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PERCEIVING CINEMATIC EPISODES: A CROSS‐CULTURAL REPERTORY GRID STUDY OF A NARRATIVE FILM SEGMENT *
Author(s) -
Blowers Geoffrey H.,
McCOY Mildred M.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207598608247592
Subject(s) - repertory grid , psychology , semiotics , meaning (existential) , narrative , construals , social psychology , aesthetics , construal level theory , epistemology , art , literature , philosophy , psychotherapist
Film theory has advanced concepts for explaining how it is possible for film viewers to understand what they are seeing. Many of these concepts strongly imply that the production of meaning of a film lies within the film itself ‐ the viewer's role being reduced to that of passive spectator. This study tests that assumption using a repertory grid analysis of constructs elicited from Australian and Hong Kong Chinese subjects as they interpreted a segment of a commercial film. The results showed that the Australian sample construed more emotionally than did the Hong Kong Chinese, who responded more at the level of the film's characterisation. They were also more specific in their construals while the Australians were more diffuse. Further analysis suggested that differences between the two groups were the result of judgments about different attributes of the film, rather than because of different patterns of construing. It was concluded that since there are major differences in the two groups' interpretations of the same film, in the field of film/spectator studies where semiotics and psychology come together, the repertory grid analysis is a useful research tool.