State of Play of Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion: A Review of the Literature and Empirical Cases

This report presents the 'state of play' of knowledge of how digital games can work as empowerment tools to support social inclusion processes and policy. The report brings together for the first time a review of theoretical and empirical research in a variety of disciplines, especially from learning, social inclusion, e-inclusion and innovation studies to build a framework to help understanding of the potential of games for inclusion and empowerment. It uses this framework to analyse seven well-documented case studies from across the spectrum of digital games for empowerment and inclusion to understand between the factors contributing to their success or failure. It draws conclusions as to the principal challenges, identifies knowledge gaps, and recommends potential action by stakeholders to address these challenges.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Playermaking: the institutional production of digital game players

This thesis investigates how the digital games industry conceptualises its audiences in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing upon research focused on other media industries, it argues in favour of a constructionist view of the audience that emphasises its discursive form and institutional uses. The term “player” is institutionally constructed in the same way, not referring to the actual people playing games, but to an imagined entity utilised to guide industrial decisions. Using both desk research and information gathered from expert interviews with digital game development professionals, this thesis looks at how ideas about players are formed and held by individual workers, transformed to become relevant for game production, and embedded into broader institutional conceptions that are shared and negotiated across a variety of institutional stakeholders. Adapting the term “audiencemaking” from mass communication research, this thesis identifies three key phases of the “playermaking” process in the digital games industry. First, information about players is gathered through both informal means and highly technologised audience measurement systems. Institutional stakeholders then translate this information into player, product and platform images that can be utilised during production. The remainder of the thesis looks at the more broad third phase in which these images are negotiated amongst a variety of institutional stakeholders as determined by power relations. These negotiations happen between individual workers who hold differing views of the player during development, companies and organisations struggling over position and value across the production chain, and the actual people playing games who strive to gain more influence over the creation of the images meant to represent their interests. These negotiations also reflect national policy contexts within a highly competitive global production network, visible in the comparison between the US neoliberal definition of both the industry and players as primarily market entities and the UK creative industries approach struggling to balance cultural concerns while safeguarding domestic production and inward investment. Ultimately, this thesis argues that conceptions of players are a central force structuring the shape and operation of a digital games industry in the midst of rapid technological, industrial, political and sociocultural change

UK Election Analysis 2015: Media, Voters and the Campaign

Featuring 71 contributions from leading UK academics, this publication captures the immediate thoughts, reflections and early research insights on the 2015 UK General Election from the cutting edge of media and politics research. Published 10 days after the election, these contributions are short and accessible. Authors provide authoritative analysis of the campaign, including research findings or new theoretical insights; to bring readers original ways of understanding the election. Contributions also bring a rich range of disciplinary influences, from political science to fan studies, journalism studies to advertising

i-FRAME – Assessing impacts of social policy innovation in the EU: Proposed methodological framework to evaluate socio-economic returns on investment of social policy innovations

This report presents the final proposal for developing a methodological framework to assess the impacts generated by social policy innovations which promote social investment in the EU, in short i-FRAME. This framework has the objective to provide a structured approach that shall serve as a comprehensive framework for conducting analysis of the economic and social returns on investments of social policy innovations. It also aims to act as a guide to gather insights into replicability and transferability of initiatives which promote social investment across the EU. The report outlines the reviewed and improved theoretical and methodological approach developed by the JRC with help from external experts, and validated by testing the operational components proposed on a number of case studies and scenarios of use. After outlining the conceptual and methodological approach underpinning the i-FRAME (V1.0), the report discusses the proposal for building its operational components according to a structured theoretical framework of a dynamic simulation model for social impact assessment (V1.5). The final proposal for i-FRAME (V2.0) and an overview of the operational components for its implementation are then presented discussing the key elements that should be developed to build a comprehensive i-FRAME Web-Platform and simulator for social impact assessment. Conclusions are then offered in terms of implications for policy and directions for future research. These were drawn after consulting experts from different research disciplines, practitioners and representatives of relevant stakeholders and policymakers, and they include .recommendations for further developing the operational components proposed, paving the way towards building the i-FRAME (V3.0) and beyond.JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employmen

Exploring abjection in twenty-first century ‘quality’ TV horror and the abject spectrums of its online fan audiences

This thesis focuses on the rise in graphic TV horror in the twenty-first century. Locating it within wider cultural contexts, shifting TV industries and digital technologies, and online transcultural audiences, I analyse this mode of genre television hitherto unseen on this domestic media platform. The thesis draws upon and revises Julia Kristeva’s abjection theory (1982) as a means of constructing an analytical framework that allows me to explore the cultural and subtextual meaning of TV horror, evidencing how graphic horror is implemented as a discursive marker of quality TV aesthetics within specific production and (trans)national contexts. These are British public service television, US basic cable, and US/Japanese premium cable co-productions, providing both domestic and transcultural foci. I also explore how the formatting and media ecologies of TV horror can shape meaning (Lobato and Thomas 2015), and how screen abjection is affectively engaged with in an on-going and gradational manner via what I am conceptualising as ‘abject spectrums’. This involves considering how the phenomenological, psychological, and cultural components of abjection can intersect, serving to better account for audience-horror text relationships at pre-textual, paratextual and extra-textual levels, as well as in relation to diegetic, transmedial, and post-object audience readings. In order to do this, I employ textual analysis and netnography to provide in-depth examination of my case studies: BBC3’s youth TV horror In the Flesh, AMC’s basic cable transmedia franchise The Walking Dead, and Showtime’s premium cable Masters Of Horror, specifically its American/Japanese co-produced episodes ‘Imprint’ and ‘Dream Cruise’, analysing the online fans and anti-fans who responded to these texts. In my effort to offer much needed attention to this form of television, I build on the work of Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott (2013) and offer two interlinking sections that critically unpack graphic twenty-first century TV horror. Beginning from a textualist point of view in Part I, each Chapter analyses a specific case study’s abject attributes as diegetic horror, and considers how abjection is used within bids for an elevated cultural status in TV industry contexts. In Part II, all three case studies are analysed together, with each Chapter structured thematically to develop my abject spectrum model – a gradational conceptualisation that situates abjection between aesthetic, affective, and/or ideological reactions/readings. This begins by considering how Web 2.0 has shaped the formatting, circulation, and consumption of twenty-first century TV horror, particularly on an international scale. I therefore offer ‘Only-Click TV’ (see also Gillan 2011) as a model that addresses the situation when textual content is solely available online for certain audiences,and how this can shape meaning and value for these viewers. I then turn to how audiences’ responded to the on-screen abjection of the case studies. Using my abject spectrum model I account for polysemic readings, how self-identity can anchor readings, and how the cultural construction of abjection is negotiated via ‘third space’ transcultural translations (Bhabha 1994). Finally, building on the traditional analysis of audiences’ written logos (Postill 2010:648, Gillan 2016:21), I extend my analysis to online image culture as a salient user practice and a valuable data type in evidencing abject spectrums. Such work complements the mixed method approaches of TV Studies (Geraghty and Lusted 1998, Geraghty 2003, Creeber 2006a, Casey et al 2008) better serves the understanding of audiences in Horror Studies (Cheery 20020, Hills 2005a, 2014a, Hanich 2010, Barker et al 2016) and triangulates these approaches with the focus on active participation that has been characteristic of Fan Studies (Hills 2002a, Jenkins 2010a, Booth 2015b, Gillan 2016). The thesis concludes by highlighting how graphic and ‘cinematic’ TV horror has become far more common. Thus, the Conclusion discusses potential future research into other forms of TV horror present in the twenty-first century that experiment with more ‘ordinary’ forms of television, such as reality TV, and how ‘post-TV’ that disrupts TV’s ontology also opens up new areas of research in terms of content and audience engagement. Furthermore, in noting the limitations of netnography to develop and demonstrate abject spectrums, I suggest interviewing as a research method that could better serve the phenomenological aspects of the model involving individuals’ histories and experiences of texts. Resultantly, the thesis’ main original contribution is the abject spectrum; this is an on-going and gradational concept that can account for the range of ways audiences encounter a text; the myriad readings and responses to TV horror texts that involve a much more expansive affective field than simply being scared; and the longitudinal perspective where new experiences and repeat consumption can shift and change audience-text relationships

Macrocriminology and Freedom

How can power over others be transformed to 'power with'? It is possible to transform many institutions to build societies with less predation and more freedom. These stretch from families and institutions of gender to the United Nations. Some societies, times and places have crime rates a hundred times higher than others. Some police forces kill at a hundred times the rate of others. Some criminal corporations kill thousands more than others. Micro variables fail to explain these patterns. Prevention principles for that challenge are macrocriminological. Freedom is conceived in a republican way as non-domination. Tempering domination prevents crime; crime prevention reduces domination. Many believe a high crime rate is a price of freedom. Not Braithwaite. His principles of crime control are to build freedom, temper power, lift people from poverty and reduce all forms of domination. Freedom requires a more just normative order. It requires cascading of peace by social movements for non-violence and non-domination. Periods of war, domination and anomie cascade with long lags to elevated crime, violence, inter-generational self-violence and ecocide. Cybercrime today poses risks of anomic nuclear wars. Braithwaite’s proposals refine some of criminology’s central theories and sharpen their relevance to all varieties of freedom. They can be reduced to one sentence. Strengthen freedom to prevent crime, prevent crime to strengthen freedom

e-Skills: The International dimension and the Impact of Globalisation - Final Report 2014

In today’s increasingly knowledge-based economies, new information and communication technologies are a key engine for growth fuelled by the innovative ideas of highly - skilled workers. However, obtaining adequate quantities of employees with the necessary e-skills is a challenge. This is a growing international problem with many countries having an insufficient numbers of workers with the right e-Skills. For example: Australia: “Even though there’s 10,000 jobs a year created in IT, there are only 4500 students studying IT at university, and not all of them graduate” (Talevski and Osman, 2013). Brazil: “Brazil’s ICT sector requires about 78,000 [new] people by 2014. But, according to Brasscom, there are only 33,000 youths studying ICT related courses in the country” (Ammachchi, 2012). Canada: “It is widely acknowledged that it is becoming inc reasingly difficult to recruit for a variety of critical ICT occupations –from entry level to seasoned” (Ticoll and Nordicity, 2012). Europe: It is estimated that there will be an e-skills gap within Europe of up to 900,000 (main forecast scenario) ICT pr actitioners by 2020” (Empirica, 2014). Japan: It is reported that 80% of IT and user companies report an e-skills shortage (IPA, IT HR White Paper, 2013) United States: “Unlike the fiscal cliff where we are still peering over the edge, we careened over the “IT Skills Cliff” some years ago as our economy digitalized, mobilized and further “technologized”, and our IT skilled labour supply failed to keep up” (Miano, 2013)

Macrocriminology and Freedom

How can power over others be transformed to 'power with'? It is possible to transform many institutions to build societies with less predation and more freedom. These stretch from families and institutions of gender to the United Nations. Some societies, times and places have crime rates a hundred times higher than others. Some police forces kill at a hundred times the rate of others. Some criminal corporations kill thousands more than others. Micro variables fail to explain these patterns. Prevention principles for that challenge are macrocriminological. Freedom is conceived in a republican way as non-domination. Tempering domination prevents crime; crime prevention reduces domination. Many believe a high crime rate is a price of freedom. Not Braithwaite. His principles of crime control are to build freedom, temper power, lift people from poverty and reduce all forms of domination. Freedom requires a more just normative order. It requires cascading of peace by social movements for non-violence and non-domination. Periods of war, domination and anomie cascade with long lags to elevated crime, violence, inter-generational self-violence and ecocide. Cybercrime today poses risks of anomic nuclear wars. Braithwaite’s proposals refine some of criminology’s central theories and sharpen their relevance to all varieties of freedom. They can be reduced to one sentence. Strengthen freedom to prevent crime, prevent crime to strengthen freedom