MTV’s The Hills: A Leading American Docusoap

<p>This thesis explores the relatively uncharted academic territory of the American docusoap, and case studies The Hills as a pertinent example of this burgeoning television genre. Docusoap is a ‘mixed-genre’ that enhances factual material with the story-telling techniques of fictional drama. Whilst many academics have studied the origins of British docusoap and have registered the influence upon it of ‘public service’ objectives in programming, less attention has been paid to the emergence of the docusoap in the commercially-driven American television context. It is in this context that the docusoap has entailed a more overt blending of the attributes of ‘documentary’ and ‘soap opera’ for purely entertainment purposes. Testifying to the need to reconcile risk with conservatism in a commercially-driven schedule context, the generic mix within The Hills draws from the genres of soap opera and ‘reality’ TV, both of which bring the advantages and assurances of a well-demonstrated audience popularity. Having recently completed its sixth and final season, The Hills exemplifies current developments within the American docusoap form. This docusoap details the lives of a group of attractive, affluent young people in their early twenties who work and socialise within the entertainment and fashion industries of Los Angeles. Significantly, The Hills maintains the voyeuristic allure of a ‘reality’ TV premise and enhances this by adapting the melodramatic aesthetics and distinctive narrative strategies of soap opera to a degree that is more overt than other docusoaps, aside, of course, from that which characterised its forerunner, Laguna Beach. This thesis undertakes a close examination of the generic and institutional positioning of The Hills in four distinct chapters. Chapter One examines the generic position of docusoap as a ‘mixed-genre’ and the institutional role The Hills performs for the youth-oriented MTV network. Chapter Two analyses the specific fictional narrative techniques The Hills uses to enhance its documented footage whilst Chapter Three addresses the controversies that have emerged due to this docusoap’s blending of the fictional and the factual. Finally, Chapter Four details how the docusoap’s ability to appeal to lucrative young viewers positions The Hills as a powerful promotional tool for MTV’s consumerist messages.</p>

MTV’s The Hills: A Leading American Docusoap

<p>This thesis explores the relatively uncharted academic territory of the American docusoap, and case studies The Hills as a pertinent example of this burgeoning television genre. Docusoap is a ‘mixed-genre’ that enhances factual material with the story-telling techniques of fictional drama. Whilst many academics have studied the origins of British docusoap and have registered the influence upon it of ‘public service’ objectives in programming, less attention has been paid to the emergence of the docusoap in the commercially-driven American television context. It is in this context that the docusoap has entailed a more overt blending of the attributes of ‘documentary’ and ‘soap opera’ for purely entertainment purposes. Testifying to the need to reconcile risk with conservatism in a commercially-driven schedule context, the generic mix within The Hills draws from the genres of soap opera and ‘reality’ TV, both of which bring the advantages and assurances of a well-demonstrated audience popularity. Having recently completed its sixth and final season, The Hills exemplifies current developments within the American docusoap form. This docusoap details the lives of a group of attractive, affluent young people in their early twenties who work and socialise within the entertainment and fashion industries of Los Angeles. Significantly, The Hills maintains the voyeuristic allure of a ‘reality’ TV premise and enhances this by adapting the melodramatic aesthetics and distinctive narrative strategies of soap opera to a degree that is more overt than other docusoaps, aside, of course, from that which characterised its forerunner, Laguna Beach. This thesis undertakes a close examination of the generic and institutional positioning of The Hills in four distinct chapters. Chapter One examines the generic position of docusoap as a ‘mixed-genre’ and the institutional role The Hills performs for the youth-oriented MTV network. Chapter Two analyses the specific fictional narrative techniques The Hills uses to enhance its documented footage whilst Chapter Three addresses the controversies that have emerged due to this docusoap’s blending of the fictional and the factual. Finally, Chapter Four details how the docusoap’s ability to appeal to lucrative young viewers positions The Hills as a powerful promotional tool for MTV’s consumerist messages.</p>

Humour and other catastrophes: dealing with the translation of mixed-genre TV Series

Starting from a trend observed in the Italian dubbing of US series “Six Feet Under” (Bucaria 2005; Bucaria forthcoming) involving the deletion or toning down of most instances of potentially disturbing elements, this paper will take into consideration examples from three US TV series (“House MD,” “Nip/Tuck” and “Six Feet Under”) dubbed into Italian and presenting a mixture of drama and comedy, in an attempt to analyze the degree of manipulation or adaptation that they underwent in terms of the linguistic representation of clashing genres. With particular reference to the rendering of humorous comments produced in unexpected contexts, the analysis shows considerable manipulation in the translated versions and a consequent decrease in the humorous content of the target texts.

The Victorian Period

This chapter has five sections: 1. General and Prose, including Dickens; 2. The Novel; 3. Poetry; 4. Periodicals, Publishing History, and Drama; 5. Miscellaneous. Section 1 is by Ana Alicia Garza; section 2 is by Lois Burke; section 3 is by Sally Blackburn-Daniels; sections 4 and 5 are by William Baker. In somewhat of a departure from previous accounts, this chapter concludes with a mixed-genre section that covers Samuel Butler Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot and George Henry Lewes, George Gissing, Richard Jefferies, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope. This is followed by a section containing additional materials that came too late to be included elsewhere. These sections have been contributed by William Baker, who thanks for their assistance Dominic Edwards, Olaf Berwald, Beth Palmer, Sophie Ratcliffe, and Caroline Radcliffe.

Fragmentarism as a way of organizing musical texts in the 1970s – 1990s

The last third of the XX century is marked in the musical work with a search for new scientific and creative paradigms, their change and approbation. Fragmentarism is one of the most important among them, which became actual and primary one at this time for organizing the form and modeling the meaningful levels of musical works. The relevance of the study is conditioned by the fact that the fragmentarism (previously peripheral) in the last third of the XX century becomes a factor in organizing the form and coding of the content of a piece of music. The phenomenon of precedent and intertextuality have become increasingly important in the diversification of content when using these principles, along with methods of mixed style and mixed genre. The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of these factors in the modeling of content in musical works of the last third of the XX century. The leading method to the study of this issue is the analysis method, which allows to comprehensively consider the functional load of precedent phenomena as components of content making in the music of the last third of the XX century.

The Gospel as Literary Genre and Form of Language

The studies on the literary genre “gospel” are often compared with the so-called Greco-Roman bíoi and popular literature. The points of contact are numerous and undeniable. As well as the differences and peculiarities of the gospels, whose link with the Hebrew Bible is a unicum to be taken into account. In particular, the typology, with its network of references, makes the canonical gospels a text proceeding through continuous phenomena of association and repetition with the ancient Scriptures. As result, the nar­rative takes on particular tones insofar as it indulges little in the chronicle, concentrating rather on the richness of meaning hidden in entire story of Christ. Consequently, the gos­pels are evidence of a mixed genre, having some characteristics of the Greco-Roman bíoi and contemporary popular Lives, together with constant re-elaboration of OT elements re-read and applied in a typological key. And it could not be otherwise because the events and the protagonist of the gospels perfectly intersect the horizontal and vertical dimensions of a story merging with the eternal.

Viagens na Minha Terra. Esplorazioni iberiche della prossimità (cibo e thanaturismo)

The chapter takes as starting point a famous book by Almeida Garrett, Viagens na Minha Terra (1846), one of the first books to explore a nearby reality in the Iberian area, a mixed genre work, fundamental in the construction of the Portuguese national identity through the author’s journey to Portugal. It is an internalised landscape from which many historical or fantastic episodes arise related to themes that the author expresses: the violence of war, the joke of the gothic novel, anti-religious criticism about the parasitism of the friars. The purpose of this article is to reflect on several examples of proximity travel written by Iberian authors: José Pla, Viaje en autobús (1942), Camilo José Cela, Viaje a la Alcarria (1946) and José Saramago, Viagem a Portugal (1981). These travel books take advantage of the travelogue feature: to travel, but also to express opinions, analysis and criticisms with the eyes of the essayist, so that the result is much more than a simple guide, with the advantage that travellers are profound connoisseurs of the reality they visit.

How do translators handle (near-) synonymous legal terms? A mixed-genre parallel corpus study into the variation of EU English-Polish competition law terminology

Terminological variation, i.e. synonymy at the term level, is regarded as a recurrent problem in EU law. Working with a parallel-comparable corpus of EU English-Polish legislation, soft law and judgments in the area of competition, this study explores how source-language synonymy is handled in translation across institutional genres. The findings show that synonyms may be reflected symmetrically or asymmetrically, with variation being eliminated, partly reduced, mirrored, or increased in translation. It is quite frequent for translators to introduce additional variation and cross-variation. This is affected by: genre, source and target asymmetries, complexity of a semantic field, low termness and microdiachronic shifts. The study confirms that synonymy is one of the causes of variation in translation and calls for more conceptual clarity at the drafting stage.

Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary

RÉSUMÉIan Paul a rédigé un excellent commentaire sur l’Apocalypse, bien argumenté, pour la série renouvelée des commentaires Tyndale du Nouveau Testament. L’introduction détaillée traite des diverses approches d’interprétation du livre et aborde les principales questions d’introduction. Le commentaire par péricopes s’organise en trois points : le contexte, le commentaire et la théologie. Il considère que l’Apocalypse présente un genre littéraire mélangé : c’est une apocalypse, une lettre et un écrit prophétique. Il aide les chrétiens à vivre, affermis par l’espérance future, dans leur époque contemporaine.ZUSAMMENFASSUNGIan Paul schrieb einen wohl begründeten, hervorragenden Kommentar zum Buch der Offenbarung in der Reihe der revidierten Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. In einer detaillierten Einleitung erörtert er Ansätze zur Offenbarung und die damit verbundenen grundlegenden Einleitungsfragen. Der Kommentar zu den einzelnen Perikopen ist jeweils in drei Überschriften mit den dazugehörigen Abschnitten eingeteilt: Kontext, Erläuterung und Theologie. Die Offenbarung ist genreübergreifend: Apokalypse, Brief und Prophetie. Dieses Buch hilft Christen, in ihrer eigenen Zeit und Welt zu leben und dabei in ihrer Hoffnung auf die Zukunft gestärkt zu werden.SUMMARYIan Paul has written a well-argued, excellent commentary on Revelation in the series of revised Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. In a detailed Introduction he discusses the questions of approaches to Revelation and its major introductory matters. The commentary on the pericopes is arranged under three headings: context, comment and theology. Revelation has a mixed genre: apocalypse, letter and prophecy. The book helps Christians to live in their own present time strengthened by hope for the future.

ГЕНЕЗА ТА СТАН АНІМАЦІЇ В СУЧАСНІЙ КУЛЬТУРІ

Досліджується ґенеза та сучасний стан анімаційного мистецтва. Окреслюються особливості і специфічні риси анімації. Анімація та анімаційне мистецтво розглядається як специфічна мистецька діяльність. Виділені специфічні особливості анімації, а саме – легкість сприйняття, значний потенціал, вплив на емоційну сферу тощо. Зазначено, що основним є персонаж, який є особистістю і наділяється митцем яскравими рисами та можливостями, спостерігати за яким глядачеві цікаво. На матеріалі яскравих світових та вітчизняних здобутків анімації аналізується процес розвитку й технічного вдосконалення процесів творення анімаційних фільмів. Зроблено висновок про перспективність анімаційного мистецтва у майбутньому. The article explores the genesis and current state of animation art. The features and specific of the animation are outlined. Research methodology. The question of the features of the use of animation and animation technologies as a form of screen culture, as well as the impact of animation art on culture, despite its widespread use in modern times, is not sufficiently studied. The evolution of imaginative means of animation, audio-visual technologies, the development of a mixed genre, combines the animation style and the experience of game cinema, demonstrate the changes that take place in animation and lead to its transition to a new level of development.