<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: The game of playing: A media ethnographic study of children playing videogames on a Swedish after school recreation centre. Spelet om spelandet: En medieetnografisk studie av barns dataspelande på en fritidsklubb.</p><p>Number of pages: 46</p><p>Author: Peter Brandberg</p><p>Tutor: Amelie Hössjer</p><p>Period: Spring term 2008</p><p>Course: Media and Communication studies D</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The aim with this study is to describe how children play video games in an everyday context. In this study this context consists of a Swedish after school recreation centre. By combining three different aspects on the activity this study tries to understand how both the video game and the social and cultural context in which the activity takes place in influences it. This by taking one analyse of the specific game that the children played at the time of the study and how the overall environment is structured into account. Together these two perspectives contribute to the understanding of the playing as a complex and dynamic activity.</p><p>Material/Method: The material and method consists primary of a participatory observation which were conducted for eight days in an after school recreation centre. The analyse of the video game uses specific parts from the ludologist Aki Järvinens “applied ludology” to understand the game Guitar Hero.</p><p>Main results: The main results of this study shows how the social context influences the play activity in which the children needs to negotiate about the resources needed to play. They used different strategies to try to gain control over the interfaces to the game. The study also shows how the children didn’t relate to the fact that these interfaces looked like guitars in their use of them. Instead the children used knowledge about other interfaces and played the game by “pressing buttons in the right time”.</p><p>Keywords: media ethnographic, participatory observation, ludology, applied ludology, video game, game studies, guitar hero, children, after school recreation centre, situated play</p>

Pour comprendre les différents rôles que joue la Télémachie dans l’Odyssée d’Homère, il faut explorer à fond le thème de l’identité. La structure de la Télémachie et les rôles accessoires qu’elle joue dans l’Odyssée contribuent à définir l’identité de Télémaque et celle d’Ulysse. À la fin du poème, même si Télémaque a intériorisé et accepté son origine filiale, son rôle social et l’identité qui y est associée sont laissés indéterminés au moment du retour de son père et en sont même la conséquence. Cela peut expliquer le manque de consensus chez les auteurs modernes en ce qui a trait au développement de Télémaque, ou à son statut social et héroïque (i.e. épithète, maturité, etc.). La Télémachie agit à titre d’élément déclencheur de l’initiation de Télémaque dans la vie héroïque mais le processus qui se poursuit, à la fin de l’Odyssée, y est laissé incomplet. L’étape finale, l’incorporation, durant laquelle la communauté reconnaît la nouvelle identité de Télémaque en tant que héros et adulte, prêt à assumer de plus grandes responsabilités, n’est pas présentée dans l’œuvre d’Homère. / One can understand the various functions of the Telemacheia within the Odyssey only by taking into consideration the identity theme. The structure of the Telemacheia and the accessory functions it plays within the Odyssey contribute to defining Telemachus’ own identity as well as Odysseus’. At the end of the poem, even though Telemachus has internalized and accepted his filial origin, his social role and identity are left undefined at the moment of his father’s return and as a consequence thereof. This may explain the lack of consensus among scholars with regard to Telemachus’ development, or social and heroic status (i.e. epithet, maturity, etc.). The Telemacheia triggers Telemachus’ initiation into heroic life but the process is left incomplete. The final step, incorporation, during which everyone recognizes Telemachus’ new identity as a hero and adult, ready to assume higher responsibilities, is not enacted by the poem.

The purpose of this study is to suggest the influence of certain characters in eighteen works by English Renaissance authors upon the Byronic Hero, that composite figure which emerges from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the Oriental Tales, the dramas, and some of the shorter poems.

Cette thèse porte sur un corpus hagiographique de vingt-sept textes latins d’Afrique du Nord, daté du IIe au VIe siècle. Ce corpus n’avait jamais fait l’objet d’une synthèse depuis les travaux de P. Monceaux au début du XXe siècle. Dans une première partie, tous les textes latins ont été réunis, accompagnés d’une traduction personnelle et d’un apparat des sources exhaustif : plusieurs ont fait l’objet d’une nouvelle édition critique, et un nouveau texte, la recension longue de la Passion de Marciana, a ainsi été découvert. Ce corpus fait ensuite l’objet d’une étude historique. Les deux premières parties étudient ces textes comme témoignages de la christianisation de l’Afrique, vue à travers l’étude du phénomène complexe des persécutions et du martyre. La troisième partie illustre les multiples potentialités du discours hagiographique, qui concourt à faire du martyr un nouveau héros chrétien, héritier du héros païen et du thème judéo-hellénistique du Juste souffrant. La dernière aborde le corpus comme témoignage de la culture littéraire des élites africaines et apporte une contribution à l’histoire culturelle de l’Afrique du Nord et à celle de la circulation des idées et des oeuvres. Elle traite aussi de manière nouvelle la question de l’africitas, selon les méthodes du LASLA de l’Université de Liège auxquelles j’ai voulu soumettre trois passions de Maurétanie Césarienne. / This thesis focuses on a corpus of twenty-seven hagiographic texts from Roman North Africa, dated from the second to the sixth century. None synthesis on this corpus had been made since P. Monceaux’s work in the early twentieth century. In the first part, all the latin texts were collected, together with a translation and an exhaustive research of the sources : for many ofthem I gave a new critical edition, and a new text, the long recension of the Passion of Marciana, has been discovered. This corpus is then studied from an historical point of view. The first two sections examine these texts as evidence of the christianization of Africa, through the study of the complex phenomenon of persecutions and martyrdom. The third partillustrates the multiple potentialities of hagiographic discourse, which tends to make a new Christian hero, combination of pagan hero and of the theme of Judeo-Hellenistic Just suffering. The latter addresses the corpus as evidence of the literary culture of African elites and contributes to the cultural history of North Africa and of the circulation of ideas and works. It also discusses the question of the africitas, according to the methods of the LASLA of the University of Liège, methods applied to three passions of Caesarean Mauretania.

Cette thèse montre comment les imaginaires cinématographiques de la menace d’origine naturelle, technologique ou sociale traduisent le climat mental qui se développe à notre époque. L'émergence d'un héros postmoderne semble être le signe d'une mutation du social. La recherche s'appuie sur différentes analyses sociologiques du cinéma, sur l'analysede contenu d'un corpus de trente films réalisés durant la première décennie du XXIe siècle, sur des réponses à des sondages d'opinion auprès de jeunes et sur des textes d'observateurs du monde contemporain. Ceci afin de mettre en évidence les interactions qui lient le cinéma et le monde réel. Ces films constituent un terrain d'observation des obsessions du temps présent. / This thesis shows how the imaginaries in films concerning the threat inherent to nature, technology or social issues emphasizes the mental climate developing nowadays. The emergence of a postmodern hero seems to indicate a deep change in the social sphere. This research uses different sociological analysis of film-making, the analysis of the contentof a corpus of thirty films directed during the first decade of the twentyfirst century, youth answers to opinion polls and texts from contemporary world observers. In so doing it reveals the interactions linking cinema and reality. These films constitute a ground of observation of the nowadays obsessions.

ZBIEJCZUKOVÁ, I. The conception of hero in fantasy literature. Diploma thesis. Prague: ÚČLLV FF UK, 2010-2011. This diploma thesis deals with typology of heroes and heroins in fantasy literature, with special regard to heroic quest from the point of view of literally composition. One part of the thesis applies to the defition and history of fantasy genre in both anglo-saxon and czech environment. The thesis therefore uses and cites both czech and foreign fantasy literally works. The aim of the thesis is to point to archetypical neomythic structure of fantasy texts and to their tendency to recreate heroism using particular examples of fantasy literature.

Romantic love since its beginnings raises the question of intimacy and has become an essential social force of society. In contrast to the forms of Christian love or passionate love, romantic love is the typical feature that imply a degree of self-knowledge and activity that leads to one of the characteristic elements of "heroic expedition". Since the establishment of the first novels, the concept has undergone significant way and has become the subject of much research int different disciplines. This thesis looks on the issue of display of romantic love in terms of a social construct which is variable over time and dependent on cultural and social factors of the society to which the media as part of the intended product. Constructing myth of romantic love is in this thesis elaborated in the cultural environment of Czech and Slovak film production, which shares a common history. Defined, collected and described myths, metaphors and archetypal view of the concept of romantic love, they were applied to the selected movie stories from the years 1992 - 2013.

The diploma thesis deals with the media heroization / construction of dead celebrity icons. The introduction focuses on the explanation of the process of becoming an icon and its interpretation in certain fields and theoretical concepts, for example in the context of semiotics and sociology. A separate chapter is devoted to the role of media in the process. I attempt to reveal the media's influence on this process by studying the theory of media construction of reality and the ctreation of culture industry. The second chapter also explains the phenomenon of celebritization, which is crucial due to the applied example of dead celebrities. Based on the specific analysis I try to identify trends that are reflected in media representation of dead celebrities afterlife, and these further put in a wider context. The aim of the master thesis is to find out what trends are reflected in media representation of celebrities after their death, how the media work to maintain dead celebrities "alive", and what are the specifics of this "life". The content analysis was determined to show the character of media coverage. The semiotic analysis on the other hand to show what myths are constructed around the famous dead celebrities.

The main theme of this paper is the initiation of the heroes from two important fornaldarsõgur: The Saga of the Võlsungs and The Saga of the King Hrólf Kraki. These heroes are called Sigurð, Sigmund, Sinfjõtli and Hõtt. The tales of these four characters acting in the stories that are preserved in the sagas we divide into three phases, which can be designated like separation phase, liminal phase and a return. In this case we are inspired by the conception of Arnold van Gennep, who dividided the rites of passage in this manner. The liminal phase of the heroic story is most important for us. It is the core of the initiation process, which is experiencing the hero, and the core of the rite of passage as well. In our stories is significant for the liminal phase for example a monster killed by the hero, hero's encounter with a numinous beings, or hero's abidance in certain liminal state. The main objective of this thesis is using primary sources and secondary literature by scholars such as Otto Höfler, Victor Turner or Jens Peter Schjødt, to create consise analysis of the liminal phase of three stories about germanic heroes, which is possible to designate as the initiation texts. This analysis should clarify, how these initiation texts relate with the initiation rituals and - in certain cases - with the...

As Shakespeare composed the three history plays discussed here, English culture faced a shift in its dominant belief system from an animistic perspective that valued nature and superstition to a humanistic perspective based on reason and personal relationships. In Richard II, Shakespeare creates characters that fall on either side of this divide, and he shows humanism triumph over animism when Henry deposes Richard. In 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare shows that this binary is not so easily reconciled, and Hal (the future Henry V) creates a dual nature that subsumes the tenets of both animism and humanism. After the death of his father and his rejection of Falstaff in 2 Henry IV, Hal demonstrates that the only solution to the humanism/animism debate is to entirely reject the tenets of both and, instead, blend the two viewpoints together. The result is a newly formed conception of kingship and a hero-king.