Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-162). / In an ever-changing present of multiple truths and reconfigured histories, people need to be critical thinkers. Research has suggested the potential for using augmented reality (AR) games- location-based games that use wireless handheld devices to provide virtual game information in a physical environment-as educational tools. I designed "Reliving the Revolution" as a model for using AR games to teach historic inquiry, decision-making, and critical thinking skills. "Reliving the Revolution" takes place in Lexington, MA, the site of the Battle of Lexington (American Revolution) and simulates the activities of a historian, such as evidence collection and interpretation. Participants interact with virtual historic figures and gather virtual testimonials and evidence on the Battle, each triggered by GPS to appear on the handheld devices depending on one's specific location on or around the Lexington Common. The participants collect differing evidence based on their historic role in the game (Minuteman soldier, loyalist, African American/Minuteman soldier, or British soldier) and then collaboratively evaluate who fired the first shot to start the Battle of Lexington. / (cont.) I envision "Reliving the Revolution" not as a standalone educational solution, but as an activity integrated into a broader history curriculum that teaches students how to approach and evaluate complex social problems. This thesis provides a detailed rationale for each of my design choices, as well as an assessment of each choice based on the results of iterative game testing. In my analysis of the game's design, I focus specifically on four game elements: (1) collaborative, (2) role-playing, (3) storytelling or narrative elements; and (4) kinesthetic and mobility. Results of trials of the game suggest that "Reliving the Revolution" and similar AR games can enhance the learning of: (1) historical name, places, and themes; (2) historical methodology and the limits to representations of the past; and (3) alternative perspectives and challenges to "master" historical interpretations. The game motivated participants to gather, evaluate, and interpret historical information, devise hypotheses and counter-arguments, and draw informed conclusions. / (cont.) My trials also suggested that AR games such as "Reliving the Revolution" can enhance learning because it can: 1. Create an authentic "practice field" for solving problems and using real-world contexts and tools. 2. Increase the potential for collaboration among participants, and enhance opportunities for reflection. 3. Enable participants to take on and express new identities through role-playing. 4. Encourage participants to explore more deeply a physical site and to consider interactions between the real and virtual worlds. / by Karen L. Schrier. / S.M.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / Kendall Square, home to MIT, a world-class university and a district known globally for its reputation as an epicenter of ideas and innovation, has recently seen a new wave of development seeking to turn it into a place for people. Typically, multiple developers and private investors will bid on developing the area. The competitive nature of this process suggests that involved parties have varying and potentially conflicting objectives. For example, the soaring office and residential rents in Kendall Square make it attractive to private developers looking for monetary gains. Furthermore, in an area with an already high employment density, the addition of more office and commercial spaces could increase the stress on the public transportation system that is struggling to keep up with current demand. This becomes a design problem with no optimal solution. The question becomes, how do we design districts to be more livable for people? In this research we propose a computational evaluation decision support platform to facilitate collaborations between stakeholders in their interactions within the contexts of urban planning. Whether planned interventions or new developments, the aim of this research is to give stakeholders the ability to weigh the implications from these interventions on the vitality of districts. Chapter 1 lays the foundation of the theoretical contributions put forth by Jane Jacobs regarding urban vitality. Chapter 2 discusses the four-diversity conditions for urban vitality and early attempts to validate these conditions. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the urban elements of both Kendall Square and Harvard Square as a case study. In chapter 4 we apply Jacobs' vitality conditions to both case studies. We find that Harvard Square is balanced in terms of Jacobs' conditions, while Kendall Square suffered form an imbalance in residential density. Chapter 5 presents the computational evaluation platform "CityMatrix" and uses the Volpe and MIT development sites as examples of urban interventions. We find that the current plan, approximately 16,000 employees and 3,500 residents is not enough to increase the population density to make Kendall Square a more vital district. Lastly, chapter 6 provides a conclusion and future steps for this research. / by Waleed F. Gowharji. / S.M.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2017. / Page 85 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 81-84). / This thesis aims to utilize an output method for popup fabrication, using chemical inflation as a technique for instant, hardware-free shape change. By applying state-changing techniques as a medium for material activation, we provide a framework for a two-part assembly process, starting from the manufacturing side, whereby a structural body is given its form, through to the user side, where the form potential of a soft structure is activated and a form becomes complete. The process discussed in this thesis is similar in nature to existing chemical reaction home-activation kits, such as hand warmers or cold packs, however, with the inclusion of volume-change and automatic assembly, this method gives way to alternative application possibilities and component-free construction. Along with structural configuration, this thesis provides material development for the application of volume changing membranes for the purpose of material surprise and transformation.` / by Penelope Eugenia Webb. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-206). / Introduction: Rehoboth, the name of my hometown in southern Massachusetts, comes from the Hebrew work for "crossroads." Indeed there's not much in this rural town besides Route 44 and Route 118, with smatterings of horse farms and single-family homes. These two blue highways intersect at the town's only stoplight. A sign stands at this intersection at the center of town, in front of the Cumberland Farms convenience store, across the street from the new Dunkin Donuts. It reads: Rehoboth, MA: Birthplace of Public Education in North America. I'm a product of these schools, but in this thesis I explore the road not often traveled in education: unschooling, a type of homeschooling with unstructured, child-directed learning. Through an examination of the attitudes, beliefs and practices related to media and technology in the unschooling subculture, I come to a definition of participatory media. / by Vanessa Bertozzi. / S.M.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-108). / This thesis introduces PubPub, a complete publishing system that is consonant with the way software and research ideas are developed. It is author-driven, continuous, collaborative, and allows for data and code to be directly integrated into the document. PubPub is optimized for collaboration and iterative document creation; taking inspiration from the software development cycle it allows for more participatory forms of review. We hypothesize that by changing the scientific review process from one of static critique to one of interactive collaboration we can increase the error-detection rate of scientific review. We present an experiment to test this hypothesis by measuring error detection rates across several interactive and non-interactive documents. This work is motivated by a growing recognition that in many fields, notably those that rely on data analysis and computing, the existing review process is not sufficiently fair, accurate, or timely. / by Travis Rich. / Ph. D.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 116-120). / Computational thinking has been described as a basic skill that should be included in the educational curriculum. Several online screen-based platforms for learning computational thinking have been developed during the past decades. In this thesis we propose the concept of Embodied Spatial Programming as a new and potentially improved programming paradigm for learning computational thinking in space. We have developed HyperCubes, an example Augmented Reality authoring platform that makes use of this paradigm. With a set of qualitative user studies we have assessed the engagement levels and the potential learning outcomes of the application. Through space, the physical environment, creativity and play the user is able to tinker with basic programming concepts that can lead to a better adoption of computational thinking skills. / by Anna Fusté Lleixà. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2010. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-92). / As cultural artifacts, abstract games offer unique challenges to critical interpretation. This is largely due to the fact that such games lack a fictional element: there are no characters, no settings, and no narratives to speak of. In this thesis I propose that understanding the various formal elements of games as metaphors can both serve as an effective critical method and offer insights into designing more expressive games. I begin by addressing the ambiguity surrounding the phrase "abstract game" and offer a definition rooted in Peircean semiotics and Juul's model of games as consisting of both rules and fiction. I next offer a model of games as consisting of three levels: the system, audio-visual, and affective. This is followed by an overview of Lakoff and Johnson's concept of "metaphor" as "understanding one thing in terms of another." I then argue that different types of metaphors have a natural affinity for the system and affective levels of games. From this I develop methods for a critical method wherein games are considered to be metaphors. I conclude with a discussion of this method's implications for game design and future game research. / by Jason Scott Begy. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, June 2001. / "June 2001." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-83). / In the years since its inception, some interpretations of the software program known as "Napster" have been inscribed into laws, business plans, and purchasing decisions while others have been pushed to the fringes. This paper examines how and why certain assumptions about Napster gained consensus value whereas others did not. The analytical approach involves an examination of discourses about Napster in several arenas - legal, economic, social, and cultural - and is informed by a conceptualization of Napster as an ongoing encounter between, rather than the accomplishment of, inventor(s), institution(s), and interest(s). While acknowledging the importance of empirical examinations of Napster's impact on firms and markets, as well as the proscriptive advice which it supports, the focus here is on providing a contextualized understanding of the technology as an object whose meanings were contested and ultimately resolved, or at least stabilized, within, across, and through a broader systems of power and structured interests. / by David Spitz. / S.M.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Page 82 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 76-81). / In this thesis, I explore how interactive technologies can positively impact human wellness and flourishing. I investigate this in the context of pediatric inpatient care. Children and their parents may undergo challenging experiences when admitted for inpatient care at pediatric hospitals. While most hospitals make efforts to provide socio-emotional support for patients and their families during care, gaps still exist between human resource supply and demand. The Huggable project aims to close this gap by creating a social robot able to mitigate stress and anxiety and to promote positive affect and physical activity in pediatric patients by engaging them in playful interactive activities. We ran a randomized controlled trial study at a local pediatric hospital to study how three different interactive mediums (a plush teddy bear, a virtual agent on a screen and a social robot) affects the child patient's physical activity, affect, joyful play, stress and anxiety. In this thesis, I analyze the social, emotional, linguistic and physical behaviors of the patients, caretakers and medical staff with the video data collected during the Huggable study. Results from the behavioral analyses show that a social robot promotes more physical movement, more emotional verbal expressions, and more dynamic patient-caretaker-medical staff interaction than the virtual character and the plush interventions. Then, I extend the findings from the in-hospital experiment and develop an autonomous virtual avatar mobile application that provides personalized positive psychology interventions. A three-week longitudinal study with smartphone users showed that the interactive virtual avatar resulted an immediate improvement on people's affect and the users' engagement with the avatar increased over time due to the personalization algorithm implemented in the system. The findings from the randomized clinical trial in the pediatric hospital and the longitudinal study with smartphone users suggest the potential benefit of an autonomous and personalized social robot in pediatric inpatient-care contexts on young patients' social and emotional wellbeing. / by Sooyeon Jeong. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-102). / Set in Boston, U.S.A, the overarching goal of this thesis is to develop a theoretical framework and a set of analytical tools that might help us understand how Hindi films are watched in the Indian- American diaspora and what viewers, situated in particular historical, socio-political contexts, bring to bear upon their engagement with these films. In spite of the sheer number of Hindi films released each year (150-200) and the increasing importance of audiences in countries such as the U.S., we know little, if anything, about audience motivations, viewing practices and consumption patterns. Suggesting we take the familiar seriously, this project's primary goal is to serve as an inaugural act that will map key coordinates of the space that Hindi cinema and its transnational audience occupies. This research project is designed to examine viewing practices and interpretations of Hindi films among a small sample of ten Indian immigrant families drawn from two different social positions - (a) the educated, professional and affluent class (doctors, scientists, software professionals, consultants, etc.), and (b) less educated, working class (owners and employees of grocery & convenience stores, gas stations, motels & restaurants, etc.). Given the complexity of the issue of class in general, and especially its intersections with caste, religion, and other variables in the Indian context, the findings in this study will be treated not so much as a class-based comparison of reception, but instead as an attempt to situate reception in a social and historical context that is marked by profound differences in access to privilege at the local, national and transnational levels. In addition, operating with the family as the research site allows this comparative frame to investigate similarities and differences based on gender and generation. Drawing on the tradition of using ethnographic techniques to analyze media reception (in this case, participant-observation and in-depth interviews), this project hopes to establish popular culture as a crucial site for exploring how identities are communicatively constituted in the Indian diaspora. Arguing that cinema viewing constitutes one of the most culturally visible arenas of activity in the Indian diaspora, a topic that is just beginning to attract scholarly attention, this project's larger goal is to serve as a starting point for larger debates and contests over several contentious issues that reveal anxieties of Indian immigrants from diverse social positions. / by Aswin Punathambekar. / S.M.