1,720,958 research outputs found
The People's History of Steam
No full textM.A.Valve Software's proprietary software distribution client Steam is billed as "The Ultimate Entertainment Platform" on Valve's website. Steam is responsible for selling, distributing and managing video game software to millions of users around the globe through their internet connections. However, in addition to functioning as a direct retail system, Steam also functions as a social network, system of control and surveillance, as well as a site for work and trade. This thesis argues that due to the inclusion of these functions as a part of Steam's code, those features must now also be considered as a part of the field of activity referred to as `play'. Utilizing a combination of archival research, discourse analysis, and digital ethnography, this thesis historicizes Steam's impact on the field of play, as expressed by users who were forced to adapt to its presence in their lives
Paper Dolls in Cyberspace: Visual Hacking and Representation in the Teaching of Computer Programming
No full textM.A.Despite the importance of coding in an increasingly computer-dependent age, the Higher Education Research Institute found from 2000 to 2005 that the number of college freshmen listing computer science as their probable major dropped by 70% in the US. Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted in 2005 that 65% of job openings from 2004 to 2014 in science and engineering will be in information technology. Can the teaching of computer languages be improved? This thesis will explore two underused tools in the computer science classroom: digital representations, or avatars, and hacking, or the creative reworking and remixing of code. It examines how six adult graduate students approach hacking the same program, adding details and new forms of interactivity to reflect their own interests and passions. It also explains how the misunderstood concept of hacking code could work as a useful educational tool for an active learning environment, in the style of Seymour Papert's Logo learning language
Desegmenting a Gameworld: The Super Mario Series
No full textM.A.Throughout game studies scholarship, the term “gameworld” has often been used to contain two notions simultaneously: the navigable virtual space of a videogame and the collection of characters, settings, and events represented by a videogame’s audiovisual output. Resisting this haphazard use, this study closely examines five videogames in the Super Mario series and presents its findings in context of two theories of gameworld: Seth Giddings’s theory of gameworld and Kristine Jørgensen’s theory of gameworld interfaces. This study employs two methods of analysis: iterative game analysis, a method that strategically utilizes the save state affordance of console emulators, and comparative game analysis, a method that uses a wide range of analytic tools across sets of other media forms and videogames. Chapter 1 offers an analysis of Super Mario World, the most salient feature of which is its interface metaphor: the world map. Chapter 2 investigates techniques used to segment gameplay, space, time, challenge, and narrative across Super Mario Bros. 1, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. By investigating techniques of segmentation across a range of games that constitute the same gameworld, a method of analysis I am calling “desegmentation,” this study aims to make more robust the theorization of gameworld and future study of videogames
CODE / QUILT
No full textM.A.From dawn to dusk, humans are involved in abstraction and expression. As symbolic thinkers, humans are in a constant state of meaning-making. In machinic computation we implement these meaning-making abstractions in algorithmic form in order to automate them. But even if our "hand-wrought" computation trails automated efforts by orders of magnitude, computation -- intrinsic to meaning making -- remains a quintessentially human project. Why, then, do we invariably see "computation" as necessarily dehumanizing? Why has computation become, for many, the exclusive domain of science, technology, mathematics and engineering? If meaning-making through abstraction, abduction, and expression is a common feature of human experience, why do we view computation as alien and extrinsic?It is a socio-historical accident that computing has been narrowed recently to involve only certain disciplines. If we accept that the process of symbolic representation has been intrinsic to human thought since the emergence of Homo sapiens, and that machinic computation is roughly the further abstraction and automation of that process, we see that the common trope of dehumanization deserves to be turned on its head: In other words, it is not that computers threaten to drain us of our humanity, but that computers may be understood as extending and amplifying that most human part of ourselves.In engaging in symbolic representation and abstraction, both with and without computational mediation, I design textiles and make quilts in order to investigate a new theoretical framework for computational thinking. Through displaying coded patterns in quilt form, I highlight the importance of thinking creatively about computing and pushing others in the humanities to think beyond the current conception of computation
Rhetoric of Beekeeping: Science, Technology & Innovation
No full textM.A.This paper analyzes the rhetoric surrounding the field of biodiversity conservation and suggests the rhetoric presented by online beekeeping communities as a model for a larger citizen science movement. In the advent of the Anthropocene, conservationists argue that we must move beyond traditional conservation paradigms and embrace a sustainability model marrying humans, nature, and technology as one unit rather than three dichotomous spheres. This paper researches rhetoric within online beekeeping forums and finds that three themes continue to dominate the discourse and can be identified as (1) participatory citizen science, (2) democratic political resistance, and (3) professional-amateur innovation. Finally, the paper expands into the importance of engaged scholarship as it presents recommendations for sustainability, scalability, and a digital online space for local DC beekeepers called LiveHive. Here DC beekeepers converse on an online forum about the use of digital sensors, citizen science, and political engagement. The research documents my own exploration into the making of digital sensors for beehive monitoring and further lays the groundwork for how Georgetown University can begin their own journey into the local beekeeping network
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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