The digital companion: a study of how pupils interpret audiovisual works

Abstract

Over the course of the twentieth century, sound and the moving image gradually came together to form productions combining the two media, such as cinema and music video art. However, few studies analyse their interaction from the point of view of the audio-spectator, and none look at their impact on the development of pupils’ critical thinking in the audiovisual field. Drawing on research in temporal semiotics and music education didactics, this article explores the hypotheses that pupils might perceive dynamic profiles common to both media, synthesise their behaviour through metaphorisation, and thus develop their interdiscursive understanding. If these hypotheses were validated, they could help broaden pupils’ reasoning abilities. The article is structured in three parts: the first looks at the perceived temporal profiles and their typologies to explain audiovisual interaction; the second presents the methodology and experimental protocol, the participants and the audiovisual materials; the results, the proportionality of the labels obtained and the semantic fields represented, are described in the third part. The discussion summarises the results, highlighting their pedagogical potential for encouraging the development of a critical approach to reading contemporary media.