The Networked Reception of Transmedial Universes – an Experience-Centered Approach

Building upon ten years of empirical work, this paper reflects on how to study increasingly complex user engagement with transmedial worlds. We examine our own analytical evolution from an initial aesthetic orientation to our current effort to incorporate the user´s own perspective through qualitative and quantitative studies. We argue that mapping user experience requires a sophisticated and holistic analytical approach - particularly, due to the popularity of social media platforms. We conclude the article by developing the concept of "networked reception" to characterize new kinds of transmedial world experience afforded by social media, which allow users to distribute and communicate not only the content of media texts but also their own experience and reception of transmedial world “texts”

Światowość EverQuestu: odkrywając dwudziestopierwszowieczną fikcję

Artykuł stanowi próbę rozpatrzenia tytułowej kategorii „światowości” z perspektywy badań groznawczych, socjologicznych i narratologicznych nad sieciową grą MMORPG EverQuest. Rozpatrzywszy problematyczne w studiach nad grami kategorie fikcyjności i narracyjności, autorka wskazuje złożone procesy kształtowania się relacji pomiędzy graczami a światem gry, w którym mają oni okazję nie tylko zapoznawać się z fikcyjnymi reprezentacjami, ale i współtworzyć społeczną rzeczywistość (social world) dzięki angażowaniu się w autentyczne relacje z innymi graczami. To z kolei sprawia, że świat gry kształtuje w odbiorcach i graczach umiejętność różnicowania wchodzenia w rolę i wychodzenia z niej nie w kategoriach uczestniczenia lub nieuczestniczenia w spektaklu, lecz imersywnego zanurzania się w realia danej fikcyjnej rzeczywistości połączonego z poszanowaniem społecznie przyjętych reguł funkcjonowania w jej ramach. Z tej perspektywy światowość okazuje się nie tylko ogólnym doświadczeniem zespołu cech charakterystycznych dla wszystkich fikcyjnych światów, ale także wypadkową ich performatywnego przekształcania zarówno na potrzeby realiów konkretnego świata gry, jak i funkcjonujących w nim graczy.‘You’re in our world now!’ has been the slogan for EverQuest since 2000. This article takes this quote literally by exploring what ‘being in a gameworld’ actually entails. Taking its point of departure in a more general discussion of online gameworlds as a new form of engaging fictional universes, Klastrup argues that it is in the complex interplay between a) the aesthetics of the gameworld as both an actualized explorable and mentally imagined universe; b) the experiences and means of expression the world as a game system and tool allows and affords; c) the social interaction in and about the world, that the unique characteristics of an online gameworld, its ‘worldness’ emerges. How these aspects can by studied more concretely is demonstrated in an illustrative analysis of EverQuest

Covid-19 and the mediatization of the funeral industry in Australia and Denmark

This article focuses on the mediatization of funeral practices and customer relations in a business with human care and contact at its centre: the funeral industry. We analyse the impact of Covid-19 on the use of digital media in a comparative study of the deathcare sector in Australia and Denmark. Using surveys within the national funeral industries, qualitative interviews with funeral directors, and news media archives for 2020–2021, we identify four areas of mediatization: adaptations of specific technologies; interactions with the bereaved; transformations of funeral rites; and communications beyond the funeral service. In conclusion, we suggest that the mediatization process is a negotiation of, on the one hand, the need and growing demand for digital media into a traditions-bound business, and on the other hand, the funeral directors’ wish to care for the bereaved families through tactile, in-person relationships and emotional support

Forsker og blogger: webbloggen som forsknings- og fællesskabsværktøj

Første gang publiceret i UNEV nr. 5: Videndeling og samarbejde på nettet, februar - maj 2005, red. Simon Heilesen. ISSN 1603-5518.Med udgangspunkt i forfatterens personlige erfaring med weblog-mediet beskriver artiklen forskellige måder at bruge weblogs på som forsker. Der gives en kort introduktion til webloggen som genre, og der gives eksempler på fire måder at bruge bloggen på: som åben notesbog, som netværksskaber og -vedligeholder, som værktøj til kollaborativt samarbejde og vidensdeling og som ”blæksprutteindsamler” af viden. I en efterfølgende diskussion understreges det, at bloggen både er et stykke socialt software og en måde at udtrykke og profilere sig på som individuel forsker

Haematology in mice after weekly blood sampling for 7 weeks

No abstract availabl

Haematologic and Clinical Chemical values in 3 and 6 months old Göttingen minipigs

Blood samples were collected from sixty healthy Göttingen minipigs. fifteen males and fifteen females at the age of three months and fifteen males and fifteen females at the age of six months. The samples were taken at the breeder’s facilities. The samples were analysed for nineteen haematological and twenty~six clinical chemical parameters. Means, standard deviations and lowest and highest values are presented. In general the parameters were comparable with those reponed for other breeds of miniature and domestic swine. The white blood cell count, the percentages of neutrophils and monocytes and serum globulin levels were lower in these microbiologically defined minipigs compared with conventionally rearedpigs and minipigs. Three litter mates had a complex of abnormally high serum creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase, uspartate aminotransterase and alanine aminotmnsferase levels

Death and Communal Mass-Mourning: Vin Diesel and the Remembrance of Paul Walker

This article examines Vin Diesel’s use of his public Facebook Page to mourn the loss of his friend and co-actor Paul Walker in the period from 2013-2015. It discusses how Vin Diesel performed his grief and how his mourning process was communally reflected and repeated by both Vin Diesel and Walker fans, who used Vin Diesel’s page to share and verbalise their own feelings of loss in a both public and safe space. An analysis of Vin Diesel’s own status updates and 1800 comments reacting to three popular status updates related to the death of Paul Walk posted over the course of more than a year show that commentary was used to make condolences to both Vin Diesel and Walker’s familes and to affectively express the users’ immediate feelings, both verbally and through the use of emojis. However, over time, both the form and intensity of expression of both Vin Diesel and his followers changed, pointing to the need to further study celebrity mourning processes on social media over extended periods of time