Screen Media Research Articles

“Real queens fix each other’s crowns”: The interiorities of Black (British) girlhood in Rocks (2019)

ABSTRACT This article explores and analyses the production and representation of Black (British) girlhoods in Sarah Gavron’s film Rocks (2019), and the effects this has had on Black women and girl actors, film-makers, and audiences. Adopting a critical Black (British) girlhood framework that is rooted in Black feminist theory, it explores how Black girls’ interior worldbuilding in British screen media and beyond can be a source of empowerment and affective memory work for these groups. Centring the voices of Black girls and women, this article locates the interiorities of Black (British) girlhood within practices of resistance and self-definition, the formation and maintenance of girls’ intimate friendships, and their intergenerational solidarities. Methodologically, it analyses the film’s narrative alongside interviews from the actors and creatives, Black women’s written memories of their girlhoods, and essays from young Black girls living in Britain to reveal how Black (British) girlhood is relational, embodied, and emotionally affective.

Cognition, Stigma, and Inclusivity Roundtable

For this Roundtable, we asked several leading scholars working on issues of social justice and cognition in film and media studies for a brief response to the prompt: “Explain one current theory, approach, or research finding that you think is particularly important in addressing stigma and inclusivity in screen media.” Participants drew from their own current work and insights, and they pointed to new strands of inquiry that they found exciting. Their responses represent a range of interests across diverse specialisms, and comprise an interdisciplinary showcase for the state of current research in social justice, cognition, and media, including ideas on how the fields could grow from here.

Excessive Screen Media Exposure and Language Delay in the Development of Infants and Toddlers - Three Case Reports

Abstract Early exposure to digital media has become an integral part of everyday life, which is frequently being reported as one of potential risk factors for a number of developmental disorders, including language development in infants and toddlers. The current article represents introduction to a research study which will be dealing with a potential link between the risk of language delay and excessive screen media time in children. With this in mind, we will present three case reports involving young children who experienced a language delay, but did not have any health problems diagnosed, nor did they have any of the physical high-risk factors for language and other developmental disorders detected. What these three children have in common is the fact that they were all excessively exposed to digital media during the first two years of life. The existing empirical findings suggest that different forms of digital content may be overstimulating for the developing brain, which is true both for active and background screen viewing. Moreover, screen time may be seen as a distraction from other more developmentally important activities. Keeping parents informed about a potential negative influence of prolonged media exposure can prompt parents to make informed decisions about whether and to what extent they will expose their children to digital media in the earliest period of their development.

Combinatorial Biosynthesis of 3-O-Carbamoylmaytansinol by Rational Engineering of the Tailoring Steps of Ansamitocins.

Currently, most maytansine-containing antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in clinical trials are prepared with DM1 or DM4, which in turn is synthesized mainly from ansamitocin P-3 (AP-3), a bacterial maytansinoid, isolated from Actinosynnema pretiosum. However, due to the high self-toxicity of AP-3 to A.pretiosum, the yield of AP-3 has been difficult to improve. Herein, a new maytansinoid with much lower self-toxicity to A.pretiosum, 3-O-carbamoylmaytansinol (CAM, 3), was designed and generated by introducing the 3-O-carbamoyltransferase gene asc21b together with the N-methyltransferase genes from exogenous maytansinoid gene clusters into the 3-O-acyltransferase gene (asm19) deleted mutant HGF052. Meanwhile, two new shunt products, 20-O-demethyl-19-dechloro-N-demethyl-4,5-desepoxy-CAM (4) and 20-O-demethyl-N-demethyl-4,5-desepoxy-CAM (5) were identified from the recombinant strain. Furthermore, by screening of liquid fermentation media, overexpression of bottleneck tailoring enzymes and the pathway-specific activator, the titer of CAM reached 498 mg/L in the engineered strain. Since the 3-O-carbamoyl group of CAM can be removed by chemical cleavage as AP-3 to produce maytansinol, our work suggests that CAM may be a promising alternative to AP-3 in the future development of ADCs.

Study protocol for the Screen-Free Time with Friends Feasibility Trial

BackgroundChildren are spending less leisure time with their friends in person and an increasing amount of time with digital screens. These changes may negatively affect children’s physical and mental health. The Screen-Free Time with Friends Feasibility Trial will test the feasibility, including acceptability and compliance, of an intervention designed to reduce screen media usage and encourage physical interaction with friends during leisure time in 9–11-year-old children.MethodsA non-randomized single-group feasibility trial will be conducted from March to October 2023 including approximately 75 children (aged 9–11 years) and 75 parents (at least 1 per child) from 3 different schools recruited from 3 different municipalities in Denmark. The Screen-Free Time with Friends intervention is a multicomponent intervention targeting families, afterschool clubs, and local communities. It has been developed using a systematic process guided by the Medical Research Council UK’s framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions. With a systems perspective in mind, the intervention and implementation approach has been designed to facilitate adaptation to the specific needs of diverse local communities while maintaining the core components of the intervention.Feasibility and acceptability of the intervention will be assessed during the intervention using process evaluation inspired by the RE-AIM framework including questionnaires and interviews with the municipality project managers, research team members, local ambassadors and stakeholders, parents and school, and afterschool club personnel. In addition, participation, recruitment, retention rate, and compliance to the outcome measurements will be investigated and presented.DiscussionThe trial will investigate the feasibility and acceptability of the Screen-Free Time with Friends intervention, the recruitment strategy, and the planned outcome measurements. This feasibility study will investigate necessary refinements before the implementation of the intervention program in a larger cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate its impact.Trial registration.ClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT05480085. Registered 29 July 2022. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05480085?cond=Screen+free+time+with+friends&draw=2&rank=1

Promoting healthy screen use in children with externalizing behavior

AbstractThe sharp rise over the past decade in young children's access to various forms of screen media (e.g., smartphones, tablets, TVs) has posed new and significant challenges to caregivers in managing children's use of this type of media. For caregivers of young children with externalizing behavior problems, managing children's time with screen media is especially important and challenging. In this article, we summarize evidence of bidirectional links between early externalizing behavior problems and unhealthy screen media use in young children and discuss the extent to which prior interventions have responded to the needs of caregivers of children with these problems. We propose a conceptual model for an intervention to promote healthy screen media use for children with externalizing behavior problems that leverages current behavioral parenting interventions.

Return to innocence? Diaspora screen media and “New Ethnicities” in the moment of diversity

ABSTRACT This article revaluates Stuart Hall’s influential essay “New Ethnicities” for the study of diaspora screen media. In “New Ethnicities”, published in 1988, Hall famously declares that we have reached the “end of innocence”, having identified a shift in how race was then being articulated in the work of a new generation of British-born black and Asian film-makers. However, while Hall was excited by the promise of these new ethnicities, this article argues that there has been a shift back to the previous state of innocence, a consequence of racial neo-liberalism and the emergence of “diversity” discourse. The remainder of the article examines the implications of this reversal for research on the representation of race. While Hall’s optimism may have been premature, the article argues that “New Ethnicities” nonetheless contains a mode of critical enquiry that is crucial to our understanding of contemporary diaspora screen media in this moment of diversity.

‘Forget it’s between two women’: negotiating a queer Virginia Woolf in Chanya Button’s Vita & Virginia

ABSTRACT This article explores the gendered authorial negotiations at work in adaptations of Virginia Woolf’s works and celebrity image in screen media, focusing on a case study of Vita and Virginia (2018) directed by British filmmaker Chanya Button. The article discusses Button’s film’s textual and promotional strategies, considering how it adapts both Eileen Atkins’ 1995 play of the same name and original historical correspondence between Woolf and the writer Vita Sackville-West. It draws upon critical models of literary celebrity, the celebrity biopic, and the concept of adaptation networks to argue that Button’s strategic choices in cinematography and details of mise-en-scène formulate an ‘archival’ gaze in order to forge connections between Woolf and Button as gendered authorial and celebrity personas. This creates a visual dialogue between women authors across media and time. The article suggests that Button’s processes of adaptation work to destabilise the essential queerness of the epistolary material and literary celebrity images as a result of this archival technique. This produces a representation of queer desire that distances body and mind and privileges an intellectual romance above a physical, desiring and embodied queer sexuality. This ultimately reinforces rather than reframes or reimagines a popular image of Woolf’s literary celebrity, focused instead on her status as a melancholic, suffering figure.

Fungal-Mediated Biotransformation of the Plant Growth Regulator Forchlorfenuron by Cunninghamella elegans.

The synthetic cytokinin forchlorfenuron (FCF), while seemingly presenting relatively low toxicity for mammalian organisms, has been the subject of renewed scrutiny in the past few years due to its increasing use in fruit crops and potential for bioaccumulation. Despite many toxicological properties of FCF being known, little research has been conducted on the toxicological effects of its secondary metabolites. Given this critical gap in the existing literature, understanding the formation of relevant FCF secondary metabolites and their association with mammalian metabolism is essential. To investigate the formation of FCF metabolites in sufficient quantities for toxicological studies, a panel of four fungi were screened for their ability to catalyze the biotransformation of FCF. Of the organisms screened, Cunninghamella elegans (ATCC 9245), a filamentous fungus, was found to convert FCF to 4-hydroxyphenyl-forchlorfenuron, the major FCF secondary metabolite identified in mammals, after 26 days. Following the optimization of biotransformation conditions using a solid support system, media screening, and inoculation with a solid pre-formed fungal mass of C. elegans, this conversion time was significantly reduced to 7 days-representing a 73% reduction in total reaction time as deduced from the biotransformation products and confirmed by LC-MS, NMR spectroscopic data, as well as a comparison with synthetically prepared metabolites. Our study provides the first report of the metabolism of FCF by C. elegans. These findings suggest that C. elegans can produce FCF secondary metabolites consistent with those produced via mammalian metabolism and could be used as a more efficient, cost-effective, and ethical alternative for producing those metabolites in useful quantities for toxicological studies.

The Impact of Digital Technology Use on Child Development: A Comprehensive Literature Review

In recent years, the pervasive presence of digital screen media has become an integral part of children’s lives. The increasing accessibility of smartphones, tablets, and televisions has raised concerns about their potential effects on child devel- opment. This comprehensive literature review aims to explore the multifaceted relationship between digital screen media and various aspects of child development. We examine findings from several studies that shed light on cognitive development, social interactions, language acquisition, and the impact of screen time on children aged two and younger. Effects of the digital technology on the children depends on the various factors. Those factors include the socioeconomic status of the family, ecological environment, child attributes, interaction with various type of digital platform, content of the digital media and many others. It is evident that all of those factors are not associated with the experimental groups at the same time. So, there are many points which are missing in the findings from the previous studies and we cannot eliminate every gap because there would be number of permutations are present which cover various factors. There are certain things which are negatively impacting the child development and should be avoided whereas with the precaution and on the moderate level if feeded to children then the cognitive development would increase significantly in the children on the linguistic bases as well as on the cognitive bases.

Introduction: the multimodality of cringe comedy in screen and digital media productions

Abstract The millennial moment reflects an occupation with truth aiming for clear interpretations of the surrounding reality. Owing to the political conditions at the turn of the twenty-first century, both media and literary forms showed considerable interest in documentation. As inspections of truth yield no precise results, documentation shape-shifted into self-reflective presentations of social and personal failings. According to Patrick (Wöhrle, Patrick. 2021. Two shades of cringe: Problems in attributing painful laughter. Humanities 10(3). 99. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h10030099.), media has developed patterns of presentations that irritate rather than settle the viewers’ down thus destabilizing the conventional sender–message–recipient format. Interestingly, literary treatments have shown similar tendencies towards more integration of the spectator. Engagement with social or political conditions stems originally from a gap between what we know and what we see which engenders humour at many occasions based on superiority or incongruity. In post-millennial times especially with the Covid-19 outbreak, feeling strange, awkward or embarrassed are feelings of the mundane. Here, cringe comedy is a forerunner. Cringe humour holds deep sense of incongruity once attending to the ambivalence the term carries. Humour, which is supposedly a tool of both pleasure and relief, becomes rather a trigger of some painful visceral affect that ‘cringes’.

Do parent media habits contribute to child global development?

Parents of preschoolers' report using screen media frequently. More frequent screen use by parents may undermine child development by displacing time for foundational parent-child interactions. The objective of the present study is to examine the extent to which parent screen use contributes to child global development 1 year later. Data are from a cohort of 315 preschoolers from Nova Scotia, Canada and their parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents reported the number of hours per day they spent using screens, as well as child screen time and sex, and parent educational attainment. Our outcome is child global development scores, which combine assessments of communication, cognitive, personal-social, and motor skills measured at 4.5 using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) (N = 249, 79% retained). Parents in our sample spent on average 6.35 h per day using screen media outside of work (SD = 3.07) and children spent on average 3.43 h per/day using screens. Multivariate linear regression indicated that each 1-h increase in parents daily screen media use, corresponded to a 1.25 decrease in child global development scores, B = -1.25 p < 0.05, 95% CI between -2.37 and -0.13. Our results indicate that parent screen use may represent a key component of children's media ecology. Given the importance of global development in early childhood for later health and achievement, the present results suggest that interventions should include parent screen use habits in media wellness interventions.

Screen time vs. scream time: Developmental interrelations between young children's screen time, negative affect, and effortful control

This study aimed to examine developmental relations of screen time, negative affect and effortful control in children aged 12–36 months. Parents of 462 children up to 3 years of age at the start of the study (M = 1.28 years, SD = 0.61; 50% female) participated in four assessments within 10 months. Parents reported their children's screen time, negative affect, and effortful control at each assessment in a diary study. Results of multivariate Bayesian multilevel growth modeling revealed correlations between growth parameters of (1) children's screen time and their negative affect and (2) children's negative affect and their effortful control but not between growth parameters of (3) children's screen time and their effortful control. Overall, these results indicate that children's screen time may be associated with their negative affect independently of their effortful control. Hence, we found no evidence of displacement in the development of self-regulatory strategies in children of parents with higher levels of education. Future research on this topic should focus on children's excessive screen media use, considering contextual and content-related screen media factors and other factors in the child's immediate and broader environment.

Household food insecurity and its association with academic performance among primary school adolescents in Hargeisa City, Somaliland.

Academic achievement is crucial for the social and economic development of young people and determines the quality of education of a nation. According to different studies, food insecurity adversely affects children's health, nutrition, and subsequent decline in academic performance by impairing students' ability to learn and therefore affects the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all. To provide evidence on the association of food insecurity with academic performance is necessary. The current study assessed household food insecurity and its association with academic performance among primary school adolescents in Hargeisa City, Somaliland. A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 630 primary school adolescents from December 2021 to March 2022. Students were selected using a multistage sampling technique. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on household food security and socio-demographic variables and entered into Epi data version 3.1. The data was exported to SPSS version 26 for descriptive and multivariable logistic regression analysis. Odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals together with p <0.05 were utilized to declare statistical significance. The prevalence of food insecurity among school adolescents was 59.21%. The majority (55.40%) of the school adolescents were poor academic performers. The frequency of adolescents' poor academic performance was significantly high (71.05%) among food insecure households (P < 0.001) as compared to their counterparts whose households were food secure (32.68%). On multivariable analysis, household food insecurity (AOR = 5.24, 95%CI = 3.17-8.65), school absenteeism (AOR = 3.49, 95%CI = 2.20-5.53), spending >2h/day watching TV / screen media use (AOR = 9.08, 95%CI = 4.81-17.13), high and middle wealth households (AOR = 0.51, 95%CI = 0.30-0.88) (AOR = 0.40, 95%CI = 0.21-0.76) and habitual breakfast consumption (AOR = 0.08, 95%CI = 0.03-0.20) had shown statistically significant association with academic performance among primary school adolescents. The present study revealed that household food insecurity has a high association with adolescents' academic performance. The prevalence of food insecurity is moderate, based on the household food insecurity access scale. The results indicate the need for policies and programs intended to improve household income by developing income-generation programs for lower-income families and enhance feeding programs such as national school lunch and school feeding across schools in the country.

DESTRUCTION OF UKRAINIAN CITIES DURING THE RUSSIAN AGGRESSION (SOCIO-GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS BASED ON MARIUPOL)

The objective of this study is to examine and summarize the features and consequences of the devastation of cities in southeastern Ukraine by the Russian invaders during the initial phase of a large-scale war. It has been determined that the occupier’s adoption of the scorched earth tactic resulted in the complete destruction of numerous settlements, including dozens of cities within the country. It led to a severe disruption of the state’s territorial planning structure. Mariupol, a prominent socio-economic center of the nation, endured extensive devastation and significant civilian casualties. The article examines the distinctive characteristics of the town’s economic progress, the development of its society, the identity of its population, and its social roles. Special emphasis is given to the establishment of the city’s planning framework in response to economic and environmental factors. The planning structure significantly influenced the enemy’s advance, the positioning of the city’s defenders’ strongholds, and the areas that were destroyed. The authors aim to analyze the socio-economic and demographic situation in the city under occupation, based on the media screening. The city has experienced significant civilian casualties, and both its economic framework and infrastructure have been entirely demolished. The occupiers’ statements regarding the reconstruction of Mariupol can be characterized as propagandistic and primarily consisting of declarations. The governing authorities are actively implementing measures to alter the ethnic composition of the population and its cultural identity. The authors define the large-scale destruction of Mariupol and the extermination of its population as the initial phase of a more intricate process of comprehensive urban transformation, referred to as urban transmutation. The key component of it involves an extensive redesign of the city’s urban foundation, planning, and functional framework, as well as the city’s population with its demographic traits, educational attainment, and cultural identity. The post-war reconstruction of Mariupol should incorporate a reevaluation of its role, as the complete reconstruction of ferrous metallurgy in Mariupol during this process presents major challenges. The city’s reconstruction should prioritize the adoption of cutting-edge technological systems centered around digitalization, green technologies, circular production, and other similar advancements.

A machine learning approach to detect potentially harmful and protective suicide-related content in broadcast media.

Suicide-related media content has preventive or harmful effects depending on the specific content. Proactive media screening for suicide prevention is hampered by the scarcity of machine learning approaches to detect specific characteristics in news reports. This study applied machine learning to label large quantities of broadcast (TV and radio) media data according to media recommendations reporting suicide. We manually labeled 2519 English transcripts from 44 broadcast sources in Oregon and Washington, USA, published between April 2019 and March 2020. We conducted a content analysis of media reports regarding content characteristics. We trained a benchmark of machine learning models including a majority classifier, approaches based on word frequency (TF-IDF with a linear SVM) and a deep learning model (BERT). We applied these models to a selection of more simple (e.g., focus on a suicide death), and subsequently to putatively more complex tasks (e.g., determining the main focus of a text from 14 categories). Tf-idf with SVM and BERT were clearly better than the naive majority classifier for all characteristics. In a test dataset not used during model training, F1-scores (i.e., the harmonic mean of precision and recall) ranged from 0.90 for celebrity suicide down to 0.58 for the identification of the main focus of the media item. Model performance depended strongly on the number of training samples available, and much less on assumed difficulty of the classification task. This study demonstrates that machine learning models can achieve very satisfactory results for classifying suicide-related broadcast media content, including multi-class characteristics, as long as enough training samples are available. The developed models enable future large-scale screening and investigations of broadcast media.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CHILDREN USING ELECTRONIC MEDIA

Electronic media use by kids has been thoroughly investigated, and the results indicate that it has a substantial impact on their growth and welfare. Excessive exposure to electronic media, especially in preschoolers, has been linked to a number of detrimental effects, including problems with cognitive, social, and physical development. et al., Ibrahim (2022). Research has indicated the significance of comprehending the long-term relationships between media consumption and behavior in preschoolers, given that the use of electronic media has been connected to behavioral issues in kids (Poulain et al., 2018). Furthermore, studies have shown how electronic media influences kids' language and social abilities, highlighting the importance of taking into account how media usage impacts several facets of kids' development (Loquias, 2022). Additionally, children's usage of electronic media can affect their sleeping habits, which may result in shorter sleep duration and disturbed sleep patterns (Lund et al., 2021). Research has shown that children who are exposed to too much media may have trouble falling asleep and have poor quality sleep, which emphasizes the need of controlling and observing children's media consumption in order to encourage good sleep practices (Lund et al., 2021). It is imperative to acknowledge the detrimental impacts of electronic media on the welfare of children and implement measures to alleviate these consequences (Hinkley et al., 2014). In addition, study has examined the impact of electronic media on kids' social development, looking at the relationship between kids' communication outcomes and screen media usage (Ambrose et al., 2014). Given that parental media consumption might affect children's familiarity with and usage of electronic media, parental engagement in influencing their media consumption is important (Nikken, 2017).In addition, study has examined the impact of electronic media on kids' social development, looking at the relationship between kids' communication outcomes and screen media usage (Ambrose et al., 2014). Given that parental media consumption might affect children's familiarity with and usage of electronic media, parental engagement in influencing their media consumption is important (Nikken, 2017).

Infant screen media and child development: A prospective community study.

The current study examined longitudinal associations between early screen media exposure (assessed at 6, 12, and 24months) and the child's motor and language/communication development at the ages of 24 and 36months. We also aimed to study whether these associations varied by socioeconomic status (SES). Participants were 179 parent-infant dyads, recruited from well-baby clinic services during routine visits. Child development measures included standardized measures of developmental milestones as assessed by professionals and referral data to child developmental centers. Both measures were retrieved from the official health maintenance organization records by an expert in child development. Results indicated that screen exposure at 6 and 12months was associated with a higher risk for language/communication deficits at 36months in children with moderate or high SES but not in children with low SES. Our findings are consistent with existing literature demonstrating cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between early screen exposure and language development deficits. Given that media use practices and motivations vary among families from different backgrounds, further investigation of the interaction between SES and screen exposure is needed.

Environmentality of Immersive Projection

How does an artwork express an “environmentality?” Can we redefine immersion, in critical terms, as a form of environmental projection? In taking up such questions from my latest book, Atmospheres of Projection: Environmentality in Art and Screen Media, my text addresses the relation between projection and environmentality in the visual arts in order to question immersivity. Confronted with the phenomenon of environmentalization, we need to re-imagine the ecology of representation. Positing ecology as an environmental relation, I will consider its artistic imagination both historically and theoretically. I propose that we revisit the environmentality of media archaeology to understand how this impulse is furthered in current moving-image projections in the art gallery that call themselves immersive. I will especially address environmentality as it relates to movement and scale, questioning the relation between immersion and magnification. I will advance my argument by presenting the large-scale moving-image installations of the Danish-born, New York artist Jesper Just. Does magnification always, only imply spectatorial immersion? Other forms of experience arise when confronting an ecology of scale in art. What else happens when we scale? Can immersion be understood, more critically, as a form of environmental absorption? In recasting immersion in environmental terms, I propose that we consider absorption as empathic projection with space. In shifting from the human subject’s own immersive identification to this critically aware, enveloping field of empathic projection with the non-human, we can discard the prevalent human-centric position that pervades most immersive discourses. A different ecology of immersivity rises to the surface by relating the empathic “projective imagination” to “atmospheric thinking.”

An Ecological Inquiry on Young People's Suicidal Ideation at University: Individual, Relational and Cultural Factors and Their Interactions.

To understand the factors related to suicidal ideation in university students, we examined individual and microsystemic variables with an ecological model organizing bidirectional influences between different dimensions. Suicidal ideation, psychological distress, multidimensional self-concept, loneliness, community social support, life satisfaction, family functioning, bullying victimization, and problematic use of virtual social networks were measured in a sample of 376 Mexican university students (67% women) from 18 to 34 years of age (M = 20.8). Data were collected in March 2020, before mandatory confinement for COVID started in Mexico. Discriminant analyses showed that psychological distress, loneliness, self-concept, life satisfaction, family functioning, internet violence/rejection, and informal social support predicted belonging to high or no suicidal ideation groups with 88% accuracy. Only psychological distress and family self-concept predicted suicidal ideation in multilinear regression analyses. There were differences by gender in multilinear regression, with family self-concept significant for women and physical self-concept, but not family self-concept for boys. Conclusions: Early Suicide prevention in universities should include periodic screening of psychological distress, loneliness, and virtual social media use to identify students that need further evaluation and intervention. University-based strategies of mental health promotion that strengthen family relationships and the sense of community, including gender-sensitive orientation, could enhance the effect of protective factors.