Audience engagement with foreign to English language film, othering, and interpretative frameworks

Tsitsou, L. (2023) Audience engagement with foreign to English language film, othering, and interpretative frameworks. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 19(2), pp. 245-265.

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Abstract

Drawing on data from sixteen film elicitation focus groups and fifty interviews collected for the AHRC-funded project ‘Beyond the Multiplex: audiences for specialised film in English regions’ (UKRI, 2017), this paper focuses on the interpretative frameworks employed by audiences when they engage with foreign to English films. It will argue that language constitutes a lens of interpretation which is embedded in meaning making processes. Non-English language (and specifically, Russian, French, and Italian) prompts already established assumptions in the process of sense making (Forrest & Merrington, 2021b); while invoking a sense of distance and boundaries between the self and what is being viewed. Language is embedded in processes of Othering which often precede the experience of viewing and engaging fully with a film; while content and image often contribute further to constructions of Otherness, familiarity, and difference. Yet, interpretations are embedded in an interactive nexus between the self, personal experience, and representation. They are active and reflexive processes despite carrying assumptions (Livingstone, 2007; 2013).

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Tsitsou, Dr Lito
Authors: Tsitsou, L.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
Journal Name:Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies
Publisher:Participations
ISSN:1749-8716
ISSN (Online):1749-8716
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2023 The Authors
First Published:First published in Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies 19(2):245-265
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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