Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: As digital comic book consumption (both legal and illegal) continues to rise in popularity, the comic book fan community appears conflicted over the effect that digital scans and files have on the values of reading, collecting and fan identity politics. Historically, ownership of comic texts has been the locus for determining comic fan social capital, but do digital scans hold the same cultural capital that printed comic books hold? Does the dissemination of post-purchased digital scans by electronic means primarily hurt copyright holders through lost sales or help copyright holders through social promotion?
Examining the aftermath of two contentious controversies involving scanned comics, 896 discussion forum posts were gathered and coded for frame analysis. Seeking to understand how fans frame their justification for or against download activities, the work provides insight into the relationship between fan and text.
Consistent with the third wave study of fandom studies, the current work draws insight from the collected sample to draw inferences about how consumers related to popular culture texts in general, as well as distinguishing unique characteristics about comic book fandom owing to their unique text.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We’re running a small cohort at the Health and Welfare Center in Koshu City, Yamanashi Pref. as one of the Childcare support programs. This program has been in operation since 2002, where babies of the same age and their mothers are invited 3 times before their birthday. First gathering is at their 5-6 mos. then at their 8-9 mos. and lastly at their 11-12mos..
The main purpose of this program is to help young mothers to initiate their babies to book reading. There the small Origami Ehon, which is designed for mothers to make, write, draw and color and read, plays a great role. This program is based upon what Françoise Dolt said in her book Lorsque L’enfant Parait and also what Paul Tournier said in his book Quel nom lui donnerez-vous? that : Babies are in confusion immediately after their delivery and the most needful thing for them is to listen to their mothers’ voice as soon as possible. Charlotte Zolotow said : Babies need music and the first music for them should be mothers’ voice. When I was asked to read books to the children from the City Office. I looked for appropriate books in the library but there seemed to be nothing for the babies and mothers to read, so I wrote some sentences useful for their everyday life with simple words. I employed the Origami method for them to enjoy. Origami Ehon is the device made from a piece of paper to fold into 8-page book. I encourage mothers to use the Origami Ehon as prompts so that they could read aloud thus lead and enhance communication with the babies while they are at the stage of chaos. After 1 year old until they go to kindergarten, mothers and babies are invited to the Children’s Library of the City for the book reading gathering once a month. The total number of babies who have joined the cohort amounted to 800 and those who’ve participated in the library book reading gathering amounted to 1200. The majority of mothers answered to our questionnaires that their children love reading so far now.
From what I have observed and learned I can say the children who experienced the Origami Ehon method at the start of their life show more attention, concentration and familiarity when they listen to book reading than those who’ve joined the cohort without experiencing the Origami Ehon.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Aristotle's discussions of the passions in Book II of the Rhetoric inform his discussion of stasis in Book V of the Politics

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The objective of this article is to propose an approach to the feminine associations denominated “Book Clubs", as a study object inside two areas of knowledge: cultural consumption and gender investigations. Regarding the first focus, the starting point is the current necessity of understanding the part that this Clubs have as social actors inside the urban ways to communicate and to consume; on the other hand, these associations present characteristics that allow to include their study inside the social movements related with gender and cultural feminism.
Here the theoretical boarding is presented starting from the proposal on production and cultural consumption of the French sociologist Pierre Bordieu, presented in two of its books: The Rules of the Art and The Distinction; as well as the perspective of Berger and Luckmann in The Social Construction of the Reality. The empiric data is based on the observation carried out in several “Book Clubs” in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, specifically one of the oldest: the Rosario Castellanos, during a three year period.
Inside these groupings of “rich women” it has been possible to observe a dynamic that presents two simultaneous processes: on one hand, they reproduce the habitsinduced by a social system that has transformed them in promoters of an elitist cultural consumption; on the other hand, the group interaction as well the reading is provoking changes in their perception towards the women world, therefore they are becoming aware of their oppressed situation.

Publication Type: Individual Poster
Abstract: Parents often read books with their young children, whether at home before bedtime or during a trip to the library. They read a variety of books that contain different types of features, from a variety of different kinds of pictures to pop-up elements (flaps to lift, levers to pull, texture to feel, etc.). In previous research, we found that 30-36- month-old children learned alphabet letters better when they were taught with a basic alphabet book than with a pop-up book or a book with highly complex pictures. In the research to be presented, we asked how different types of books would influence the nature of parent-child picture book reading, as well as parents’ book choices for their children.

In the present study, 24 mothers of 30- to 36-month-old children (12 boys and 12 girls) were asked to read three alphabet books with their child. One book was a basic book, which displayed all letters in a uniform font and paired each letter with one simple, colorful picture (i.e. A for Apple). Another book was a pop-up book that varied in how the letters looked, the number of pictures with which each letter was paired, and most importantly had manipulative elements such as flaps to lift. A third book displayed letters that were embedded within pictures. The mothers were asked to read all three books as they naturally would at home, in a counterbalanced order.

Results indicate that the mothers gestured more to the letters and pictures when reading the basic book than the other two books. They also labeled the letters more with the basic book than the book with the embedded pictures. This suggests that the mothers focused more on the relevant information with the basic book than with the other two books, which contained more distracting features.

When asked which book they would most likely buy, only 25% of the mothers chose the basic book; 50% chose the pop-up book. Most of the mothers judged their child to have been most engaged in the pop-up book. However, when asked which book they would most likely use teach letters, about half of the mothers chose the basic book.

In summary, the mothers’ actions when reading with their children indicates that basic books are the most advantageous to young children’s learning, and their book choices suggest that the mothers’ are aware that different types of books may serve different functions.