123 research outputs found

    Gameful Digital Rhetoric を用いた行動ナビゲーション実現のためのフレームワーク

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    早大学位記番号:新6865早稲田大

    A Narrative Experiment: From the Revived Oral Tradition in Haroun and The Sea of Stories to Staccato Gaming in Luka and The Fire of Life

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    In an attempt to represent the hybrid culture of a postcolonial India, Salmon Rushdie strives for aesthetic experiment and political assertion through his signature technique, magical realism. Compared to Rushdie’s other works, his two books for children, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and Luka and the Fire of Life (2010), seem light-hearted and fairy-tale-like, as child protagonists miraculously solve their problems through magic (the novels will hereafter be referred to as Haroun and Luka). These two novellas, written by Rushdie to entertain his sons, Zafar and Milan, illustrate how child protagonists can understand and solve problems in their world by exploring magical worlds and restoring the importance of storytelling. The two novellas also reflect Rushdie’s consistent worry about young people tasked with diversifying personal, cultural, and political discourses so as to improve society and enrich culture

    'Thinking of Spain in a flat way:' visiting Spain and Spanish cultural heritage through contemporary Japanese anime

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    This article contextualizes the representation of Spain and Spanish culture among Japanese cultural producers, particularly through the production of Japanese commercial animation (commonly named anime). Toward that goal, it provides a historical background of Japan-Spain relations within the context of the tourism industry, as well as some examples of the diverse forms of representation within several creative industries. Subsequently, the article reviews the ways in which popular culture has been contributed to national branding. There is special attention to the Spanish case and the proliferation of such images sometimes resulting in the (mis)representation of Spain's tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Internationally-distributed anime productions will be examined as a reflection of Spanish national branding on Japanese audiences and this global industry. Three cases among contemporary anime productions have been selected due to the combination of fictional and misrepresented Spanish cultural features in their narratives

    Electronic Books and Multimedia: A Tool to Enhance the Narratives' Engagement

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    Storytelling is a vast topic with many different cultures having different methods of transmitting narratives. This research stems from the notion that if storytelling is not dependent on written artifacts then a new form of e-book can be the alternative. Furthermore, media insertion in literary narratives will upgrade the user experience present in electronic books, especially in terms of engagement. The data collected in this project was achieved through a co-designing session with potential users, consequent prototyping, user experience questionnaires, and further data analysis with a control group. The prototype was well-received, with users finding it attractive and enjoyable, although some usability improvements are needed to meet users' expectations and ensure its success in the market. These findings indicated that readers are open to new ways of interacting with a novel, particularly if it focuses on their senses and emotions

    “I kind of had an avatar switch” : the role of the self in engagement with an interactive TV drama

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    This paper reports results from a study which examined viewers’ cognitive and affective responses to an interactive TV drama. Ten participants were videoed interacting with ‘Our World War’ [1], and then interviewed about their experience using the video playback as a retrospective prompt. An interpretative framework was designed to guide analysis by probing themes of narrative engagement identified in previous literature. We report findings relating to five themes of engagement: cognitive, affective, perspective taking, competence and autonomy, and transportation. Our data adds to the existing literature on interactive stories by highlighting the pivotal role of the self in engaging with interactive drama, with self-reflection emerging within each theme. We conclude that two experiential states drive engagement: a transported experience; and one in which self-reflection limits transportation

    ‘Thinking of Spain in a flat way’ : Spanish tangible and intangible heritage through contemporary Japanese anime

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    This paper contextualises the mutual perceptions between Spain and Japan through the historical background and some examples within several creative industries. Subsequently, the paper reviews the ways in which transnational popular culture has been regarded as non-official National Branding tool, with special attention to the Spanish case and the proliferation of these images in the (mis)representation of its tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Japanese anime is chosen as the most representative global industry among Japanese Popular Culture. Finally, three case studies, especially relevant because of its combination of elements fictionality and creation of national images are discussed

    A theory of the transmedia franchise character

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    In contemporary media landscapes characterised by technological, industrial, and cultural convergence, transmedia fictional practice, that is, the generation of multiple texts, products and experiences across multiple media outlets cohered by a common narrative reality, cast of characters, or entertainment brand, is in the ascendancy. This thesis begins from the observation that although transmedia practice is coterminously beginning to receive more and more critical attention, there remains much work to be done theorising the “total entertainment” experiences (Grainge, 2008: 11) it produces in fictional terms. It identifies a particular need for further critical investigation of how transmedia fictional practice interacts with the design, development, and representation of character. It takes as its fundamental starting principle the assumption that transmediality can be defined and operationalised as a particular modality of fiction, producing particular orientations and operations of meaning and representation, and that the trans-textual, trans-medial extension of a fiction can be identified and delineated as a fictional practice. In dialogue with existing critical work organised by the concept of transmedia storytelling, and industrial discourses and practices of cross-platform production, I conceptualise and define the object of study of this thesis as the practice of transmedia franchising, of which transmedia storytelling is positioned as a sub-genre. The thesis comprises an original theory of the transmedia franchise character as a fictional object, situated in a poetics of transmedia franchising as a fictional practice. It proposes conceptual tools, theoretical frameworks, and critical positions for understanding and analysing the processes of meaning and representation that build up a picture of a character as it is franchised across texts and media, and how they are shaped and influenced by key contextual factors. The six chapters map six core features of the transmedia franchise character as a fictional object, each then providing a granular elaboration of some of the formal, operational, functional, and critical implications of these features. Chapter One engages the problem of the instability of “the text” as critical concept and material artefact relative to transmedia franchise fiction; Chapter Two theorises the franchise character as extensible, designed to anticipate, sustain and generate serial development and representation across multiple texts; Chapter Three presents transmedia franchising as an art of multiplicity, and explores how it builds up a picture of character through setting in play dialogues between rewrites, reimaginings, and alternate versions; Chapter Four focuses on the multimediality of the franchise character specifically; Chapter Five discusses how paratextual material interpolates into and contributes to the actualisation of the franchise character; and Chapter Six explores the franchise character as site and technology of participation, interactivity, and immersion in the franchise world

    “Lizzie’s Story Felt Like Home:” Meaning-Making and Narratively-Constructed Digital Intimacy in Literary Web Series

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    This thesis explores readers’ experiences with a genre of digital narratives known as literary (inspired) web series. These narratives present updated, digital retellings of classic literature from the Western canon and arise from the rapid development of the convergent media environment and the evolution of social media platforms. Literary web series draw on a variety of storytelling methods to create interactive, immersive, and emotionally resonant narrative experiences for readers. As hybrid media-literary artefacts, these narratives leverage the affordances of social media platforms to encourage reader participation and interaction, generate forms of narrative immersion to convey an authentic and realistic story, and capitalise on the literary resonance of their source texts to foster the development of an engaged community of readers. These methods of meaning-making help create intimate narrative experiences that provide readers with a significant and lasting connection to the text. Using the literary web series, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LBD), as a case study, this thesis explores LBD’s use of the sociotechnical affordances of YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr; LBD’s creation of narrative immersion for its readers; and the literary resonance of LBD’s source material, Pride and Prejudice. Results from a mixed-methods online survey of LBD readers and follow-up semistructured interviews with select respondents reveal that readers’ experiences with LBD were deeply meaningful and contributed to readers feeling a sense of intimate connection with the narrative and other readers. Consequently, this thesis will propose that literary web series like LBD can help drive the formation of what I have labelled “narratively-constructed digital intimacy,” an affective feeling stemming from the methods of meaning-making in LBD as well as mediated and narrative intimacies, and para-social interactions. Subsequently, reader experiences of literary web series that include narratively-constructed digital intimacy can provide readers with a “a long-lasting and ineffable sense of significance” (Stockwell, 2009a)
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