1,721,064 research outputs found
Representing Users in the Design of Digital Games
Full text linkWhile economic and sociological studies have generally recognised the important explicit role that users play in shaping a technological artifact - through feedback channels after launch and market trials and studies before launch - there has been less exploration into the more implicit strategies by which designers attempt to pre-figure users prior to launch. Given that design involves making choices, and framing the choices made by users, this paper suggests that Madeline Akricha's approach (1992, 1995) may provide a constructive tool for exploring more implicit and indirect strategies of representing users in the early stages of the design process. It may also prove useful in exploring how users can be excluded or alienated through design.
While acknowledging that users may actively negotiate designers' representations this paper will explore the usefulness of the Akrich approach in relation to understanding the design of digital games. A study in 2001 of production in digital games companies in Ireland found that various macro, meso and micro level factors play a role in limiting the games developed and the user groups developed for. This paper will present findings from ongoing research conducted in 2002 into the reasons which account for how one start-up company decided to design a multiplayer online game for males aged 25-40
Governing Artificial Intelligence in the Media and Communications sector
Full text linkThe article analyses critical blindspots in current European Artificial Intelligence (AI) policies and examines the potential impact of data and AI in the emerging socio-technical ecosystem of the contemporary Media and Communications (MC) sector from the perspective of critical media and communication studies. We first identify central blind spots in the dominant EU trustworthy and risk-based approach to governing AI. Next, we propose a novel multi-level framework to analyse key policy challenges for governing AI in the MC sector. The framework and discussion are based on desk research and multi-stakeholder expert discussions. The article concludes with reflections on AI governance in development, deployment and use in the MC sector
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Girls/Women Just Want to Have Fun - A Study of Adult Female Players of Digital Games.
Full text linkIn the past twenty-five years, the production of digital games has become a global media industry stretching from Japan, to the UK, France and the US. Despite this growth playing digital games, particularly computer games, is still seen by many as a boy’s pastime and part of boy’s bedroom culture. While these perceptions may serve to
exclude, this paper set out to explore the experiences of women who game despite these perceptions.
This paper addresses the topic of gender and games from two perspectives:the producer’s and the consumer’s. The first part of the paper explores how Sony represented the PS2 in advertisements in Ireland and how adult female game players
interpreted these representations. The second part goes on to chart the gaming biographies of these women and how this leisure activity is incorporated into their adult everyday life. It also discuses their views about the gendered nature of game culture, public game spaces and game content; and how these influence their enjoyment
of game playing and their views of themselves as women.
These research findings are based on semi-structured interviews with two marketing professionals and ten female
game players aged 18 and over. The paper concludes that the construction of both gender and digital games are highly contested and even when access is difficult, and representations in the media, in console design and in games are strongly masculine these interviewees were able to
contest and appropriate the technology for their own means. Indeed ‘social networks’ were important in relation to their recruitment into, and sustained playing of, digital
games. At the same time, the paper found that these interviewees were largely ‘invisible’ to the wider gaming community and producers, an issue raised by Bryce and Rutter
(2002:244) in an earlier paper, which has important implications for the development of the games industry
Player Production and innovation in Online Games - Time for New Rules?
Full text linkCapitalism’s relentless search for innovation and creativity, or what used to be called novelty, drives a constant search for new ideas, new sources of ideas (not just internal research and development departments but also suppliers, clients, users and others) and for new ways to appropriate these ideas. Academics have attempted to understand these trends with a range of theories focused on the changing user-producer relationship and innovation processes.
The chapter cautions against taking an overly optimistic or overly negative approach to such developments. It asks us to consider what is behind the increasing tendency to encourage user productions and what do empirical examination of such productions reveal? Is what we are observing actually co-creation or is it that the professional media industries are finding new ways to encourage player production and to appropriate and extract value from this labour? Finally, are the relationships between professional game producers and game players governed and regulated in the most effective and fair manner to recognize and reward each actor? Online games provide a fertile, but diverse, ground to empirically and conceptually explore the concept of player and community production and innovation
The UK and Irish Game Industries
Full text linkThis chapter will look at the origins, present state and key policy issues facing the games industry in the United Kingdom (UK), including Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (R. of Ireland); home to memorable titles like Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider, SingStar and Little Big Planet and middleware technology by companies like Havok. The growth of new mobile platforms, the diffusion of the Internet and the increase in state financial support for game development in Canada and South East Asia have introduced both challenges and opportunities over the last decade
The Business of Making Games
Full text linkThe aim of this chapter is to give the reader an insight into the growing economic significance of the global games industry, to explore the process by which games get
produced and to examine the dynamics operating in each sub-sector of the industry. Thus the ‘business’ of making games is defined rather broadly
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