Current understandings of similarity with media characters often focus on visible attributes including gender and race, yet overlook deep-level characteristics such as personality, attitudes, and experiences. In the present research, we address this limitation and develop and validate the Character Recognizability Scale (CRS), which captures different ways in which audiences can recognize themselves in characters. Based on a previous interview study, we formulated 26 scale items. Subsequently, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we used a sample of 219 university students in the Netherlands to conduct an exploratory factor analysis. We determined the reliability, as well as criterion and convergent validity of the entire scale and the retained factors. In Study 2, we used a sample of 247 respondents in the United States to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis and replicate the results of the reliability and validity analyses. Based on Study 1, we kept 20 items. In both studies, the overall CRS scale as well as its subscales for Personality Recognizability (CRS-p), Attitudinal Recognizability (CRS-a), and Experiential Recognizability (CRS-e) showed a good internal consistency. They also showed criterion validity through an association with perceived similarity. Finally, the CRS and its subscales correlated positively with media engagement and exposure measures, thus demonstrating convergent validity.
The purpose for writing this paper is twofold: (1) building on the former PBPD publication on “Placecinemaking”, from the viewpoints of the foundations of history, theory, and methodology; and (2) demonstrating the methodology on a new movie/place-making project, “Le Mille Notti”, which was launched after the publication of said PBPD paper. This new submission is therefore a complementary extension and a deeper analysis of what was presented in 2023 on PBPD. The approach is based on documental back-tracing, where needed complemented by interviews and testimonials. The analysis pertains to a wide range of fields, from the history of cinema to leisure direction and to placemaking. This paper is based on a further analysis of the “Placecinemaking” approach, in order to extract: (a) historical roots and context in the history of cinema; to enable (b) application to a new film in the series of projects where the approach was organically developed into a repeatable process; and to present (c) the outcome of the new movie, titled “Le Mille Notti” in the specific areas pertaining to the movie, Borgo Aurora, Turin, and its actors. Research was based on documental back-tracing, therefore no new empirical findings will be made available or generated from this process besides what was tracked in documental sources (newspapers, production notes, earlier interviews as already publicly published and distributed in media, and more). Process and methods will be equivalent to the ones adopted in the PBPB publication, 2023, therefore already tested and proven by peer review. The paper will have a potential high impact in terms of further proving, justifying, and contextualizing an organic approach as formalized in a repeatable process. The paper does uniquely present, critically review, and demonstrate the place-making fit of a new film, “Le Mille Notti”, providing additional insights into the “Placecinemaking” approach.
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Archives are, more than ever, organizational and technological constructs, based on organizational demands, desires, and considerations influencing configuration, management, appraisal, and preservation. For that reason, they are, more than ever, distortions of reality, offering biased (and/or manipulated) images of the past and present an extremely simplified mirror of social reality. The information objects within that archive are (again: more than ever), fragile, manipulable, of disputable provenance, doubtful context, and uncertain quality. Their authenticity is in jeopardy.The “Allure of Digital Archives” will be more about finding knowledge about the archive as a whole than about finding knowledge hidden in the information objects that are its constituents. It will be about determining the value of a digital archive as a “trusted” resource for historical research. To be successful in that endeavour, it will be necessary to assess the possibility to “reconstruct the past” of the digital archive. That assessment would allow historians to understand quality, provenance, context, content, and accessibility of the digital archive, not only in its design stage but also in its life cycle.In this chapter, I present the theoretical framework of the “Archive–as–Is” as an instrument for such an assessment. It is possible for historians to use this framework as a declarative model for the way archives have been designed, configured, managed, and maintained. It will allow historians to understand why archives are as they are, and why records are part of it (or not). Using the framework, historians can determine the research value of a digital archive as a historical resource.
