Digital socialisation is to learn the ways of living online, across national borders, local cultures and societies and has to be inclusive for equal participation. Conditions for this socialisation process are different due to both local and individual limitations. In a high-income country like Sweden, playing computer games are one of the most common practices for digital socialisation among youth online (digital youth), but rarely in school with teachers. Thus, there is limited institutionalised support taking responsibility for the socialisation process online of digital youth. As contrast, in a lower middle-income country like Sri Lanka, telecentres provide holistic community services with free access to computer hardware and sometimes also Internet to bridge an internal digital divide. However, there are still several barriers for inclusive digital socialisation, such as shortage of teachers, infrastructure, accessibility and a language barrier. The problem is that digital youth have to overcome barriers for inclusive digital socialisation, often with limited institutionalised support. Game oriented education (GOE) is a potential approach to bridge these barriers. Thematic questions were: How can environments for inclusive digital socialisation be designed for digital youth who: T1) are gamers that are excluded in school; T2) are living in underprivileged communities; and/or T3) have disabilities and play games? A related thematic main question is: T4) how can education about game accessibility be designed for game developers? Within a design science framework, ethnography showed that GOE with entertainment games enabled gamers excluded in Swedish schools to be included, but could not be sustained by the schools. GOE workshops about programming were a possible way to raise awareness about ICT opportunities at Sri Lankan telecentres. Furthermore, a game prototype for deaf versus blind was demonstrated in workshops within formal education settings in Sweden and Sri Lanka, exploring a design method. Finally, two international online surveys provided data for designing a game accessibility curriculum framework, based upon opinions from researchers and game developers. Conclusions are that GOE may be an environment for inclusive digital socialisation, if it is: 1) sustained in the educational social system; 2) enabled within limits of ICTD; and 3) accessible for digital youth with disabilities. The latter requires: 4) education for game developers. This thesis shows how these requirements may be fulfilled, enabling GOE as a design to achieve inclusive digital socialisation in a global context. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>

This thesis is a comparative study between Far Cry 3 (2012), Overwatch (2016) and Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) to determine how game developers appropriate minority cultures in character design. The character designs are compared to the cultures of origin to determine whether they have been appropriated and to what extent. Far Cry 3 appropriates Maori and Samoan cultures, Horizon Zero Dawn appropriates native American cultures, and Overwatch appropriates both Maori and native American cultures. Appropriation leads to stereotypes which may influence the way the audience regard and understand the real world. / Denna rapport är en komparativ studie mellan Far Cry 3 (2012), Overwatch (2016) och Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) för att avgöra hur spelutvecklare approprierar minoritetskulturer i karaktärsdesign. Karaktärsdesignerna jämförs med ursprungskulturerna för att avgöra om de har blivit approprierade och hur mycket. Far Cry 3 approprierar Maori- och Samoakulturer, Horizon Zero Dawn approprierar ursprungsamerikanska kulturer, och Overwatch approprierar både Maori- och ursprungsamerikanska kulturer. Appropriering leder till stereotyper som kan påverka hur publiken uppfattar och förstår den verkliga världen.

Walking outdoors requires one to deal with a wide range of visual and cognitive perturbations, i.e., multiple object tracking and making timely decisions while ignoring irrelevant information, etc. Using dual-task gait paradigm, the purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the age effects of different types of visuospatial cognitive tasks, i.e. designed cognitive game tasks and commercial computer games on gait and cognitive performances in older adults as compared to the younger adults. A standardized dual-task assessment approach, i.e. objectively evaluating both gait and cognitive performances simultaneously, has potential to be the screening tool to detect gait and cognitive impairments in early stages. Further, evaluating the training value of commercial computer games by comparing them with the designed cognitive games with objective outcome measures will help in developing multimodal dual-task intervention platform to treat and prevent age-related physical and cognitive impairments. / October 2016

This creative project explores some major issues about visual communication in digital games. The project will continue to address new questions and invite questions from my visual and communication design colleagues. My hope is that, through this document, designers will see digital games like photography was seen around the turn of the century, and movies in the 1950's and 60's. In other words, as a rich new medium that offers creative people a virtually unexplored environment in which to work and create.&#0;

This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of live-streaming of computer games in the Czech Republic. This thesis is based on an approach of online ethnography and tries to describe what meaning do the producers of content (who are labeled as performers in this thesis) ascribe to streaming, what are their motivations to stream, how they present themselves on the streams and what is the content of those streams. The live-streaming of computer games in this thesis is put into context of user-generated content. The main part of this thesis is a qualitative research realized through an online observations of streams and through interviews with the performers, who stream on the streaming service Twitch. The findings show that streaming is entertaining and time passing activity for the performers, but also a form of a social contact. Some motivations of the performers include the satisfaction of their viewers and recurring contact with them. There were no financial motivations involved among the performers. Performers mostly do not stylize themselves into any specific role, however some of them do take on themselves the roles of teachers, who teach their viewers to be a better gamer, or the roles of entertainers. During the stream the performers mostly put their attention to only a single game and also to an...

This work focuses on a gender analysis of female characters in video games, specifically the action genre of computer games in which players play from the perspective of a third party (ie see a playable character on canvas). Pays attention to very specific situations in which the female figure is markedly ambivalent status - show clearly feminine characteristics, it moves but clearly masculine space and pay the archetypal clearly masculine activities. Working with so anlýzou konrkétních computer games and playable characters trying to determine whether computer games as a new medium for his portrayal of female characters contribute to gender stereotypes and whether, therefore, become another medium, that these stereotypes produces and reproduces that deconstructs these stereotypes and changing, or whether it even creates new stereotypes. The analysis is the analysis itself as a representation of female characters in visual, narrative or folder of computer games and interactive component analysis itself - that is playing. In this sense, the work seeks to determine how the female characters look if they present archetypal feminine or masculine characteristics and what pleasure playing them can offer both male and female players. In conclusion, the work also attempts to describe the transformations which...

The thesis deals with the historical development of computer adventure games in the Czech Republic. It focuses on the period that started in 1994 with the production of the first commercial PC game Tajemství Oslího ostrova (The Secret of Donkey Island), and ended in 1998. It also touches an earlier period and factors that influenced the production of the adventure genre in the nineties. Researched titles belong to the genre of 2D point-and-click adventure. The paper brings the analysis of the games according to the theories of game studies, context of their production, information about their producers and analysis of the feedback in the press that focused on computer games. The thesis tries to identify the common features of the first commercial PC games thanks to which the games became very popular in the nineties and also describes the obstacles that the first producers had to overcome in the post socialistic country. At nearly twenty titles the paper tries to reveal the new elements that showed in the historical development of the adventure games and also to describe the differences among monitored titles. The sources of information for the thesis were both the literature, which dealt with computer games, and the interviews with the developers, game designers and distributors who focused on the...

Spoiler Alert! The purpose of this essay is to analyze how religion and life philosophies are expressed and which funtion they have in the video- and computer game Fallout 4. This purpose will be achieved by looking into the religious movements that exists in the game. The method used is a thematic description with comparative appropriation and the essay was based on the following issues: Which God-image and cosmology characterizes the movements? How are the movements organized? Which ethical and political bases does the movements rest upon? In which way(s) are the movements presented, in a negative or positive way?   The basic conclusion is that the game contains several movements which are all different in some ways. Some are more similar than others while some are more different. The most common property is the belief of something itself, they are all expressing some kind of belief. The movements degree of organization varies. Some are far more structured than others. They do all have different purposes and goals which also make their ethical och political bases varying. The movements are mostly presented in some negative way but some are also presented in postive ways. The way the movements are presented in are therefor also varying.

This thesis examines the topic of representation of totalitarianism in videogames. It aims to show how the totalitarianism is depicted in selected games and whether the videogame as a medium has some influence on this depiction. Theoretical part introduces and examines all sorts of different approaches, based on which one can study videogame as a medium. An argument about the videogames as a medium of control is presented further on and is also discussed in relation with totalitarianism. Second half of theoretical chapter focuses on definition of totalitarianism which is used in the case studies later on. Empirical part analyzes four games - Half-life 2, Papers, please, Wolfenstein: the New Order and BioShock with focus on representation of totality or dystopia. The games are analyzed both with regards to their rules and fiction. The conclusion shows that totalitarianism was represented mostly by its outer activities rather than ideology which were usually represented rather marginally. However, in all cases there could be found some examples of how was the representation of totalitarianism used to merge with system of control in games.

An automobile is one of the most important phenomenons of modern technology. Since its origins, it has profoundly shaped our physical, economic, politic, social, cultural and media habitat. The objective of this Master thesis is to analyze the evolution of the role of the car in the popculture from the 60s onwards and its dimensions, with a primary focus on Anglosaxon culture, with excursions to Asia and continental Europe, primarily Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic. The core foundation of the thesis lies in the analysis of the popcultural genres, selected films, TV series, computer games and comic books. The main purpose of the thesis is to reflect upon the identity and conceptual shifts of car, going from a mere transport machine through a vehicle of product placement towards the concept of the icon, a narrative hero of popculture. The hypothesis to verify is that the car has become an essential part of the popculture itself, reflected in many various dimensions: car as a toy, car as a friend, car as a status symbol, car as a narrative extension of the hero and finally, car as a hero and subject. The thesis is divided into five separate chapters, all including case studies. Following an introduction summarizing cultural, economic and historic factors of the car industry, the first chapter describes...