PRESCHOOL CHILDREN'S VISUAL ATTENTION TO ATTRIBUTES OF TELEVISION

Preschool children's visual attention to nearly three hours of a heterogeneous sample of children's programing was examined in relationship to the presence of 37 simple visual and auditory attributes of television programs. A factor analysis of the attributes indicated that they were largely independent, with the exception of two factors, which were labeled “women and children” and “puppets.” Attributes and factors that were positively related to attention were the puppet factor, women and children factor, auditory changes, peculiar voices, movement, cuts, sound effects, laughter, and applause. Attributes that were negatively related to attention were adult male voices, extended zooms and pans, eye contact, and still shots. Other attributes had both positive and negative effects on attention depending on whether the child was looking at the TV at the time the attribute occurred. It is suggested that attributes are positive or negative to the degree to which they signal informative comprehensible content.     

CREATION EX NIHILO AND EX AMORE: ONTOLOGICAL FREEDOM IN THE THEOLOGIES OF JOHN ZIZIOULAS AND CATHERINE MOWRY LACUGNA

This essay takes as its starting point Reinhard Hütter's analysis of the crisis of meaning of “freedom” in late modernity. The essay argues that the trinitarian theologies of John Zizioulas and Catherine Mowry LaCugna make an important contribution to the reconstruction of a theology of freedom in our postmodern era. God's ontological freedom, they explain, is both unorigination and ecstatic love. The essay concludes with reflection on how the work of these theologians can be used constructively to address the issues of freedom and the modern quest for unorigination, freedom as love in a free market economy, and the relation of freedom and law.