Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
open access
Neoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for...Show moreNeoliberalism has altered the way in which the subject consumes and subsequently reflects upon media. A popular media genre on the internet nowadays is instruction videos, which can be consumed for various reasons, but usually rely on the notion of conveying to the viewer a certain set of skills. Since these media are therefore consumed for a specific purpose intended, the viewer already pre-establishes a certain attitude and understanding, and furthermore gains a reflective understanding of this phenomenon itself. This thesis aims to reconsider the notion of spectatorship through a lens of phenomenology, in order to reevaluate the idea of a spectator's own understanding of their experience of a medium, which this thesis names "cognitive spectatorship," and shows how the genre of instruction videos and this new viewing attitude play into the Neoliberal ideology.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
What makes it possible to turn science, a field that is supposedly grounded in fact and objectivity, into a topic that untrained readers can engage with and enjoy? Connecting science with art,...Show moreWhat makes it possible to turn science, a field that is supposedly grounded in fact and objectivity, into a topic that untrained readers can engage with and enjoy? Connecting science with art, popular science writing relies heavily on the evocation of affect as a rhetorical strategy. In works that are written for children, and not intended as textbooks, creating an affective bond with the work is necessary in order to entice a child to voluntarily engage with the object outside the classroom. I have investigated Nick Arnold and Tony De Saulles’s Horrible Science series (1997-present) as a case study, as the long-lasting international success of these works indicates the effectiveness of their rhetorical strategies. The ways in which the authors attempt to evoke an affective response ranges from the direct evocation of positive affects such as enthusiasm, to employing negative affect such as disgust. Such affective responses are an effective way to mark reading the book as different from engaging with knowledge in the classroom, which in its turn is marked as tedious and dull. The affect theories of Silvan Tomkins in psychology and Gilles Deleuze in philosophy might at first sight look dissimilar, but both make the distinction between positive and negative affects a centrepiece of their theories: Deleuze calls this ‘joy’ and ‘sadness’. The Horrible Science series problematises this distinction, as it employs the evocation of negative affects to strengthen the bond with the reader, a method that at first sight seems to be counterintuitive. Therefore, I will look at what defines whether an affect is considered positive or negative, and to what extent it is a rhetorically effective strategy to evoke what at first sight seems to be a negative affective response in the young reader.Show less
