Peculiarities of Teenagers' Perception of the Characters of a Film Narrative in a Situation of Moral Choice

Abstract

The study of the system of moral values of young people using film narrative, which has an effect on the impressions, meanings, significations, attitudes of people and values, human beliefs, treatment of people and values would determine mental health of an individual and psychological well-being of a society as a whole. Teenagers are those most susceptible to the exposure. The novelty of the study was that the evaluation of the impersonations of the characters in a situation of moral choice, transmission of moral values presented in the film narrative, was studied in adolescents without parental oversight, living in residential care facilities for more than 10 years. The methodological foundation of the study was the psychosemiotic approach to content analysis. A toolbox of techniques was used in the study: theoretical analysis, immanent analysis of the film; factorial analysis; a dedicated semantic differential was used to discover the factors revealing the semantics of the impersonations of the characters of the film narrative in a situation of moral collision, and to compare their perception by different groups of teenagers; analysis of letters to the character was carried out using the procedure of content analysis. We proceeded from the assumption that teenagers' perception and semantic evaluation of the characters of the film narrative in the situation of moral choice was determined by their experience of living in the situation of moral choice and conditions of their upbringing; the system of values presented in the film narrative, the situation of moral collision experienced by the characters, determined the perception and semantic evaluation of their impersonations by modern teenagers. The study was carried out on the basis of schools in Irkutsk, facilities for children without parental care (Republic of Buryatia, Irkutsk) (n = 78). 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' motion picture was used as stimulus material. It was demonstrated that teenagers left without parental care would perceive the characters of the motion picture in positive categories of morality more often than those raised in families. The attitude towards the characters of a movie who were in a situation of moral choice, was determined by the categories of nobility, peacefulness, humanity, tolerance, and piety. The identified differences could be explained by their experience of living in a situation of moral choice, the attitude toward children in situations of living hardships, the individual psychological differences of adolescents. Differences in attitudes could also be seen as the reason for differences in the effectiveness of the impression of the movie. It was substantiated that the situation of moral choice in cinematography served as a tool for shaping moral values. The study sustained the idea of the potential of motion pictures, their effect on shaping moral values of adolescents, complemented the data on the effect of the film narrative on personal development and individual differences in the evaluation of media products. The obtained findings set * Corresponding author E-mail addresses: larisa.skorova@gmail.com (L.V. Skorova) International Journal of Media and Information Literacy. 2021. 6(2) 417 the task of identifying the mechanisms of positive influence of movies on different groups of adolescents.