin oluşumunu ve gündelik hayattaki yerini kavrayabilmek adına iletişim teknolojilerine izleyici ve kullanıcı perspektifinden yaklaşmak gerekir. Bu sebeple bu çalışmada genç izleyiciler kapsamında YouTuber’lara duyulan ilgi ve hayranlık analiz edilmiştir. Araştırma yöntemi olarak niteliksel yöntem tercih edilmiş ve 10-14 yaşları arasında toplamda 12 kişi ile derinlemesine mülakatlar gerçekleştirilmiştir. Çalışmada elde edilen bulgular arasında YouTuber hayranlığında en fazla öne çıkan kavramların ünlü olma, samimiyet, kurgusal içerikler, çocuksuluk ve erişim olduğu saptanmıştır. Katılımcıların, belirtilen kavramları dijital kültüre uygun olarak tekrar tanımladığı gözlemlenmiştir. Dijital hayran kültürü, geçmişteki eğilimlerden beslenen fakat kendisine içkin kavramlarıyla yeni bir kültür oluşturmuştur.

Feeling the future: Wonder Woman discourse and the demands of media response

ABSTRACT Public discussion of blockbuster films and TV shows increasingly focuses on the power of representation, with certain works celebrated for their potentially beneficial effects. That celebration, however, often rests on the assumption of non-diverse audiences. Using media discourse on the film Wonder Woman (2017) as a case study, this article examines testimonies describing the psychological effects of fictional content in medicalized terms. Repeated references to tears and hunger tie narrative representation to the bodies of marginalized people, suggesting that responses to representation are involuntarily experienced in a standardized form. In many cases, the unexpected nature of these responses is highlighted. This article argues that public discussions of fictional media representation reify a strict model of media effects, denying complex or diverse readings and positioning cultural change as dependent on audiences “feeling” hegemonic readings of media texts. This discourse works to exclude those who cannot or will not conform to its affective norms, requiring psychological homogeneity that is rhetorically constructed as inescapably natural—as well as imperative to the promotion of cultural diversity. “Feeling” media associates media consumption with the creation of a better future, describing media effects as powerful precisely because of their presumed ability to remake the world.

Not Just Slash: Transformation of Aesthetic Relations and Feminist Utopian Narratives in Chinese Gender-Switching Videos

In 2020, Yiwen Wang published an article about gender-switching videos, a Chinese gender subculture in the digital media environment. Different from Wang, who identified gender-switching videos as an example of the slash (especially boys’ love) subgenre, through a more comprehensive investigation of this subgenre this study found that gender-switching videos—which can be divided into two categories of complete and selective—involve homoerotic (including both boys’ love and girls’ love), heteroerotic and queer narratives. This article starts by demonstrating the multi-gender/sexual orientation narrative in gender-switching videos, and further analyses their social and cultural functions as a gender subculture in reconstructing gendered relationships in traditional Chinese aesthetics and narratives. The theory of feminist utopian narratives is further introduced to better understand how Chinese women intervene in the grand historical narrative as an important force to influence the development of history and story plots via fiction content creation in the digital media environment.

Countering political enchantments in digital China: With reference to the fan-remix Meeting Sheldon

ABSTRACT Despite growing scholarly interest in fan audiovisual translation, how fan translators exploit fictional content for online protests of real-world issues has not been thoroughly explored in the literature. This article examines the fan-driven metamorphosis of the US sitcom The Big Bang Theory in the Chinese online space, focusing on the fan-remix “Meeting Sheldon”, produced by the China-based fandubbing group Y Show Club amidst online protests against the original show’s official ban in China. Y Show Club paired audiovisual clips from the original series with newly dubbed tracks and subtitles in Mandarin and English. In doing so, they combined new content and the original sitcom characters at the intersection between fiction and reality to reimagine the present and future within the state apparatus of political enchantments.

Real scary/scary real: Consuming simulated and authentic horrors in the digital era

Snuff, like porn, has been challenged by feminist and other political debates around representations focused on the body, exaggerated performance, claims of ‘realness’ and concerns about representing and/or encouraging violence against women. Thus, it is not surprising that simulated snuff horror, as a subgenre, is heavily influenced by the same technological changes that have also affected the porn industry: the content of the videos, how the videos are produced and how they are consumed. I argue that the decontextualized digital context of media production and consumption has especially lent itself to the subgenre of horror I refer to as ‘simulated snuff films’ and aids in the longevity of snuff mythology. I use the terminology simulated snuff films to differentiate these fictional, from authentic snuff. Building on Steve Jones’ work, I explore the consumption of simulated snuff films that are scary real – fictional content that purposefully attempts to approximate the imagined look of a real snuff film – and films that are real scary – authentic depictions of extreme sexual violence and death – which may not give the appearance of being real or may be read by audiences as being faked. Further, using Jean Baudrillard’s theories of Simulation and Simulacra (1981), I argue that the case of Luka Magnotta, and his now infamous internet videos, exemplifies the hyperreality of snuff films in the post-9/11 context. To put it another way, simulated snuff films now appear more real than authentic recordings of murder in the digital sphere.