Theses defended
Públicos de Festivais de Cinema em Portugal: Um Estudo Comparado
December 10, 2019
Cities and Urban Cultures
Claudino Ferreira
This thesis' main goal is to study the audiences of two of the most prestigious film festivals on the national scene: Curtas Vila do Conde and IndieLisboa. From an integrated perspective, we analyzed the ways in which these publics establish relationships with the events, the cinema, the local culture and with the broader cultural universe. For this purpose, we analyzed their practices, uses and attitudes, their decision-making processes, choices and evaluations, their speeches and representations, regarding the selected festivals, and in relation to the Seventh Art and to culture in general. The social, interactional and symbolic dimensions of cultural practices and consumptions (intra and extrafestivals) were also evaluated, as an attempt to detect similarities and regularities between the participants of both festivals, but also differences and singularities.
The festivals have been evaluated as post-traditional events, that is, as contexts of cultural mediation that combine traditional root rituals and contemporary modes of functioning, and that, for this reason, promote singular spaces for debate, sharing and cultural participation. Additionally, the analysis of the audiences' modes of relation with the various dimensions sought to address, albeit peripherally, structural factors such as the historical, political, economic, geographical, spatial and cultural (re)configurations, which affect both the spheres of cultural offer and consumption.
From an empirical point of view, an eclectic theoretical-methodological approach was favored, based on a combined methodology, in order to capture the various scales of analysis that shape the practices of festival audiences. It was sought to go beyond the more conventional lines of investigation about publics - tendentially quantitative/extensive - by valuing the active role of the public and the modeling power of the context (s).
The research thus weaves a comparative view of festival audiences in their relationship with the structures and contents of cultural offerings, exposing the logics of identity formation, and the creation/maintenance of sociabilities and lifestyles.
KEYWORDS: audiences, cinema, film festivals, culture, modes of relation
Public Defence date
Doctoral Programme
Supervision
Abstract
The festivals have been evaluated as post-traditional events, that is, as contexts of cultural mediation that combine traditional root rituals and contemporary modes of functioning, and that, for this reason, promote singular spaces for debate, sharing and cultural participation. Additionally, the analysis of the audiences' modes of relation with the various dimensions sought to address, albeit peripherally, structural factors such as the historical, political, economic, geographical, spatial and cultural (re)configurations, which affect both the spheres of cultural offer and consumption.
From an empirical point of view, an eclectic theoretical-methodological approach was favored, based on a combined methodology, in order to capture the various scales of analysis that shape the practices of festival audiences. It was sought to go beyond the more conventional lines of investigation about publics - tendentially quantitative/extensive - by valuing the active role of the public and the modeling power of the context (s).
The research thus weaves a comparative view of festival audiences in their relationship with the structures and contents of cultural offerings, exposing the logics of identity formation, and the creation/maintenance of sociabilities and lifestyles.
KEYWORDS: audiences, cinema, film festivals, culture, modes of relation