Scholarship & Research
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Item Resilient: Norfolk's race against the rising seas(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2024) Hermsen, Erinn Catherine; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Cat DaleResilient is told in the expository mode of documentary filmmaking. The characters' stories are woven together through the use of talking-head characters who provide voice-of-authority commentary with their first-hand stories and expert testimony, as well as an omniscient narrator that provides additional context and information. The film presents a problem/solution structure (Nichols 22) supported by evidentiary editing. Resilient presents the problem of flooding due to climate change-induced sea level rise and introduces solutions. Norfolk's infrastructure adaptation projects aim to protect the city in the short-term while the city can solve the long-term issue of living along rising sea levels. The characters' stories serve to ultimately further the argument, which is in line with key characteristics of the expository mode (Nichols 121). Two relevant films I watched as research for my own had similar approaches to storytelling. "Sinking Cities: Miami" and "Climate Crisis: Flooding" also used the expository mode of documentary. The stories were also told through talking-head experts who provided voice-of-authority expert testimony, as well as an omniscient narrator. The characters' stories provided first-hand experience and knowledge that supported the films' problem/solution storylines.Item Anthropomorphic expression in first-person natural history documentary(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2021) Harvey, Colleen Ruth; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Cindy StillwellThis paper argues a case for the first-person mode of address in natural history documentaries to better frame anthropomorphic interpretations by the viewer and enhance the filmmaker's creative potential. Four documentaries are analyzed to illustrate how forms of narration can influence anthropomorphic effect. I will evaluate 'March of the Penguins' (United States release) and discuss how the filmmaker's use of third-person, expository narration conceals a human bias in the documentary's rhetorical construction. This narration forces anthropocentric moments onto the non-human beings that often result in 'crude anthropomorphism,' while at the same time over-generalizing the non-human animal experience and scientific knowledge. I will also discuss how first-person narration in documentaries is able to highlight the human bias of the author by allowing her or his subjective preoccupations to drive the storyline. In this manner, the first-person author brings emotional complexity to the documentary through the human subject, rather than uncontextualized human emotions projected onto the non-human animal. I will investigate the ways in which a first-person narration allows for different techniques to move between objective and subjective viewpoints to reveal current scientific knowledge about and behavioral understandings of the non-human animal. To this end, I will examine three first-person natural history works: 'Of Penguins and Men', 'My Life as a Turkey', and my documentary film 'In the Land of Sea Turtles'. I argue that the first-person authors demonstrate greater conscientiousness to truth in the storylines chosen, values asserted, and scientific claims about non-human animals than the expository authors of 'March of the Penguins'.Item Science communication and the advantages of the contextual model in documentaries(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2020) Portuondo, Jessica; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Cindy StillwellDocumentaries can be an effective method for informing the public on agricultural trends and policies. Incorporating the contextual model of science communication into these films is one way to improve public awareness and to explain the complexities of sustainable agricultural practices. A comparison of Food Inc. and the 'Dan Barber' episode of Chef's Table demonstrates how a reliance on the deficit model inhibits the propagation of knowledge about sustainable agriculture. This critique also highlights how a character-based story can function as an educational tool to teach audiences about the value of regenerative food production practices by emotionally connecting with the protagonist.Item Informing the construction of narrative-based risk communication(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2019) King, Henry William; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Clemente IzurietaThe current communication of flood risk by government agencies and the scientific community to the citizens living in the floodplain is ineffective. Using the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), this communication can be enhanced through the use of Hero, Victim, and Victim to Hero character-based narratives. This thesis describes the methods used to inform users of the NPF to construct and test narratives using computational methods. Four natural language processing tasks are described; topic modeling, sentiment analysis, classification, and term frequencies. It was found that using the difference of transformed relative term frequencies produced an adequate vocabulary for each style of narrative. The narratives constructed from these vocabularies were used in work that sought to formalize the narrative construction process and in focus group studies which found that narrative-based scientific messages increased affective response versus traditional scientific messaging.Item The motif of meeting: a content analysis of multi-voiced young adult novels(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2019) Stolp, Susan Hardy; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Joyce Herbeck; Ann Ewbank (co-chair)The purpose of this study was to discover, through content analysis, polyphonic narrative strategies used in a small sample of multi-voiced young adult novels. The objective was to trace the paths of the individual narrators toward eventual meeting with or understanding of each other, looking for trends, commonalities, and unique qualities that characterize the polyphonic fugue described by McCallum (1999) and Bakhtin (1981). I envisioned these points of meeting as Bahktin's (1981) units of narrative analysis known as the chronotope, perfect alignments in time and space, functioning as connectors among strands within multi-voiced narratives. In Vivo Coding, springing from the actual language of participants, and Emotion Coding, making inferences about narrators' subjective experiences, were the guiding qualitative methodologies used in this content analysis. The combination of In Vivo and Emotion Codes provided the data that was used to analyze and interpret narrators' emotional journeys as well as their interactions with one another. The content analysis revealed a complexity of emotions among the ten individual narrators from the three novels studied. Patterns in their emotional journeys were determined and displayed using artistic representation. Points of meeting between and among narrators proved to be the impetus for individual change and growth. In terms of the fugue, the voices are independent of one another but also have shape and meaning in conjunction with one another (McCallum, 1999), and through analysis and interpretation of narrators' emotional arcs, these shapes and meanings emerged. In terms of significance, this content analysis provided evidence for the use of multi-voiced young adult literature to be a means by which to read with a critical literacy lens, for adolescents to realize their existence as part of a greater whole, and to imagine literature as a catalyst toward personal growth.Item Water conservation: transforming information and attitudes into action(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Sigler, Valerie Danielle; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jamie McEvoyScientists face the daunting challenge of communicating information to policy makers and the public. The challenge becomes even more difficult when that information suggests that behavioral, social, or structural changes are necessary. While an educated audience may be more informed, the increased level of information does not necessarily motivate behavioral changes. Education and outreach are valuable tools, but unless additional barriers which hinder the transformation of information into behavioral changes are also addressed, the impact is reduced. My research goal is to discover the barriers which hinder people's willingness to engage in water conservation. Additionally, I analyze narratives that are used in educational brochures to understand the narrative strategies that are used to motivate people to conserve water. The narratives are analyzed using insights from social marketing, community based social marketing (CBSM) and Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). My thesis also draws on critical social theory to examine the concepts of constrained choices and hegemony. Twenty-seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with randomly selected water users in single family households who use municipal water supplies in Bozeman, Montana. Participants included low, medium and high water users. All but one participant (a high water user) was concerned about their water use and interested in engaging in conservation behaviors. My research found that barriers to water conservation include: information deficits, inconvenience, lack of trust, social norms, constrained choices and hegemonic relationships. My analysis of the City of Bozeman's water conservation brochures reveals the use of hero language that focuses on what individuals can do to conserve water for the entire community. Future research should test narratives using social marketing, CBSM, or NPF with citizens to understand how they would respond to the strategies outlined in this thesis.Item The essay film(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2015) Moore, John David; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Dennis AigThis paper discusses the essay film and its practice. Criteria are established for the form: It should be less than feature length. It must have text. The text must represent a single voice, and the speakers attempt to work out some reasoned line of discourse on a problem. The text must have a strong personal point of view. The text's language should be as eloquent and interesting as possible. Three films are analyzed that illustrate the essay film form: Chris Marker's 'Letter from Siberia', Cindy Stillwell's 'Mating For Life', and Werner Herzog's 'Grizzly Man'. I conclude that the essay film form is a viable alternative to traditional documentary filmmaking styles. It is particularly useful in specific historical, social, and political contexts as a means of influencing public opinion and advocating for change.