Projections

This special issue is dedicated to research on cognition, stigma, and inclusion in film and media studies. We aim to highlight existing research in cognitive media theory and social justice, and also to bring in diverse perspectives from adjacent fields to foster interdisciplinary research into the future. In bringing these voices together, we hope to demonstrate the diverse nature of current research in cognitive film and media theory, and to disentangle cognitive traditions from their place in a historic binary opposition of cognitive and cultural approaches in screen studies.

For this Roundtable, we asked several leading scholars working on issues of social justice and cognition in film and media studies for a brief response to the prompt: “Explain one current theory, approach, or research finding that you think is particularly important in addressing stigma and inclusivity in screen media.” Participants drew from their own current work and insights, and they pointed to new strands of inquiry that they found exciting. Their responses represent a range of interests across diverse specialisms, and comprise an interdisciplinary showcase for the state of current research in social justice, cognition, and media, including ideas on how the fields could grow from here.

It is widely recognized that “representation matters” in entertainment media, but why? What do screen representations of different demographic groups, especially historically marginalized minority groups, accomplish that further the aims of diversity, equity, and inclusion? How might current theory in cognitive psychology contribute to the understanding of how film can contribute to the reduction of invidious prejudice? This article describes the past, present, and future of the parasocial contact hypothesis (PCH). I begin by identifying important antecedents of the PCH, including early film effects research and later studies on television's cultivation effects. Then, after briefly explicating the contact hypothesis, also known as intergroup contact theory, I explicate the core tenets of the PCH, describe some of the research that has emerged in support of the PCH, and end by suggesting ways in which future research can explore when and how film and other media can reduce prejudice.

On the basis of two film adaptations of Shakespeare's Othello, Orson Welles's (1952/1955) Othello and Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara (2006), this article focuses on Othello's emotional tears, and how they mitigate, or not, the effects of racial stigmatization. The “Othello dilemma,” as I call it, refers to how Othello continues to be understood as an example of his race, rather than as an individual. How do the two films deal with this dilemma? This article draws on current research in cognitive neuroscience to underscore the pro-social function of emotional tears. Both films avoid direct views of Othello's tears but evoke lachrymal emotion to produce broader interpretations of the play, which is relevant to contemporary concerns. In black and white, Orson Welles uses Soviet montage to depict Othello's loneliness, which authenticates his grief, while Vishal Bhardwaj's colorful Bollywood film shifts attention to stigmatization on account of gender bias, invoking an array of culture-specific norms and values.

When released, the Korean drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo (ENA, 2022), chronicling the adventures of Woo Young-woo, an autistic lawyer played by neurotypical actor Park Eun-bin, quickly became a global hit. Its positive representations of disability, spotlighting the discrimination faced by autistic individuals, was widely heralded as departing from previously negative stereotypes. Amid a global move toward inclusion driven by the disability rights movement, we undertake a biocultural approach to analyze representations of the embodied (autistic) mind/body in Extraordinary Attorney Woo. We consider how neuroscientific research has evolved and the implications of this evolution for representations of autism. We argue that deep-rooted stereotypes about autism continue to influence progressive media representations of disability and that a deeper acknowledgment of those stereotypes is needed to achieve equitable and sensitive representation.

Complex, historical events such as the Nigerian Civil War emerge from countless, partially converging causes. In order to make cognitive and emotional sense of such events, novelists, filmmakers, and other storytellers stress a limited number of such causes. One central source of the antagonisms driving the Nigerian Civil War was the operation of sub-national identity categorization. Adichie (in the original novel) and Bandele (in his film adaptation) both treat such categorization, but it is more systematically and consistently developed by the latter. This is closely connected with some of the key changes that Bandele undertakes in his adaptation. After a discussion of identity categorization, ethnocentrism, racism, and “tribalism,” this article examines three key sections of the film in relation to identity categorization and their associated, political implications.

The use of artificial human-like agents within the legal context of immigration is still a largely understudied topic. We employed a computer- generated asylum seeker with a narrative interpolated by ChatGPT4 to examine whether “uncanniness” in machine-mediation affected empathic decision-making. In an online study, 466 participants were instructed on the United Nations’ legal standard for granting asylum. They were then asked to simulate the role of an immigration officer by deciding whether an asylum narrative, conveyed either by written text or spoken by a computer- generated asylum seeker, met the standard. Results show that regardless of the narrative's mode of delivery, the same facts overwhelmingly led to the granting of asylum. Our findings encourage new applications of machine-mediated approaches to the promotion of social justice initiatives.

Noël Carroll. Philosophy and the Moving Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, 416 pp., $80.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780190683306.

Catharine Abell. Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, 208 pp., $73.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9780198831525.

Carol Vernallis, Holly Rogers, Jonathan Leal, and Selmin Kara, eds. Cybermedia: Explorations in Science, Sound, and Vision. London: Bloomsbury, 2021, 472 pp., $48.55, ISBN: 9781501357039.

Julie Lambden. Film Editing: Emotion, Performance, and Story. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, 232 pp., $56.65 (paperback), ISBN: 9781474254908.