Wreading, Performing, and Reflecting: The Application of Narrative Hypertext and Virtual World Experiences to Social Work Education

In this dissertation I propose the use of a new media composition of narrative hypertext, performances in a virtual world, and a dialogic process of writing to provide a continuum of learning opportunities in social work education. I suggest that the structure of the hypertext narrative, embedded with hypermedia, mirrors the dissociative aspects of traumatic memory. I argue that work with the multivocality and multisequentiality of narrative hypertext emulates the process of discovery in the clinical interview. The immersive component of work in a virtual world deepens the realism and affective impact of simulations and creates opportunities to practice and demonstrate engagement, assessment, and intervention skills. The writing component of the new media composition actively engages students in a dialogic process that hones the development of self-reflexive practice and a professional social work identity. In developing the project, I enlisted the input of two groups of key informants. Content experts provided background that informed the narrative and scripts. A second group of faculty, students, and practitioners provided input on project design and identified potential barriers to success and anticipated outcomes. Informants suggest that the continuum of media engages students with a variety of learning styles, offers safe ways to practice skills as a precursor to interviews with actual clients, and allows for exploration of diverse identities as an avatar. Potential barriers include the time and resources required to learn new technologies and the potential for students to be triggered by trauma content. Informants offered recommendations to address the barriers. Three changes were immediately incorporated into the structure and content of the project to address these concerns

Using interactive documentary as a peacebuilding tool

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Judging a Game by Its Cover: the Development of a Fairer Framework for Analysing Gender in Video Games

In recent years, society has gained a newfound acknowledgement of understanding gender as a multifaceted spectrum (Monro, 2019; Hopkins and Richardson, 2021), requiring universal acceptance and support from both individuals and industry. Companies now have a duty to re-evaluate their products and outputs to accommodate this deeper level, as opposed to catering to the binary approach to gender that has been prevalent for many years. The video game sector is no exception. Realistic graphics and immersive storylines mean that the inclusion of diverse personas is vital in ensuring that video games are accessible to everyone (Jin, 2012). A mirror of society, games have the power to influence players and aid identification with repeated representations of characters and depictions of cultural norms (McQuail, 2010, p.82). However, although video game companies are attempting to keep up with changes in the interpretation of gender identity (Ruberg, 2018; Thach, 2021), the method used to analyse these non-normative characters has neither been adapted nor re-evaluated in research. There are two aims of this research that share importance here. The initial aim is to demonstrate that the traditional gender-based content analysis method is no longer suitable for modern-day analysis of character representation in video games. To achieve this, the content analysis has been replicated and evaluated to identify the shortcomings that occur when analysing characters in this way. The further aim is to suggest and develop an alternative approach that is more appropriate for the changing nature of gender identity concepts. A framework is presented that utilises a game-by-game character-by-character qualitative method where diverse perspectives are not only accepted but also serve to strengthen and enrich results. This thesis is the first to highlight a need to re-evaluate existing methods for their suitability instead of blind replication. It is also the first to develop and test a new approach that is fair and promotes understanding of those characters outside of the gender binary. The content analysis replication discovers that women are vastly underrepresented in all roles, but little sexualisation occurs in any character. Testing the framework indicates that more detailed responses provide worthy justification for ‘good’ or ‘bad’ representation and, thus, a better understanding of character agency. Finally, the framework itself emphasises that a less restrictive approach to character analysis enables researchers with multiple perspectives to collaborate, creating a more rounded, comprehensive, and enhanced understanding of gender in games

Mobile cinema

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-161).This thesis develops techniques and methods that extend the art and craft of storytelling, and in particular enable the creation of mobile cinema. Stories are always constrained by the medium in which they are told and the mode by which they are delivered to an audience. This dissertation addresses the design of content, systems, and tools that facilitate the emerging type of computational audio-visual narrative that we call mobile cinema. Storytelling in this medium requires temporally and spatially encoded narrative segments that are delivered over a wireless channel to mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. These devices belong to "the audience," individuals who are navigating physical space and interact with local circumstances in the environment. This thesis examines the underlying requirements for coherent mobile narrative and explores two particular challenges which must be solved in order to make a reliable and scalable stream of content for mobile cinema: technology uncertainty (the fact that what the mobile cinema system presents may not be what the creator intends) and participation uncertainty (the fact that what the audience does may not be what the creator expects). The exploration and analysis of these problems involved prototyping two versions of the M-Views system for mobile cinema and three prototype cinematic narratives. Small user studies accompanied each production. The iterative process enabled the author to explore both aspects of uncertainty and to introduce innovations in four key areas to help address these uncertainties: practical location detection, authoring tools designed for mobile channels, responsive story presentation mechanisms, and creative story production strategies.y Pengkai Pan.Ph.D