RP-Department of Theatre Arts and Film Technology
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing RP-Department of Theatre Arts and Film Technology by Issue Date
Now showing 1 - 20 of 35
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item A ‘Uses and Gratification Expectancy Model’ To Predict Students’ ‘Perceived Elearning Experience’(JSTOR, 2008) Mondi, Makingu; Woods, Peter; Rafi, AhmadThis study investigates ‘how and why’ students’ ‘Uses and Gratification Expectancy’ (UGE) for e-learning resources influences their ‘Perceived e-Learning Experience.’ A ‘Uses and Gratification Expectancy Model’ (UGEM) framework is proposed to predict students’ ‘Perceived e-Learning Experience,’ and their uses and gratifications for electronic media in a blended learning strategy. The study utilises a cross-sectional research design, and elicits data from secondary school students through a field survey-questionnaire. The findings suggest that there are significant relationships between five dimensions of students’ UGE for e-learning resources, and their ‘Perceived e-Learning Experience.’ It is plausible that these UGE aspects of students’ ‘communication behaviour’ towards electronic media are important determinants of effective integration of the e-learning resources in school-curriculum. While this research focuses on students at secondary-school level, some elements in the UGE model may apply to students using e-learning resources at other levels of their education. This model gives researchers and educators a new tool to forecast the success of development and deployment of e-learning resources in education systems.Item The aesthetics of children’s theatre: appreciating and maximizing on the psycho-social potentials for social and economic advancement(International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2011-06) Mugubi, J.Item The aesthetics of children’s theatre: Appreciating and maximizing on the psycho-social potentials for social and economic advancement(International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2011-06) Mugubi, J.Item From Firesides to the Modern Lounge: A Critical Appraisal of Film and Television Fairytales in Kenya(School of Visual and Performing Arts Kenyatta University, 2013) Muigai wa Gachanja; Kebaya, CharlesVladimir Propp, in 1928, published a groundbreaking text; Morphology of the Folktale, in which he outlined and defined the characteristics and morphology of fairytales. His work not only changed the study of folklore but also made scholars to rethink the way in which stories and storytelling affect the fabric of society and its ideals. Since 1928 to the present, there have been tremendous changes in the way in which stories are told. For instance, technology has changed the way people interact and communicate with each other. In the same vein, media and film conglomerates have taken a leading role in creating and/or reconstructing folktales for their audiences. This implies that the modern lounge has replaced traditional storytelling modes as children tune in to television for filmed stories. Thus, using critical theory and already aired Know Zone 1 folk tales, this paper examines how film and television fairytales are built and in the process establishes how traditional pedagogical values of these narratives are negotiated as the tales conform to modern technology. Further, while exploring traditional narrative types and motifs as portrayed in the selected fairytales for this study, we examine how these narrative texts reflect contemporary ethnographies of fan culture and the existence of multiple versions of seemingly fixed texts. In this endeavour, the study adopts a content-based analytic approach in presenting a detailed exegesis of the modern film and television fairytales in Kenya and uses psychodynamics of orality in appreciating these emergent forms of storytelling in the contemporary society.Item Structure in Cinema: A Synthesis of Pleasure and Edification(2013) Mugubi, J.Item Delineation of National Healing and Conflict Resolution in Film: A Case Study of Kenya(American Research Institute for Policy Development, 2014) Mugubi, J.Wale Watu is a film by Cajetan Boy. This feature film was inspired by the post election chaos that followed the disputed 2007 elections in Kenya. The plot of Wale Watu orbits around two youths, Paul and Mercy. Coming from different, indeed, historically antagonistic ethnic communities (Mercy is a Kikuyu and Paul is a Luo), the two are in love and plan to get married. Whereas their parents have no qualms about the relationship and indeed live in harmony, the outcome of the elections marks a turning point. Chaos ensues, the two communities turn against each other. Paul’s father’s hospital is set on fire by furious Kikuyu youths, precipitating the demise of Paul’s paternal uncle, Mark, who is burnt to death inside the hospital set ablaze. Paul’s sister Safari escapes death narrowly but with severe injuries. Among the Kikuyu youths gone amok is Mercy’s brother, Robert. And when the truism that Paul’s Fiancée’s brother was one of the youths who participated in killing Paul’s uncle comes to the fore, Paul’s and Mercy’s wedding plans are thrown into disarray. Tension is palpable everywhereItem The Sociolingual Disposition of the Emergent Deejay Afro Film Commentary in Kenya(American Research Institute for Policy Development, 2014) Kimani, G.; Mugubi, J.The Kenyan film scene has experienced a descending trajectory characterized by dwindling fortunes in cinema theatres, leading to closure of famed theatres like Odeon cinema, Nairobi cinema, Fox drive-in cinemas, and Globe cinema, among others, in Nairobi and other major towns in Kenya. As the cinemas auditoriums were succumbing to the culture of indifference to theatre-going in the 1990s, estate and village video shows proliferated in the densely populated low-income urban and peri-urban areas in Kenya. Typified by screenings of popular Hollywood and Hong Kong action films, the video shows filled their benches by featuring commentators, popularly known as video-show deejays, the most renown being ‘Deejay Afro’. The popularity of ‘Deejay Afro’ cannot be overstated and to date his performances still endear a large section of the Kenyan audience in rural and peri-urban areas. So, what exactly about this modern film commentator endears him to his audience and what are the distinctive qualities of his art? These are the questions that this paper seeks to address, drawing parallels with the Japanese ‘Benshi’ as described by Don Kirihara and Donald Richie inter alia, and guided by the aesthetic theories of Theodor Adorno, and the Frankfurt school perspectives of spectatorship. The analysis is based on a ‘Deejay Afro’ commentaryItem Public Perception of Parliament Broadcasting in Kenya: Towards Altering Mutual Attitude and Augmenting Knowledge(American Research Institute for Policy Development, 2014) Wandera, Sande; Mugubi, JohnA major problem faced by many countries where Parliamentary democracy is developing, is lack of public knowledge and awareness about the functions of Parliaments and their mode of operation (Miller, 2008; IPU, 2006; Bouchet & Kariithi, 2003). The lack of awareness is said to be accompanied by a general public opinion that Parliament is an opaque institution devoid of transparency and accountability (USAID, 2010; Bouchet &Kariithi, 2003). It is from this background that the concept of live parliament broadcasting was born; the argument being that live parliament broadcasting would engender a channel of communication – an unadulterated channel free from interventions of media owners and media professionals - between the public and politicians. It was believed that such an avenue would lead to greater public awareness and appreciation of the work of Parliament, better public attitude and perception towards parliament, involvement of the public more in Parliamentary debates, hence helping in making politicians more accountable (Miller, 2008; Franks & Vandermark, 1995; Wober, 1990). Miller (2008) quotes a contemporary British Conservative politician, Norman St. John-Stevas, who claims that: "To televise parliament would, at a stroke, restore any loss it has suffered to the new mass media as the political education of the nation." It is in this regard that this paper tries to find out the effects of live parliament broadcasts in Kenya on public knowledge across the social strata. It also investigates the effects of these broadcasts on public attitude and perception about parliament and its work. The paper further assesses broadcasting practices that could help improve live parliament broadcasting in Kenya.Item Configuration of Kenya’s Children’s Television Drama(American Research Institute for Policy Development, 2014) Mugubi, J.Children’s film is an artistic genre in its own right with its distinctive character and utility in the society. Machachari is a local television drama that is centred on children. This episodic film, while revolving around slum children and their hustles and survival jaunts in the hard-edged lives of their surroundings, juxtaposes the ghetto children with their well-to-do friends. Just one year since this sitcom was first aired on a Kenyan Television station, Machachari recently won three awards: it was voted “Kenya’s Teenagers’ TV drama Soap of choice”. The TV drama also won “New Show Award” and one of the characters won the “Male Actor Award”. In the Kalasha awards held in September 2011, the equivalent of a Kenyan Oscar, one of the child characters, Baha, won the best actor award. In cognizance of the popularity of this sitcom and in appreciation of its palpable foregrounding of child characters, this study interrogates this very popular sitcom with a view to establishing whether the presentation of the child character with regard to behaviour patterns and theme conforms to true childhood as affirmed by three psychological theorists: cognitively, as prescribed by Jean Piaget; emotionally as outlined by Erik Erikson and lastly, whether the child characters’ conduct is the product of interactive influences, both congenital and experiential as delineated by Robert Sears. Discourse analysis is also employed to determine the communicative import of the utterances of the child characters while appraising their plausibility in illuminating particularities of children’s mental processes and personalities within their milieu.Item Community Theatre and Development Practices in the Nyanza Region of Kenya(2015-09) Diang'a, Rachael; Kebaya, Charles; Mwai, WangariPositing Community Theatre as an agency for development and is an effective way to encourage community dialogue, this article interrogates practices and efficacies of Community Theatre in Nyanza, Kenya. While contending that it has the potential to build developmental consciousness among community members on social issues affecting them, the study argues that Community Theatre provides an interesting way to explore cultural, socio-economic and developmental realities, thereby changing the way people think, socialize and act. Based on selected Community Theatre performances in Nyanza, this article analyses the practice and efficacy of Community Theatre as a social construction that is produced, regulated and consumed within specific cultural frameworks. Anchored in qualitative research, participant observation and post-performance discussions were used in data collection. The data responses obtained were organized into thematic analysed and interpreted strands, and thus, the findings show that Community Theatre is a crucial space in communities that can increase social issue awareness, influence beliefs and attitudes, prompt action, increase utilization of and support for services, explore popular misconceptions, and strengthen community support for recommended practices. Hence, Community Theatre is a safe space where communities can explore difference, question everyday life, and say the unsayable.Item Message films in Africa: A look into the past(Cogent OA, 2016) Diang′a, RachaelMessage film-making has characterised much of films produced in post-independent Kenya. The country produced very few films in the 1980s, when indigenous film-making actually began to take root. Liberalisation of the economy, embracement of the digital technology and democratization in the 1990s paved way for a more stable film culture in the decade. A more promising growth of the film industry has been largely witnessed since the turn of the 21st century. Through this period, I note a strong tendency to produce films that are loaded with social messages deemed urgent and important to the target audience. In making these films, the film-makers hope to make a positive impact in the lives of the target audiences. These films tend to valorise the message, sometimes, neglecting the basic filmic codes, a practice that renders the films less entertaining. This endangers the growth of the industry since local films find very stiff competition from foreign films that are common on Kenyan screens. This study therefore investigates possible roots of message film-making in Africa that directly influence the tendencies in Kenya by making references to other African countries’ film experiences. My assumption is that Kenya’s cultural experiences are shared by other African countriesItem Themes in Kenyan cinema: Seasons and reasons(Cogent OA, 2017) Diang'a, RachaelThis is a study of thematic dimensions taken by feature films produced in Kenya from 1963 to 2013. The rather expansive 50-year period is characterised by varied historical, economic, social and technological changes in the country. These variations have had an impact on the nature and growth of the film industry in one way or another. One such way, is the kind of subject matter addressed by the films. The main objective of the paper therefore is to ascertain the impact of the environment of production on the nature of the narratives emanating from the Kenyan feature film in the first 50 years of independence. This study purposively selects feature film genre for two main reasons; it tends to define a film industry more accurately than the other genres and it is relatively shorter than TV drama series, which, given its longer and steadier presence in the country, could have been the ideal way of understanding the social concerns on Kenyan screens. Text analysis and interviews with film-makers form the larger sources of primary data for this study. Secondary data, based on literature and films of relevance were also consulted.Item A historical perspective on the evolution and presentations of the ideal in children’s television: A study of Kenyan television from 1989 to 2012(Royallite Global, 2017) Shapaya, BeneahThis paper aims at offering a brief history of children’s television in Kenya since 1989 when Voice of Kenya (VoK) was rebranded Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC). The year 1989 is unique in the sense that broadcasting hours were increased, giving room for more programmes for children. This paper tries to provide a historical progression of Kenyan children’s television programmes, while analysing their portrayal of the world to the child. The paper will also look at notable opinions by Kenyan scholars on what children television ought to be vis-à-vis what it is. This paper concludes that although the Kenyan society (and to a great extent, television stations) still habours the idea that children are innocent individuals being natured to join the society by controlling the content they watch, we may be misleading ourselves. It must be accepted that currently children have multiple venues in which they can access various media with varied content. Thepaper accepts that children have varied intellect, experiences, interests and come from different backgrounds with different expectations of what is entertaining and what is boring. Although the paper does accept that television is a useful tool for culture transmission, it challenges the idea that children are a homogeneous group that can do with a standard offering.Item Utilization of Films as Wellsprings of Succour, Edification and Repose for Psychologically Lacerated Persons: An Exploratory Study(Royallite publishers, 2017) Situma, Eliud; Mugubi, JohnThis paper presents an appraisal on Film, principally docudrama as a tool in the psychotherapeutic process among distressed people. The major findings resulting from reviewing several studies illustrate that cinematic techniques and enactment greatly play a role in decreasing psychological distress levels as well as depression. Subsequently, the study concludes that presentation and manipulation of characters effectively may engender positive results on persons healing from psychosomatic anguish and despondency. This study avers that cinematographic techniques carry healing and therapeutic value if utilized in psychosocial supportive environment. Film therapy enables clients to tell their life stories to their therapists. Film is therefore a potentially valuable means for clients to vent out their emotional stress and inculcate optimism. The entertainment aspect may make the client to forget/suspend negative feelings associated with trauma hence reducing negative defence mechanism that could encumber a therapeutic process.Item The Gender Agenda in Kenyan Children’s Feature Films(Journal of African Theatre, Filmand Media Discourse, 2017) Ojiambo-Hongo, Evelyn; Mugubi, John; Nyaole, RosemaryThe gender agenda has featured substantially in creative works from Africa and particularly Kenya. Although film is considered a new form of creative expression in Africa, compared to the west, it has not been excluded in exploring gender issues. While thegender discussion has prominently featured adults, the Kenyan film has gone a step further and explored gender on a different level. Gender has been explored from the point of view of the child and employed the child character as a suitable medium. Kenyanfilmmakers by employing the child character on the subject of gender seem to suggest that engendering of any member of the society begins in childhood and progresses into adulthood. This is a unique aspect about the Kenyan film yet has not been criticallyexamined. This paper therefore examines the child character and the exploration of gender in Kenyan films about children to ascertain the significance of the child character in exploring gender issues in society. It focuses on three selected films that extensively explore the engendering of children namely: Subira, Malika and Becoming A Girl. The films mainly focus on the engenderingof the girl child by the society and that this happens in childhood. They also employ the girl child as a character in exploring the issue of gender. Examination of the child character will be guided by the Sociological theory of film and the Formalist film theory. The structure of the paper is as follows: A background on the gender issue in creative works,theoretical perspectives on gender, analysis of Kenyan children’s films on gender and conclusions on the use of the child character in exploring gender.Item Potentials of Drama Therapy in Unmasking the Personae of Survivors of Female Genital Mutilation among the Kenyan Maasai(Journal of African Theatre, Film and Media Discourse, 2017) Okoth, Zippora; Mugubi, JohnCircumcision of females was and still remains a cultural practice in many African communities. While modernity and access to education has led to vilification of this tradition, the guardians and conservators of traditions who perceive not virtue but abomination in this revolution intrepidly use myths and falsehoods to sustain the tradition. Where that does not work, force is used. The Maasai are such a community where circumcision of women is still entrenched and highly esteemed. Some girls manage to escape but the effects of the harrowing escape remain. Subsequently, this study proceeds from the postulation that drama therapy is a useful tool not only to reach out to the survivors of any form of distress but also as an avenue for helping the victims cope while enhancing their selfexpression by obliterating the facade engendered by the trauma. Our contention is that as a tool for unlocking the voices of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) survivors, drama therapy creates a safe and playful environment where the survivors are able to act out their anxieties, fears and mental conflicts and reclaim their true beings, dreams and positions in society. In this way, drama therapy provides a platform on which the stigma related to FGM emotions can be expelled. While using various drama therapy techniques such as story-telling, poetry, role playing, song and dance, this paper examines and establishes how drama therapy can be used as an effective tool in regaining the real persona of survivors of Female Genital Mutilation. The study employs Nietzsche’s Will to Power theory and Rogerian theory of self in interrogating the potentials of drama therapy. Nietzsche’s Will to Power theory has been used to explore underlying motives behind the survivors’ rebellion against Female Genital Mutilation whereas Rogerian theory of Self has been used in exploring the survivors’ perception of their world, perception of the concepts of freedom, choice and personal responsibility, particularly after surviving Female Genital Mutilation. The study utilizes control-group as its research design while engaging in-depth interviews, questionnaires, focus group discussions and participatory theatre to obtain data for analysis. The data collected was analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively.Item Concomitants of socio-cultural exigencies on narrative preferences in the Kenyan “Riverwood” film(Royallite Global, 2017) Mugubi, John; Maina, William MureithiIn a report commissioned by the World Story Organization in 2008, Justine Edwards points out that storyline lies at the centre of problems that Kenyan films face in trying to “break down the wall preventing Kenyan films from being shown and celebrated beyond Kenyan borders” (2). This paper goes a step further to interrogate this observation through an analysis of three works by three representative Kenyan home grown film makers: Wandahuhu’s Njohera (Forgive Me), Simon Nduti’s Kikulacho (What Bites You) and Simiyu Barasa’s Toto Millionaire. These film makers have made films under the banner of a Kenyan film industry that has come to be informally known as Riverwood—the Kenyan film industry associated with Nairobi’s River Road Street where cheaply produced independent home videos are made in mass mainly by Kenyan film makers working with a Kenyan crew and cast. By measuring their works against narrative conventions established in classical cinema, this paper evaluates Kenyan home-grown film standards as defined by the narrative choices made by the film makers. In so doing, it is essentially guided by narratological theories developed by the constructivist school of film criticism. Constructivist film theory is founded on the tenet that it is the reader (viewer) of the film text that constructs the story and meanings in the story using the clues that the film maker puts before him or her on the screen. Other relevant theoretical positions are applied as need arises to cater for the multidisciplinary nature of film as an art. The methodology used is textual analysis and interpretation, therefore qualitative in nature.Item Crises Experienced in Church Organizations: The Case of Parklands Baptist Church Nairobi Kenya(IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 2017-03) kuria, MartinThis study evaluated crisis preparedness in churches and focused mainly on crisis communication in Parklands Baptist Church (PBC) in Nairobi, Kenya. The study’s main objective was to find out the types of crises that have affected the church in the past 5 years. The study employed a descriptive research design. The study established that the church experiences crisis but mostly from a rare to often basis. A sizeable number of PBC congregants indicated to have observed different crises in the church. It was inferred that the church rarely communicates to inform about crises to its congregants and this would explain why most congregants in Churches held the belief that the church is rarely engulfed in crisesItem Factors Contributing to the Onset and Continuation of Drug Abuse among Secondary School Students in Mombasa County, Kenya(International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE), 2017-05) Omuyoma, Mbayi OliverAdolescence is a period of significant developmental changes associated with the onset of drug abuse worldwide. This study was set up to examine some of the factors associated with the onset and escalation of drug abuse among secondary school students in Mombasa, Kenya. It also investigated the intervention strategies used to control drug abuse among secondary school students. Stratified sampling was used to pick 120 students from secondary schools. A self-report questionnaire was used. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and presented in tabular form. The findings of this study highlighted the importance of peer and family use of drugs in predicting both the onset and continuation of abuse of drugs among the secondary school students. Majority of student respondents reported high levels of awareness of harmful effects associated with substance use. The findings of this study suggest effective health guidance can assist secondary school students make rational choices away from drugs.