In the field of digital media, the study of interactive narratives holds the aesthetics of agency and dramatic agency as core to digital design. These principles hold that users must reliably be able to navigate the interface and the narrative elements of the artifact in order to have a lasting appeal. However, due to recent academic and critical discussions several digital artifacts are being focused on as possible new ways of engaging users. These artifacts do not adhere to the design aesthetics foundational to digital media, but represent a movement away from the principle of dramatic agency in interactive narratives. In an attempt to understand this separation and offer a solution to this developing issue, another non-digital interactive medium was studied: tabletop role-playing games. The designers of this medium were studied to understand the techniques and methods they employed to create dramatic interactive narratives for their users. These case studies suggested the designers used a third design aesthetic, design agency, to help balance the tension between agency and dramatic agency of the users of their medium. This design aesthetic could provide a balancing force to the current issues arising within interactive narrative.

No description available.

No description available.

Amidst increasing academic interest in “post-human” war technologies of surveillance and targeting, my dissertation conversely examines the ramifications of militarizing human beings as cultural technologies in wartime. I claim that “local” intermediaries are hired as embodied repositories of cultural knowledge to produce the soldier as an “insider” within the warzone. I focus on Iraqi former interpreters and contractors during the 2003 Iraq War who currently work as cultural role-players in pre-deployment simulations in the United States. In a new contribution to scholarship on war, my ethnography is staged within mock Middle Eastern villages constructed by the U.S. military across the woods and deserts of America to train soldiers deploying to the Middle East. Among mock mosques and markets, Iraqi role-players train U.S. soldiers by repetitively pretending to mourn, bargain, and die like the wartime adversary, ally, or proxy soldier they enact. Employed by the U.S. military in the post 9-11 “Cultural Turn” as exemplars of their cultures but banished to the peripheries as traitors by their own countrymen, and treated as potential spies by U.S. soldiers, these wartime intermediaries negotiate complex relationships to the referent as they simulate war. In my dissertation, I investigate the epistemological and affective dimensions of this wartime trend, as wartime intermediaries embody culture for training soldiers, but not on their own terms.

This thesis explores Stravinsky's effect on the role of the conductor, employing a combination of score analysis, performance analysis, aesthetics and historicism. Stravinsky is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the Twentieth Century, and this now 'mythic' influence is perceived by many to have transformed the conductor's work. I investigate how true this assumption is, and whether The Rite of Spring in particular is responsible for any developments. The compound methodology allows for the study of rhythm, structure, harmony, instrumentation, hermeneutics and staging. My seven case studies (The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring, Les Noces, Apollo, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, and Agon) are all ballets, which also places spotlight on a commonly neglected genre in music. This allows for the consideration of choreography - an additional influencing factor that is bypassed in most musicological and conducting literature. Moreover, the study of Stravinsky's ballets, as they span the composer's entire career, can serve as a useful lens through which to view the composer's repertoire as a whole. Therefore the findings of the thesis can be indicative of Stravinsky's broader influence on the conductor. The conclusions drawn were that although it is impossible to refute Stravinsky's overall impact on the conductor's work (particularly in relation to his comtemporaries), there are numerous overrated areas of impact. Furthermore, The Rite of Spring is not solely responsible for these changes. In fact, it overshadows the challenges present throughout Stravinsky's repertoire, which manifest themselves in the innovative choreography, instrumentation, rhythm and anti-interpretative devices.

The profession of nursing is affected by a nursing and nursing faculty shortage that is impacting the ability to produce adequate numbers of nurse graduates to address the healthcare needs of the future. Nursing schools are increasingly using simulation and/or role-playing to supplement the decreased number of nurse faculty and clinical sites in order to be able to continue to enroll nursing school applicants. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the experiences of nursing students with role-playing and simulation and the extent to which role-playing with simulation is perceived by students as beneficial for learning within the nursing program at the study site. Constructivism theory and experiential learning theory were the theoretical frameworks used to evaluate the student perceptions of combining simulation and role-playing. Seven students from a bachelor's of nursing program volunteered to participate in the study and individual interviews were conducted. Interview transcripts were open coded and analyzed for patterns and themes. The results of the study indicated that the 7 students preferred the combination of simulation and role-playing over the use of either technique independently. It is recommended that simulation coordinators use the combination of role-playing and simulation to enhance student learning in the simulation laboratory. This study promotes positive social change by providing data to the local site on students' perceptions of the benefits of a technique that is able to support instruction and maintain student enrollment during nursing faculty shortages.

No description available.

This article focuses on digital role-playing games produced by BioWare in which the decisions made by players can have a profound impact on the narrative of each game. My approach relies heavily upon the dissection of examples from Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2 as I found that scholarship about video games focused heavily on theory rather than analysis of in-game content, at least compared to the size and popularity of the genre. I work with key concepts such as narrative, simulation, and sideshadowing in order to analyse the dialogue options and scenarios presented to the player in these games. I claim that we can compare decision-making in real life and decision-making in role-playing games in order to examine the emotions and thoughts that go into the decision-making process. I task myself with discussing the implications of choosing ones own narrative and analysing the mechanics of these games that urge players to make morality-based choices. I consider the ideas of Gary Saul Morson and Mikhail Bahktin as a way of using literary theory to deconstruct the complexities of navigating through these unique game worlds. My aim is to show that the multi-linear structures of modern, digital role-playing games represent simulators through which players can explore their own decision-making processes. BioWare constructs emotional and intellectual decision-making opportunities that entice players to consider their own morality in the face of life or death decisions. I argue that these role-playing games urge us to consider the ways we make decisions in our everyday lives and allow us to simulate how we might act given the chance to play hero or villain.

This article focuses on digital role-playing games produced by BioWare in which the decisions made by players can have a profound impact on the narrative of each game. My approach relies heavily upon the dissection of examples from Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2 as I found that scholarship about video games focused heavily on theory rather than analysis of in-game content, at least compared to the size and popularity of the genre. I work with key concepts such as narrative, simulation, and sideshadowing in order to analyse the dialogue options and scenarios presented to the player in these games. I claim that we can compare decision-making in real life and decision-making in role-playing games in order to examine the emotions and thoughts that go into the decision-making process. I task myself with discussing the implications of choosing ones own narrative and analysing the mechanics of these games that urge players to make morality-based choices. I consider the ideas of Gary Saul Morson and Mikhail Bahktin as a way of using literary theory to deconstruct the complexities of navigating through these unique game worlds. My aim is to show that the multi-linear structures of modern, digital role-playing games represent simulators through which players can explore their own decision-making processes. BioWare constructs emotional and intellectual decision-making opportunities that entice players to consider their own morality in the face of life or death decisions. I argue that these role-playing games urge us to consider the ways we make decisions in our everyday lives and allow us to simulate how we might act given the chance to play hero or villain.

A Study on Volunteers¡¦ Job Satisfaction from Job Characteristics and Role Playing of Museum Docent ¡GA Case study of Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. The functions of museum become into four fields, the research, book reservation, exhibition and education, from initial preservation and display. Recently, the museum emphasizes the humanities spirit and leisure life so that it focuses the functions on entertainment, leisure and consumption besides artistic education. How to let people feel the museum is an inseparable part in the life when they close to museums. People feel the interpretation of exhibition and discover the possibilities of knowledge from the visiting process and participation experience. The museum is a place where provides people to study and entertain. Docent volunteers in the first line of education promotion integrate essence from each department to interact with people and provide them the new esthetic experience. However, it¡¦s not easy to train a professional docent volunteer who does not only has the specialized knowledge , but also has scientist's research spirit, archaeologist's careful valuation, historian's value critique, writer's esthetic language and educationist's experience transformation. Therefore, how to let the docent volunteers working constantly not to back out of the team that tests the managing interaction pattern of staffs in museums. The docent volunteer is a special role between the staff in the museum and audiences. If they do their best in the wok, they will obtain more identification with value from audiences. The researcher takes the case study of Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts to discuss the effect upon job satisfaction of volunteers from the job characteristics and role playing of museum. The job characteristics and role playing of docent volunteers that is influential for job satisfaction and that was discovered by depth interview, field study, work participation and analysis. The research provides the ideas about planning the recruitment and execution project for administrators working in the museums and emerging museums.