Computational Media and the Core Concepts of Narrative Theory

During the last two decades, computational media-a technology able to simulate virtually any system-have permeated all aspects of contemporary society and culture. So far, narratologists have mostly neglected this progression, which is also known as the digital turn. While the current developments have called our attention to phenomena such as narrative representation across media, the core of narrative theory is still firmly rooted in concepts constructed from the basis of verbal structures and content that can be deemed fixed or unconditional. This article argues that we need to extend the scope of narratological inquiry toward the machines of computational media. With the help of conceptual tools borrowed from software studies and digital humanities, the article first identifies three main properties which distinguish the computer from the earlier forms of media: database, procedurality, and reciprocity. It is then shown how these properties challenge some of the core concepts of narrative theory-plot, character, and storyworld-in the analysis of storytelling in computational media. Finally, it is suggested that in the future, narrative theory might put more emphasis on, firstly, authorship as design and, secondly, the performative acts that the designs invite and enable. The article thus points toward understanding the transformative effect of computational media on the ways in which we see the world and engage with it through the time-honored gift for storytelling.Peer reviewe

View mappings for query languages

The problems of current use of query languages are looked at. One chief drawback is the undesirable requirement for end user familiarity with and knowledge of the underlying database structures, in order to retrieve data effectively. The approach adopted towards resolving this is by means of high-level view support, using unit view structures called perceived records. A prime concern of this thesis then, is the study of perceived record mappings from the database. A set of criteria for categorising and analysing the features of database mappings for end-user views is first developed. In addition, a classification of data structure transformations and data item transformations is also presented. The framework is general and is independent of a specific data model or database management system. Its usefulness is demonstrated by its application to the analysis of view transformations from recursive database structures to high-level, unit view structures. In addition, it serves as a basis for evaluating and comparing the mapping facilities in existing systems. Possible ways of specifying a suitable data model for the perceived record view concept are described. Following on, two general mapping techniques are discussed. This leads to a proposal for a mapping mechanism that supports the flexible derivation of complex perceived record views that can differ considerably from the source structures. The mechanism uses an intermediary canonical transform model. Description of how the transform model mechansim can be used in practical systems to derive perceived record views, is also presented. The feasibility of the ideas proposed are tested out by implementing an interactive software system for defining perceived record views. For this, a mapping definition language for perceived record derivation is first designed. The control system sets up the structures of the mapping definition language and prompts the End-User-Administrator to define and specify the mappings for a perceived record. Appraisals of both the proposed mapping mechanism and implementation are discussed. Examples of use of the interface system are included. The limitations of the implementation are pinpointed with suggestions for further improvements. Practical applications of the work and evaluation of the approach in the light of other existing approaches, are also discussed

Climate Change Games as Boundary Objects: Fostering Dialogic Communication within Stakeholder Engagement

Rising waters and the increasing devastation of flood events make coastal resilience a significant issue in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, particularly in the city of Norfolk. Enhancing resilience requires ongoing stakeholder engagement designed to invite dialogue while encouraging cross-jurisdictional collaboration and comprehensive problem-solving. Climate change games have been employed to support these endeavors. This dissertation provides a response to the following research questions: 1) What is the origin of the climate change game genre? 2) Why are key stakeholders in coastal resilience using climate change games? And 3) how do these games operate for these key stakeholders? To answer these questions, I focused on two games used in resilience-related stakeholder engagement workshops in 2018 in Coastal Virginia: the Multi-hazard Tournament (MHT) and the Game of Floods. I conducted semistructured observational field notes and survey research, including interview and questionnaires, followed by thematic analysis according to notions of Susan Leigh Star and James Griesemer’s (1989) boundary objects. Designed for a wide range of contexts, including public outreach, education, training, and stakeholder engagement, I found that the CC game genre emerges from (and is a manifestation of) a number of related traditions: technical communication, urban planning, modeling and simulation, and game studies—fields that are, themselves, intertwined with a broad array of disciplines. These games are complex and idiosyncratic; while no one disciplinary tradition can adequately explain their work, the notion of boundary objects can. These games are boundary objects (a manifestation of a range of disciplinary traditions), and they operate as boundary objects for these key stakeholders (encouraging dialogic communication among diverse audiences). I merge multidisciplinary scholarship with data from survey research to generate a rhetorical boundary work heuristic that articulates the goals of these games: foster boundary work for varied audiences within intense design periods using charrette and game design strategies. I analyze the MHT and the Game of Floods according to this heuristic, demonstrating that, while both games work toward these goals, more could be done to enhance their boundary work, and I close with key takeaways for practitioners to use as they continue developing and employing CC games

Database system architecture supporting coexisting query languages and data models

SIGLELD:D48239/84 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

USING RESTRICTED NATURAL LANGUAGE FOR DATA RETRIEVAL: A PLAN FOR FIELD EVALUATION

One strategy that has been proposed for dealing with the growing backlog for development of applications is to give casual users languages for interacting directly with databases. Yet, there is little agreement on the form such languages should take. Should they be natural-like, conforming closely to a user's native tongue or should they be structured to take advantage of the characteristics of formal languages? This paper presents the rationale for and design of a field evaluation of natural language for data retrieval. The natural language system and application are described along with the research design of the project. The results of the first part of the study, a laboratory experiment to investigate whether users perform better with an artificial or natural language, suggest that after equal amounts of training no difference in subject performance is found between languages using a paper and pencil test . The insights gained to date are summarized.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Designing a persuasive game for children's safety awareness

Children encounter many dangers at home and in their surroundings during their daily lives. Safety education before the school age is important for the children to form safe behaviors already early in their live, but a persistent problem for reaching young populations has been the lack of engaging materials. Hence, there is a need for developing engaging, interactive materials, such as games, to help children adapt necessary safety behaviors effectively. The purpose of this study is, through constructive research, to examine 1) how can a persuasive game be designed to increase children's safety awareness in their early childhood, and 2) which good practices and guidelines can be derived from the design process. In collaboration with Tukes, the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency and Yle, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, a mobile game was developed with the agenda of increasing children's safety awareness. Action Design Research (ADR) methodology is used to describe the design process, containing four phases: Problem Formulation, Building, Intervention and Evaluation, Reflection and Learning, and Formalization of Learning. As the theoretical background, the concept of procedural rhetoric and the prior research knowledge on children 's user-centered interaction design were adapted. The resulting game was evaluated through playtesting with the co-discovery method and a feedback survey. During the project, a functioning persuasive game was designed through an iteratice process. The reflection and learning upon the design process also resulted in a process model for persuasive game design and set of guidelines to help guide children's persuasive game projects in the future. The study was limited by the fact that the long-term effects of the game intervention on children's safety awareness were not monitored. Future research on the topic should address the measurement of long-term effects of persuasive games, as well as study their design and implementation in different contexts, environments, and user groups

Situated at a Distance: A Framework for Teaching Reflexive Inquiry through Digital Games

As science and technology (technoscience) grow increasingly complicit in systemic injustice, there is an urgent need for practitioners to conduct scientific inquiry as a reflexive process. Reflexivity in technoscience entails critically examining how one’s position in material, political, and cultural structures of practice relates to their process of scientific inquiry. For example, it can involve examining how one’s position as a researcher at a large for-profit corporation affects their framing of research problems. Teaching scientific inquiry as a reflexive process is necessary as it enables one to understand how values and assumptions permeate inquiry, and how one’s positionality can embody or transform them. However, teaching it is also a paradoxical challenge: it requires students to be positioned in the structures of practice, while also at a distance from them. Being positioned in practice is necessary because the structures of practice differ significantly from those of education. Simultaneously, being at a distance is also necessary because those structures can bind one’s understanding of a problem according to shared cultural norms. This raises two research problems: How do we design educational environments that position students in practice, at a distance? How can these environments support inquiry as a reflexive process? This dissertation makes two primary contributions towards addressing these research problems. First, I draw upon feminist STS and pragmatist scholarship to propose a framework that brings one’s positionality in structures of distribution, power, and culture into relation with the process of inquiry. The framework explores positionality in four ways: as one’s means, status, culture, and experience and brings them into relation to three interdependent processes of inquiry: problematizing, hypothesizing-experimenting, and resolving. By providing a systematic means of examining positionality and inquiry, the framework lays the grounds to analyze and develop responses to each question. This, I hypothesize, allows it to function both as an analytical tool to examine educational environments as well as a design space for educational environments that aim to teach scientific inquiry. Second, I hypothesize that digital games can approach these research questions because they can simulate the structures of practice, one’s position in them, and the processes of inquiry as they relate to those positions, all at a distance from real practice. I investigate this potential of digital games by using the framework to conduct case studies and design-based inquiry into multiple digital games. This process demonstrated how the framework can be a source of design possibilities for approaching the two research questions. Simultaneously, it also surfaced key strengths and constraints of digital games as environments to support inquiry as a reflexive process. Particularly, I highlight how the procedural, evaluative, and artificial affordances of digital games can support but also constrain them from teaching scientific inquiry as a reflexive process (as stand-alone environments), and how such games can be complemented.Ph.D

ScripTale: generation of procedural narrative

The subject of research is the procedural narrative. Procedural narrative is the way of generating narrative automatically along with the progress of the game. More specifically, the subject of the study will be about exploring the way procedural narrative could be implemented in a project and through with a tool external to the code of the game itself

Validation of queries to a relational database

This thesis addresses the problem of preventing users of a data base system from interrogating it with query language expressions which are syntactically and semantically valid but which do not match the user's intentions. A method of assisting users of a relational data base to formulate query language expressions which are valid representations of the abstract query which the user wishes to put is developed. The central focus of the thesis is a method of communicating the critical aspects of the semantics of the relation which would be generated in response to a user's proposed operations on the data base. Certain classes of user error which can arise when using a relational algebra query system are identified, and a method of demonstrating their invalidity is demonstrated. This is achieved by representing via a graph the consequences of operations on relations. Also developed are techniques allowing the generation of pseudo-natural language text describing the relations which would be created as the result of the user's proposed query language operations. A method of allowing the creators of data base relations to incorporate informative semantic data about their relations is developed. A method of permitting this data to be modified by query language operations is specified. Pragmatic linguistic considerations which arise when this data is used to generate pseudo-natural language statements are addressed, and examples of the system's use are given

Pedagogy at Play: Gamification and Gameful Design in the 21st-Century Writing Classroom

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival cultural studies approach, this study amplifies the voices of actual writing teachers while examining the theoretical implications and possibilities of the language surrounding gamification and gameful design. In particular, this project reflects on the ways in which the “gamification” trend affects the methods used by writing teachers, and also how the language used to discuss those methods reflects on a particular set of anxieties present in (but not necessarily unique to) this cultural moment. By investigating the relationship between language and thought in this instance, this project offers insight into the attitudes and moments that have yielded such a strong preoccupation with gamification over the past decade. Attention to such details will, subsequently, provide new ways of considering what it means to use games in these spaces