Running through the Who, Where, and When: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Situational Changes in Comics

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Running through the Who, Where, and When: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Situational Changes in Comics
Language: English
Authors: Klomberg, Bien (ORCID 0000-0001-6386-7785), Hacimusaoglu, Irmak (ORCID 0000-0003-0026-3188), Cohn, Neil (ORCID 0000-0003-0074-1995)
Source: Discourse Processes: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 2022 59(9):669-684.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 16
Publication Date: 2022
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Cartoons, Content Analysis, Comparative Analysis, Foreign Countries, Semantics, Cross Cultural Studies, Reading Comprehension, Reading Strategies, Attention
Geographic Terms: United States, Europe, Asia
DOI: 10.1080/0163853X.2022.2106402
ISSN: 0163-853X
1532-6950
Abstract: Understanding visual narratives requires readers to track dimensions of time, spatial location, and characters across a sequence. Previous work has found situational changes across adjacent panels differ cross-culturally, but few works have examined such situational dimensions across extended sequences. We therefore investigated situational "runs" -- uninterrupted sequences of the situational dimensions (time, space, characters) -- in a corpus of 300+ annotated comics from the United States, Europe, and Asia. We compared runs' proportion and average lengths and found that across books, semantic information changed frequently and run length correlated with proportion. Yet, cross-cultural patterns arose, with American and European comics using more continuous runs than Asian comics. American and European comics also used more and longer temporal and character continuity, while Asian comics used more spatial continuity. These findings raise questions about comprehenders' processing strategies of visual narratives across cultures and how general frameworks of visual narrative comprehension account for variations in situational (dis)continuity.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2023
Accession Number: EJ1373677
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:Understanding visual narratives requires readers to track dimensions of time, spatial location, and characters across a sequence. Previous work has found situational changes across adjacent panels differ cross-culturally, but few works have examined such situational dimensions across extended sequences. We therefore investigated situational "runs" -- uninterrupted sequences of the situational dimensions (time, space, characters) -- in a corpus of 300+ annotated comics from the United States, Europe, and Asia. We compared runs' proportion and average lengths and found that across books, semantic information changed frequently and run length correlated with proportion. Yet, cross-cultural patterns arose, with American and European comics using more continuous runs than Asian comics. American and European comics also used more and longer temporal and character continuity, while Asian comics used more spatial continuity. These findings raise questions about comprehenders' processing strategies of visual narratives across cultures and how general frameworks of visual narrative comprehension account for variations in situational (dis)continuity.
ISSN:0163-853X
1532-6950
DOI:10.1080/0163853X.2022.2106402