Supportive Audience Research Articles

Self-presenting in Front of a Friendly Female Audience Increases Young Men Risk-taking in the Iowa Gambling Task

Abstract Purpose During intersex interactions heterosexual men show a temporary cognitive impairment and an increase in risky behaviors. These effects have been interpreted as caused by the negative emotion and stress experienced by men attempting to produce a positive impression of themselves. Under this line of reasoning men’s cognitive performance during a heterosexual interaction is maladaptive and perhaps it could be improved when the audience or target of men’s public performance express positive, supportive feedback. Methods Fifty-eight heterosexual young males were asked to provide a self-presentation and to perform a difficult arithmetical task in front of two female confederates. One group of men interacted with a negative unsupportive audience while the other group interacted with a friendly and supportive audience. We tested men’s decision making in the Iowa Gambling Task after they engaged in this public performance task. Results We found that men self-presenting in front of a friendly female audience engaged in more risky decision making during the last two blocks of the Iowa Gambling Task. There were no differences in parameters of cardiovascular reactivity and no differences of perceived judge’s attractiveness between the two groups. Men exposed to the unfriendly female audience perceived the female judge as more interested in them. Conclusion When heterosexual men self-present and perform in front of a supportive and friendly female audience their risk-taking in the Iowa Gambling Task increases but the exact mechanism leading to this behavior requires further study.

Branding in the context of innovative development and sustainable marketing

The article focuses on the aspects of branding in the context of the influence of modern trends in innovation processes and sustainable development goals. The modern transformations of innovation processes under the influence of "closed" (traditional approach) and "open" (new approach) strategies for generating new products and the corresponding process of their branding are studied. The author pays attention to environmental branding as a new and effective method of market positioning through the positioning of the environmental properties of a product, which reduces (softens) the negative impact of production and operation on the environment by promoting products that meet environmental standards. It is established that modern approaches to branding require a comprehensive approach to brand formation as a mental construct and as a social "contract". Today, the effect of marketing brain print ("brain print") is gaining more and more recognition, which requires a focus on branding strategies on the profound sociological, psychological, and cultural impact on the consumer. It has been established that its implementation today is successfully realized thanks to artificial intelligence. Also, its popularization is noted in sustainable marketing approaches, especially as a driving force of modern culture in terms of brand involvement in the target audience of supporters of climate and environmental issues of modern economic development. It is established that the task of emphasizing the environmental properties of products and their corresponding competitive positioning is currently solved by a fundamentally new type of branding called "environmental branding" (eco-branding), which is an activity aimed at creating and introducing an environmentally friendly brand to the market with the help of marketing tools, managing the technology of promotion and advertising support of the brand with an emphasis on the environmental qualities of the product, the basis of which is the formation of a favorable image of the advertised product among consumers. Therefore, the paper describes the aspects of branding related to the process of generating open innovations as the circulation of targeted knowledge flows in the internal and external environment of enterprises, which, on the one hand, allows for more effective socialization of the concept of innovative products and, at the same time, a priori increases the potential level of positive brand perception. At the same time, it is shown (proved) that the increase in the efficiency of economic processes under the influence of consumer activation by such branding is explained by the interaction of triangulation of three determinants: innovation, environmental friendliness, and socialization. It is concluded that a modern innovative environmental brand in the above-mentioned modern conditions is also a conductor of sustainable innovations since, firstly, it popularizes the principles of creating sustainable products through the power of the brand; secondly, the brand ensures that the diffusion and perception of sustainable innovations by consumers is enhanced; thirdly, it ensures the strategic development of the enterprise's mission in new iterations of the future economy and consolidates the company's image as a leading and responsible company. Keywords: innovative development, sustainable marketing, brand, branding, marketing brainprint, brand management

Public speaking training in front of a supportive audience in Virtual Reality improves performance in real-life

Public speaking is a challenging task that requires practice. Virtual Reality allows to present realistic public speaking scenarios in this regard, however, the role of the virtual audience during practice remains unknown. In the present study, 73 participants completed a Virtual Reality practice session while audience was manipulated to be supportive or unsupportive or presentations were practiced without audience. Importantly, following the virtual practice, participants held the presentation during a real university course via Zoom. We measured emotional experience, self-efficacy, and the subjective evaluation of performance at baseline, after VR practice, and after the real presentation. Additionally, participants’ performance in the real presentation was evaluated by instructors (blinded to condition). Supportive in contrast to unsupportive audiences led to more positive believes about one’s own performance, while there were no changes in beliefs in the group without audience. Importantly, practice in front of a supportive compared to unsupportive audience resulted in a more positive evaluation of speaker confidence in real-life public speaking as rated by the instructors. These results demonstrate an impact of virtual social feedback during public speaking on subsequent subjective performance evaluation. This may increase self-confidence resulting in actual improved public speaking performance in real-life.

Non‐verbal behaviour of professional soccer players performing in the absence or presence of fans

AbstractThe present research tested the impact of score line, spectator presence and game location on athletes’ non‐verbal behaviour (NVB). Two studies (N = 240; N = 160) tested whether the NVB of soccer players differed as a function of score line, spectator‐presence and game location by asking participants to guess the current score, the dominance, pride and confidence of soccer players in videos. Results demonstrated that NVB ratings were more negative when the athletes were trailing (less dominant, less proud, and less confident) compared to leading. Study 1 showed more non‐verbal expressiveness (social facilitation) of pleasant feelings (being in a high lead) and lower expressiveness (social inhibition) of negative feelings (trailing) in the presence of spectators. Study 2 indicated that leading at away games led to higher non‐verbal expressiveness, whereas leading at home games led to less non‐verbal expressiveness in the presence of a supportive audience.

Hot hand or choking under pressure – Evidence from professional basketball

AbstractThis paper examines the existence of a hot hand and whether performing in front of a supportive audience creates a psychological pressure, which may impair performance. Using the task of free throwing in basketball competitions involving National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season and playoff games, I find strong evidence of a hot hand and a negative causal effect of the spectators on the probability of a successful shoot. The results support the hot hand fallacy and are in line with the hypothesis of choking under pressure when performing skill‐based tasks. Furthermore, contrary to what would be expected given the evidence in favor of a choking phenomenon, the effect of star players is insignificant. The hot hand effects for stars and non‐stars are the same in direction. Finally, efforts increase the performance, and the influence of hot hands and choking are not different between home and away shootings.

Who chokes on a penalty kick? Social environment and individual performance during Covid-19 times

We use hand-collected data on penalty kicks in the top-level football competitions across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom over the 2019/2020 season to analyse how social environment affects the performance of individuals. We exploit the Covid-19 outbreak to induce a plausible source of variation in the supporters’ attendance. We find that for home teams the probability of missing a penalty increases when matches are forced to be played behind closed doors, while visiting teams are less likely to choke on a penalty kick, with these effects being more pronounced when the level of attendance (measured before the pandemic) was high. Taken together, these findings indicate that not only a supportive audience, but also the size of the support plays a key role for success of skill tasks.

Playing God and tampering with nature: popular labels for real concerns in synthetic biology.

Public engagement in science with diverse cross-sections of the community is considered a critical aspect of responsible biotechnological innovation. While the research community shows willingness to engage with both ambivalent and supportive audiences about potentially disruptive technological advances, there is less enthusiasm for engaging with groups who hold deeply opposing views to such advances. 'Playing God' and 'tampering with nature' are popular examples of intrinsic objections often made in opposition to the development or use of novel genetic technologies. Historically appearing in arguments against the pursuit of genetically modified organisms in agriculture and food industries, intrinsic objections have previously been labelled by the science community as inconsistent, non-scientific, and vague. Now found in a range of innovation contexts, the domain of synthetic biology appears to attract such objections consistently. We present the findings from a large Australian study (N = 4593) which suggests 'playing God' objections and their variants can be multilayered and, at times, accompanied by meaningful information about risk perceptions. We use qualitative analysis of open-ended responses from an online survey to show how these objections are articulated in response to selected synthetic biology applications across environmental and health domains. Our research invites a rethink of how the synthetic biology community perceives, and engages with, people who express intrinsic objections. These people may additionally hold extrinsic concerns that may be potentially addressed, or at least reasonably considered, through dialogue. We offer some concluding remarks for engaging with publics who employ these types of arguments to communicate unease with aspects of technology development and use.

Bringing the problem home: The anti-slavery and anti-trafficking rhetoric of UK non-government organisations

Rhetoric is a way to explain policy problem framing by recognising the practical necessity to persuade audiences in contextual situations. Modern slavery and human trafficking is a complex and emotive problem, simplified through rhetorical demands to motivate an audience of supporters. This article analyses rhetoric by 212 UK anti-trafficking and anti-slavery non-government organisations (NGOs) to uncover rhetorical practices and their effects on policy framing, supplemented by archival research to compare past and present anti-slavery oratory. Our data show NGOs use rhetoric to motivate supporters and promote a humanitarian problem frame, in opposition to a state-driven security frame. Findings confirm other research in identifying an emphasis on female victims and on sexual over labour exploitation. Past and present rhetoric are equivalent in terms of liberal, Christian values (ethos) and appeals to pathos through sympathy for victims. Historical rhetoric is distinctive in arguing for the equal human status of slaves, whereas contemporary activists argue victims are denied agency. Contemporary rhetoric represses the question of migration, whereas past rhetoric is more deliberative. Rhetoric varies with the requirements of persuasion related to contextual distance, between unlike humans in the past, but in regard to geographical distance today.

A Three-Person Teaching Machine Designed for Crisis: The Geromat III in Berlin and Ulm

This is the first paper to discuss the Geromat III teaching machine developed at the Berlin Institute for Cybernetics in relationship to the Geromat III prototypes developed at Ulm School of Design in the 1960s. The Geromat III was an electro-mechanical teaching machine that could train up to three students at three separate multimedia consoles. The system required all learners to answer correctly in order to progress through the instructional program; if not, the students were required to speak to each other in order to reach agreement. The paper analyzes archival material and first-hand accounts with the Geromat III, as well as the social context of federal funding for research into computing and education in West Germany of the 1960s, in order to understand how this teaching machine, an early form of computer-aided instruction (CAI), came to be. The Geromat III, though utilized on a small scale, found an audience of enthusiastic supporters on the other side of the country, with artist-designers at the Ulm School of Design who created prototypes for consoles to be used with the system. While hands-on knowledge about the system was unavailable to the console designers, an ideological affinity between the Ulm School of Design and the Berlin Institute for Cybernetics bridged any technical gaps in knowledge; the resulting design prototypes, one for mass-production and one for DIY (do-it-yourself) construction, point to speculative futures for the system.

Культурна дипломатія у контексті міжнародних стратегічних комунікацій

Cultural diplomacy is studied as a topical scientific object in the context of development and further institutionalization of international strategic communications of Ukraine. The author considers it expedient to single out in the technology of international strategic communications in general and in cultural diplomacy in particular three levels of implementation: practical (activity); scientific (theoretical); media (informing about cultural projects and endeavors, first of all, international ones; strengthening their effects, expanding the audience of sympathizers and supporters of Ukraine; dispelling ideological and worldview stereotypes, breaking down hostile destructive narratives about Ukraine). The latter is considered a prerequisite for conveying important cultural narratives. The aim of the paper was to define the essence of cultural diplomacy as a component of public diplomacy precisely through media representation. This specified the following tasks: sampling of media texts with reference to cultural diplomacy; characterization of semantic characteristics of nomination and directions of semantic realization of its meaning; tracing the role and place of cultural diplomacy in the system of international strategic communications, based on the analysis and generalization of media discourse; identification of cultural diplomacy’s main tools, formulation of problems and prospects of media reflection. The empirical basis of the study was media texts from such Ukrainian newspapers as «Den», «Dzerkalo Tyzhnia», «Ukraina Moloda», «Holos Ukrainy», and others over the past five years (a total of over 70 publications of various genres), in which cultural diplomacy is reflected as an important element of interstate cooperation. With the use of scientific methods of continuous sampling, quantitative method of content analysis, descriptive and comparative methods, analysis and synthesis method, the use of the «cultural diplomacy» nomination is traced, the attention is focused on the tasks and effective forms of its implementation. The paper proved the necessity of further institutionalization of cultural diplomacy as a set of endeavors aimed at promoting the interests of the state by means of culture, art, education, cultural industries in general; expanding the range of subjects and potential recipients; increase of the resources directed on it: intellectual, expert, consulting, financial ones.

Choking under pressure in front of a supportive audience: Evidence from professional biathlon

Performing in front of a supportive audience increases motivation. However, it also creates psychological pressure, which may impair performance, especially in precision tasks. In this paper, we exploit a unique setting in which professionals compete in a real-life contest with large monetary rewards in order to assess how they perform in front of a supportive audience. Using the task of shooting in the sprint competitions of professional biathlon events over a period of 16 years, we find that for both genders, biathletes from the top quartile of the ability distribution miss significantly more shots when competing in their home country compared to competing abroad. Our results are in line with the hypothesis that high expectations to perform well in front of a friendly audience prompt individuals to choke when performing skill-based tasks.

Followers Retweet! The Influence of Middle‐Level Gatekeepers on the Spread of Political Information on Twitter

Twitter allows political candidates to broadcast messages directly to the public, some of which spread virally, potentially reaching new supportive audiences. During the 2014 U.S. gubernatorial election, 74 candidates for State Governor posted 20,580 tweets, of which 10,946 were retweeted almost 140,000 times. By analyzing a collection of tweets posted by gubernatorial candidates that were classified by machine learning into categories of message types, we find that while candidates tend to post tweets that advocate for themselves the most, the public is more likely to retweet attack messages and messages labeled as call‐to‐action. As measured by number of retweets, call‐to‐action tweets tend to reach the broadest audience. We also find that middle‐level gatekeepers, those with between 1,800 and 26,000 followers, tend to have the most influence over the flow of political information. Since retweets tend to bring new followers, these findings suggest that politicians wishing to grow their audience may benefit from posting more call‐to‐action and attack messages, and that candidates may wish to find ways to actively enlist the support of middle‐level gatekeepers.

“TOGETHER WE ARE UNBEATABLE”: young sisters’ narration of a sibling’s cancer in personal blogs on the internet

ABSTRACT Purpose: Siblings of children and young people diagnosed with cancer are commonly reluctant to talk about their experiences due to the circumstances of the illness situation. This article aims to bring voice to experience and inform practice by investigating what and how three young sisters narrate about their illness experiences in personal blogs on the Internet. Methods: A narrative methodology for the analysis of life storytelling was applied primarily to investigate the sister’s coping strategies and support needs. Results: The results show how the sisters constructed their own space for narration, with the main aims of expressing their feelings about the illness and seeking social support. The telling of their experiences along with encouraging comments from a supportive audience enabled a change in position from feeling neglected and silenced to being a recognized agent and caring sister. In addition, through their narrative coping the sisters went from powerless to powerful in their position in relation to cancer. Conclusion: The results highlight the need for siblings to be able to narrate experience in a supportive context, where the processing of their relationship with the ill sister/brother should be understood as an important element of their coping with cancer and death.

A double-edged sword: cultural entrepreneurship and the mobilisation of morally tainted cultural resources

ABSTRACT We aim to highlight a type of cultural entrepreneurship, which has received scant attention by prior scholarship, and consists of deploying morally tainted cultural resources, i.e., resources that some audiences assess as going against accepted principles of morality. We argue that this type of cultural entrepreneurship is a double-edged sword and explain how it may ignite active opposition of offended audiences, as well as attract supportive audiences. We delineate a research agenda to shed light on whether, how, and with what consequences cultural entrepreneurs navigate such a tension – in particular how they (1) mobilise morally tainted cultural resources and with what effect on offended audiences; (2) deal with the consequent legitimacy challenges; and (3) transform moral taint into ‘coolness’ to enhance their venture’s distinctiveness.

YOU CAN DO IT! EFFECTS OF AUDIENCE SUPPORT AND ANXIETY ON PHYSICAL AND PERCEPTUAL-COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE IN CYCLISTS

Event Abstract Back to Event YOU CAN DO IT! EFFECTS OF AUDIENCE SUPPORT AND ANXIETY ON PHYSICAL AND PERCEPTUAL-COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE IN CYCLISTS Bethany Bradhurst1*, James Donnelly1 and Christopher Stevens1 1 Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Australia Aim: The presence of a supportive audience is reported to be a contributing factor to optimal physical performance. Research also indicates that supportive audiences can induce anxiety, causing people to perform below their actual physical abilities. Currently, little is known about the effects of audience support on perceptual-cognitive performance during exercise. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of audience support and anxiety on physical and perceptual-cognitive performance during cycling. Method: Forty one participants were allocated to either a live audience (n=12), recorded audience (n=15), or no audience (n=14) group. Participants completed the Revised Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2R) and an abbreviated version of the Physical Activity and Sport Anxiety Scale (PASAS) before completing a 10-min warm up protocol on a Wattbike cycle ergometer. Participants then performed a 10-min time trial (TT) for the highest mean power. During the TT, participants performed a combined Flanker/Go-No Go task that was presented on a monitor positioned in front of the bike. Results: No significant differences were found between groups on cycling performance (F(2,36) = 1.04, p = .364, ηp² = .055), cognitive task reaction time (F(2,37) = .30, p = .741, ηp² = .016), or accuracy (F(2,36) = 1.58, p = .220, ηp² = .081). Conclusions: Cycling and in-task cognitive performance are neither enhanced nor debilitated by the presence of a live or recorded supportive audience. Keywords: Anxiety, Cycling, power output, audiences, Perceptual-cognitive Conference: Southern Cross University 13th Annual Honours Psychology Research Conference, Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia, 7 Oct - 7 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Research Topic: Psychology Citation: Bradhurst B, Donnelly J and Stevens C (2016). YOU CAN DO IT! EFFECTS OF AUDIENCE SUPPORT AND ANXIETY ON PHYSICAL AND PERCEPTUAL-COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE IN CYCLISTS. Front. Public Health. Conference Abstract: Southern Cross University 13th Annual Honours Psychology Research Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.FPUBH.2016.02.00013 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 29 Sep 2016; Published Online: 30 Sep 2016. * Correspondence: Ms. Bethany Bradhurst, Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia, b.bradhurst.10@student.scu.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Bethany Bradhurst James Donnelly Christopher Stevens Google Bethany Bradhurst James Donnelly Christopher Stevens Google Scholar Bethany Bradhurst James Donnelly Christopher Stevens PubMed Bethany Bradhurst James Donnelly Christopher Stevens Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

“A somber passion strengthens her voice”: The Stage as Public Platform in British Women’s Suffrage Drama

Writing in The Freewoman in 1912, Rebecca West--herself a supporter of women's suffrage--denounced with characteristic acerbity increasing popularity of degradations of drama written by propagandists, complaining that the public taste has already been so perverted that Suffrage speeches... stand chance of wide popularity. (1) Despite her dismissive tone, West's description of suffrage plays as dislocated Suffrage speeches is worth taking seriously, and it is this generic overlap between political oratory and theatre that is subject of this paper. Many plays written in support of British women's suffrage movement capitalize on similarities between stage and public speaking platform to encourage women to raise their voices in a public forum. While suffrage movement inspired a variety of theatrical activities in Britain, ranging from processions and public demonstrations to dramatic works performed in mainstream West End theatres, plays that concern me here are dramatic works written in overt support of women's suffrage and performed by activist theatre groups such as Actresses' Franchise League and Pioneer Players. Many of these dramatic works break down distinction between play and suffrage speech, creating a distinctive form of political drama. In staging women's struggle to find a public voice, these plays demonstrate importance of audience in successful public expression of a feminist point of view, in keeping with recent feminist theories of voice that have stressed role of listener in feminist writing. The propagandist plays I examine here invoke two very different audiences, both of which play a role in encouraging feminist protagonists to speak publicly: on one hand, an oppositional audience, often hostile or condescending, provokes feminist speaker to engage in debate; on other, a more sympathetic audience encourages speaker to keep going and to see her quest as worthwhile. While supportive audiences tend to be presented in an idealized or fantastic manner, their convergence with actual audience at these suffrage-era productions encourages political action by breaking down distinction between stage and public challenging actual audience members to join suffrage cause and to act on what they hear. The generic convergence of suffrage oratory and drama is enabled by suffrage playwrights' and performers' unapologetic use of theatre for propagandist purposes. Feminist critics interested in British suffrage drama have long recognized and defended propagandistic aspects of these plays, though in so doing they have tended to focus more on plays' female roles and political content than on genre and staging. Suffrage plays, though well received by suffrage supporters, were often dismissed by theatre reviewers as propaganda rather than art, as Katharine Cockin has noted. (2) Suffrage playwrights and performers, however, defended their use of theatre for propaganda purposes. Edith Craig, founder and director of feminist theatre group Pioneer Players, for example, openly admitted in an interview that our plays take place of tracts, (3) while Cicely Hamilton announced proudly in The Vote that suffragists had started a new system of propaganda by means of plays, that was so successful that everybody was trying to steal plays or imitate them in some way (4) Expanding on Ellen Ecker Dolgin's observation that in suffrage drama there exists a dialogic and yet dichotomous relationship between stage and public platform, I argue that suffrage playwrights deliberately exploited connection between drama and political tract or speech to create a new, hybrid genre to authorize their political message. (5) Several critics have noted this connection, but its generic implications have not been fully explored. Carolyn Tilghman and Claire Hirshfield have both recognized these plays as new forms of protest drama that use stage as a public but they also emphasize authors' appropriation of conventional genres and formulae such as melodrama or fallen woman play. …

The “Home Advantage” in Athletic Competitions

Game location has a powerful influence on performance outcomes in sport. We reviewed recent research on three conceptual models that outline (a) the various game-location factors that can alter athletes’ psychological states, (b) the natural protective response to territorial incursion in humans, and (c) the increased probability of involuntary attentional shifts in the presence of a supportive audience. Investigators recently have accumulated support for each of these models and linked variations in game location to psychological, hormonal, and behavioral states of athletes, coaches, and officials. We considered how an integrative approach might benefit the study of the home-advantage phenomenon and described an assortment of research questions to support the development of an integrative framework. By studying how audience support contributes to physiological reactivity, attention, stress responses, and decision making (among athletes and officials), researchers can achieve a better understanding of the processes through which a home environment can benefit (and occasionally harm) athletes and teams.

Eliciting Acceptance For “Illicit” Organizations: The Positive Implications of Stigma for MMA Organizations

This paper explores the positive implications that stigma has for organizations and how it may lead to broader acceptance for them among social audiences. We conduct a qualitative study of stigmatized—but increasingly accepted—mixed martial arts (MMA) organizations and the audiences that evaluated them through an analysis of interviews, media reports, and texts documenting their experiences. We found the following. First, there were three different types of stigma associated with MMA organizations: aesthetic, lawlessness, and harm-based. Second, MMA organizational actors used stigma to their advantage in two, opposing manners. They coopted negative labels to gain the awareness of supportive audiences, as well as drew from them to correct negative evaluations held by critical audiences regarding their organizations. This demonstrates that, rather than attempting to “pass as normal,” stigmatized organizational actors can actively construct those attributes that are the focus of stigma and persuade audiences to reconsider their negative evaluations, rendering their organizations more acceptable

Situational Gamblers: Prospect Theory and the Commonalities of Presidential Campaign Management

In this article, prospect theory helps shed light on an underdeveloped topic in political science: the management strategies of presidential campaigns. In particular, prospect theory is used to understand critical decisions made by the campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush during three critical junctures of the 1980 presidential primary season. Prospect theory's central finding—that individuals are risk averse when facing gains and risk acceptant when facing losses—provides a systematic and empirically grounded explanation for seemingly puzzling decisions made by each campaign. In a broad sense, this essay begins the process of developing a general perspective on presidential campaign management.

The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story (review)

Reviewed by: The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story Angela Sweigart-Gallagher The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story. By Jason Chimonides. Directed by Geoffrey Kershner. Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival, Endstation Theatre Company, Amherst, VA. 17 July 2009. Nestled in the heart of central Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Amherst may seem an unlikely place for a theatre company interested in producing new work, but it is precisely where Endstation Theatre Company has chosen to make its artistic home. Amherst and its surrounding counties are also at the heart of Endstation’s mission and its production of The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story. The Bluest Water revises a tradition of historical, community-specific theatre and suggests a possible avenue for young theatre companies searching for ways to build a committed and supportive audience by creating theatre for and about a specific community. Co-founders Geoffrey Kershner (Endstation artistic director) and Krista Franco (Endstation resident scenic designer) created the company in 2006 after returning from a formative trip to Germany while they were still attending graduate school at Florida State University. While in Berlin, the two attended the Volksbühne’s production of Endstation America, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire by Frank Castorf. According to Kershner (during an informal post-show conversation), they were drawn to the metaphor of the “last” station, which they interpreted as a returning home. Amherst County was Kershner’s “end” station, his childhood and spiritual home, and it was there that he and Franco set out to establish an artistic home as well. Endstation’s community-based work, created as part of its Community Centered New Works Program, is only one aspect of its production programming, which also includes innovative stagings of Shakespearean classics and other new plays. However, even Endstation’s productions that are not community-based have central Virginia influences due, in part, to the fact that Kershner and Franco invited other theatre artists originally from the area, such as Dan Gallagher (Endstation resident lighting designer), to join Endstation as company members. Endstation has also formed ongoing relationships with many of its actors, meaning that even those not originally from the area have begun to establish a strong relationship with the people and culture of Amherst. This deep (and ongoing) connection to a single, specific geographical area, and the fact that many of its artistic and administrative staff members are originally from the area or have chosen to make it home, distinguish Endstation from companies such as Cornerstone Theatre Company, which also produces community-based and collaboratively created new plays and adaptations. While some of the productions planned for Endstation’s Community Centered New Works Program, such as its upcoming collaboration with the Monacan Indian Nation, deal with neglected historical moments or individuals within the broader community, in general, the program is not focused on addressing social-justice issues in the manner of Cornerstone. In some ways, artistic director Kershner’s effort to create a play about Hurricane Camille, a category 5 storm that made landfall in Mississippi and traveled inland across the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia in August 1969, is a profoundly conservative endeavor. Although aesthetically quite different, the effort to represent the history of central Virginia and educate the community about itself has much in common with the civic, historical pageants of the early twentieth century, such as those organized by William Chauncy Langdon. Unlike the majority of those pageants, however, The Bluest Water tackles a single historical event, and it is not an essentializing historical account. It is a Hurricane Camille story rather than the story, although the play provides [End Page 298] opportunities for multiple Hurricane Camille stories to emerge. Click for larger view View full resolution Sally Southall Parish (Liz), Ken Parks (Jared), and Michael Stablein Jr. (Nathan) in The Bluest Water: A Hurricane Camille Story. (Photo: Dan Gallagher.) Jason Chimonides and Kershner frame the historical event with the contemporary story of Jared, a recently retired psychologist haunted by the death of a young Iraq War veteran who committed suicide while under his care. The soldier’s death triggers Jared’s memories of Nathan, a young GI he treated briefly in 1969...