Blackwell Reference Online

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Which elements of films, novels, or plays are able to produce suspense in the viewer or reader? (We will use the term “viewer” in the rest of this entry to cover viewers, readers, and users.) This question immediately indicates that the concept of suspense has to be treated on multiple levels because it is a multilayered phenomenon. First, suspense is a cognitive-emotional strategy in the dramaturgy of a written, auditive, audiovisual, or performed “text,” which usually possesses a narrative structure. Second, the recipient has to be able to experience the suspense potential of this text. In order to manage this task, her or his cognitive architecture and socio-emotional as well as motivational makeup have to fulfill specific prerequisites. Finally, if the suspense construction has achieved its effect, the question that follows is which processes take place in the viewer. Usually cognitive analyses of suspense phenomena are carried out by focusing either on the text, as a calculated structural proposal for →  information processing by the viewer, or on the viewer's reception process. The best-studied case for a suspense-evoking text is a film telling a single narrative, prototypically a thriller in the style of Alfred Hitchcock. This prototype also defines a single genre: suspense (→  Film Genres ). But →  Television serials like 24 also unfold a broad range of (new) suspense-inducing ... log in or subscribe to read full text