The point of departure for my research is a perceived breach and resulting dissonance between how digital games and other parts of society that are similar in form, enact certain aspects of life. This shift was made especially clear in massive multiplayer games in 2004 with the release of World of Warcraft, the design of which panders to cultural weak points, rather than attempting to mimic them. Digital games are far-reaching. In February 2019, ‘Apex Legends’ reached over 10 million players in less than 72 hours. Nonetheless, the idea of games as separate from the ‘real’ is persisting. Digital games have become a cyclopean gathering of liminality, and there are still no form-based ethics emerging, from either industry or society. Even though society is now undergoing the same abstracting digitisation, that has been a base for game design for a long time, there is a continuing separation in the knowledge applying to games or ‘reality’. The purpose of this thesis is to explore different ontological, epistemological, and ethical understandings of digital games as media, technology, modes of experience, and form. This is undertaken by using the situated and reality producing grating1 of technoscience, together with an eclectic range of concepts such as media as a message, agential reality, liminal phases, anticipation, and ergon. The research delineates a primer for applied studies within the rhizomatic structure of digital games, digitisation, technoscience, and media-technology. In accordance with this aim, the thesis has a fragmented, non-linear, and mosaic approach. This licentiate thesis is a compilation of three papers with a complementary introduction and an epilogue.

In recent years, there has been extended research on the Big Five and social media, especially Facebook. Snapchat, a fast-growing photo-sharing app, has however not been thoroughly researched yet. This paper aimed at closing this research gap and at investigating the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and Snapchat users and nonusers. Additionally, it researched the potential of the app to advertise new music published by music labels. The sample consisted of 124 self-selected Snapchat users and non-users (94 Snapchat users and 30 Snapchat non-users), between the ages of 18 and 55. Approximately 53% of the participants were from Sweden, 24% from Germany and the rest from other countries. Participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire comprising the Big Five Inventory and demographic questions. Snapchat users also completed a Snapchat usage questionnaire. Additionally, a short interview about Snapchat was held with a representative of a music label. The results showed that there are only minor differences between Snapchat users and non-users regarding the Big Five personality traits. However, male Snapchat users tend to be more open to new experiences. The usage of specific Snapchat features could be connected to more extraverted, neurotic and conscientious individuals. The overall interest for musicrelated content on Snapchat was rather low. Therefore, Snapchat can be used as a complementary marketing action to raise awareness, but cannot stand alone. / Under de senaste åren har det gjorts utökad forskning om Big Five och sociala medier, särskilt Facebook. Snapchat, en snabb växande bilddelning app, har dock inte undersökts noggrant. Detta examensarbete syftade till att undersöka det outforskade området kring förhållandet mellan Big Five personlighetsdrag och Snapchat-användare och icke- användare. Dessutom undersökte den möjligheten för skivbolag att annonsera ny musik i appen. Urvalet bestod av 124 självvalda Snapchat-användare och icke-användare (94 Snapchat-användare och 30 Snapchat-icke-användare), mellan 18 och 55 år. Ungefär 53% av deltagarna var från Sverige, 24% från Tyskland och resten från andra länder. Deltagarna blev ombedda att fylla i ett online frågeformulär som omfattade Big Five Inventory och demografiska frågor. Snapchat-användare slutförde också ett Snapchat-användningsformulär. Dessutom hölls en kort intervju om Snapchat med en representant från ett skivbolag. Resultaten visade att det endast finns mindre skillnader mellan Snapchatanvändare och icke-användare angående Big Five-personlighetsdragen. Manliga Snapchat-användare tenderar att vara mer öppna för nya upplevelser. Användningen av specifika Snapchat-funktioner kan kopplas till mer extravert, neurotiska och samvetsgranna individer. Det övergripande intresset för musikrelaterat innehåll på Snapchat var ganska lågt. Därför kan Snapchat användas som en kompletterande marknadsföringsåtgärd för att öka medvetenheten, men inte som enda marknadsföringsåtgärd.

Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att illustrera vilka effekter olika medietyper och medieteknologier har på biblioteksutformning samt på vilket sätt. Detta undersöks genom två grupper av frågeställningar där den ena fokuserar på medieteknologier som en aktör i ett nätverk och den andra hänvisar till medieteknologiers placering och effekten därav. Teori: För att besvara dessa frågeställningar används i uppsatsen tre huvudsakliga teorier som består av materiell media-teori, posthumanism samt aktör-nätverksteori (ANT). Metod: Den genomförda undersökningen är en fallstudie, och använder sig av en kombination av observationer, existerande dokument och semi-strukturerade intervjuer för att samla in ett empiriskt dataunderlag. Vidare används en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att bearbeta det insamlade materialet. Slutsatser: Uppsatsen kommer fram till att processen att utforma ett fysiskt bibliotek kan karakteriseras som ett aktör-nätverk med ett stort antal aktörer som inverkar på bibliotekets design. Medier och medieteknologier är en av dessa aktörer som påverkar bibliotekets utformning genom deras kopplingar till andra aktörer, till värderingar och symbolism samt genom deras materiella förutsättningar.

This thesis examines the implementation of the new digital information and communications technologies (ICTs) by the Women in Film and Television (WIFT) Non-government organisation (NGO) at the state, national and international levels through an ethnographic, participant observation case study, informed by the precepts of feminist research. A quantitative survey of Australian peak women's NGOs participating in the electronic mailing list - Pamela's List is also conducted mapping the context in which WIFT operates and providing an overview of Australian women's peak NGOs' uptake and use of ICTs. The findings are situated in relation to a review of the international surveys available on women's NGOs and the surveys and research reports available on the overall NGO sector, nationally and internationally. The study addresses two neglected areas in the ICT literature. For over a decade Feminist theorists have pointed to the omission of gender as a focus in studies on the new information and communications technologies. There has also been little research and few surveys into the uptake of ICTs by either women's NGOs or the broader NGO sector, nationally or internationally. The detailed, longitudinal case study of the implementation process from pre-establishment through to advanced use of digital communications by a women's NGO at state, national and international level is also unique. Combined with the survey, it affords the opportunity to not only document which ICTs are being adopted but also why particular technologies are being used over others and how they are being used. Despite key successes, the results show less than optimum uptake, a lack of advanced or strategic use, and the myriad of challenges shared by all three WIFT organisations, Australian women's peak NGOs, and the national and international NGO sector in utilising ICTs. The reasons for this are analysed revealing the conflicting values between the NGO sector and those underlying the development of ICTs and demonstrates that difficulties systemic to both the technology and the NGO sector are limiting access and utilisation by women's NGOs. While the myths of women as technophobic are seriously challenged by the findings, the study highlights the importance of gender factors in limiting access and uptake and shaping the use of ICTs. Australian women's NGOs' uptake is shown to be less than their mixed gender counterparts and the study also reveals a lack of acknowledgement by government of gender as a key factor in the uptake of ICTs. It is also shown that significant funding, infrastructure support and policy initiatives recognising the special technological and communication challenges of women's NGOs and the overall NGO sector are needed, if both are to fully and strategically embrace these technologies and function effectively in the new millennium. The significant contribution to knowledge of this thesis lies foremost in furthering the understanding of gender as a key factor in the uptake and utilisation of the new ICTs while at the same time challenging the patriarchal myth of women as technophobic. It thus contributes to the reconstruction of the epistemologies surrounding women's relationship to technology. The study also contributes to furthering the current very limited knowledge and understanding of women's NGOs and the overall NGO sector's uptake and use of information and communications technology. The knowledge and the critical insight provided is not purely historical but rather as the push to take up broadband begins, has relevance to this and future technological innovations. Without an understanding of the process, requirements and challenges faced by women's NGOs and the NGO sector in general, the existing problems will continue to be replicated. The material presented in this study will be useful to all women's organisations and NGOs contemplating establishing digital communications or wishing to review their current use of these technologies. It will also be of value to government and policy makers seeking to establish policies and initiatives that will enable NGOs to take up the new information and communication technologies.

[pt] Os games (jogos digitais) estabelecem relação com linguagens de outras mídias e têm a propriedade de manifestar aspectos da vida humana. Constituem um fenômeno da cultura digital que vem se sofisticando cada vez mais e multiplicam o desenvolvimento de inúmeros estilos de design de jogo, produzindo experiências diversificadas através de seus inovadores sistemas de jogabilidade. Logo, os games possuem plasticidade para incorporar diversos fins e, como objeto cultural, atraem diferentes segmentos sociais para explorá-lo, tais como gamers (jogadores), desenvolvedores (indústria) e pesquisadores (acadêmicos). Esta dissertação parte de uma conceituação baseada em elementos compartilhados pelo campo cultural dos games e se apropria da análise crítica sobre a gamificação para investigar se um game do estilo de design mundo aberto possibilita mediação de princípios de aprendizagem à luz da abordagem da cognição situada. A pesquisa se fundamenta em evidências obtidas de gamers em processo de interação com o mundo virtual do game. A experimentação lançou mão da captura e análise qualitativa de gameplays. Os procedimentos metodológicos elaborados para análise qualitativa desta investigação resultaram em um roteiro de observação direta em formato de tabela de rubricas, e isso talvez seja a principal contribuição desta dissertação, cujo status epistemológico permite que a construção teórico-metodológica para análise de imagens em movimento desta pesquisa seja útil para investigar se outros estilos de design de game comportam a mediação de princípios de aprendizagem. / [en] Games relate to languages in other media and have the property of manifesting aspects of human life. They are a phenomenon of digital culture that has become increasingly sophisticated and multiply the development of innumerable styles of game design, producing diversified experiences through its innovative gameplay systems. Thus, games have plasticity to incorporate various purposes and, as a cultural object, attract different social segments to exploit it, such as gamers, developers and researchers. This dissertation starts from a conceptualization based on elements shared by the cultural field of the games and appropriates the critical analysis on the gamification to investigate if a game of the open world design style allows mediation of learning principles according to the approach of situated cognition. The research is based on evidence obtained from gamers in the process of interacting with the virtual world of the game. The experimentation used capture and qualitative analysis of gameplays. The methodological procedures developed for the qualitative analysis of this research resulted in a direct observation script in a table format, and this is perhaps the main contribution of this dissertation, whose epistemological status allows the theoretical-methodological construction for video analysis of this research to be useful for investigate whether other game design styles mediate learning principles.

Text in English / Born at a time of abundance of technology, including new media, e-teens have their lives woven around the use of new media technologies to the extent that they virtually do everything with the aid of these technologies, including learning, playing, socialising and communicating. E-teens, besides, demonstrate marked expertise in the use of these technologies. Although there have been various studies done on this group of users supported by models and theories on the use, gratifications and appropriation of new media technologies, the premise of this study was on two assumptions. First, there are limited studies that have been conducted in the sub-Saharan African context, especially, Ghana. Second, most available theories and models that guide the study of e-teens’ use, appropriation and the use of new media technologies are generalized and do not sufficiently highlight the unique attributes and gratification needs that are tied to their developmental stage. In light of these assumptions, the study was undertaken to provide empirical evidence on the types of new media e-teens have access to; the types of new media used by e-teens in their scheme of things and e-teens’ purposes for using new media. It also sought to find out the gratifications sought and obtained from the use of new media technologies by e-teens; the key features of new media appropriation and experience among e-teens and to identify the features of new media technologies which are most appealing to e-teens. The other objective, which serves as the main contribution of this study, was to develop a conceptual model representing new media use and appropriation among e-teens, thereby filling the theoretical or conceptual gap that exists in this context. The study adopted a quantitative approach whereby data was collected using close-5ended questionnaires. The target population were teens from age 13 to 19 in senior high schools in the Greater Accra region of Ghana, selected using a simple random sampling. The results of the study show that, overall, the most popular new media technology that e-teens had access to and owned was the smartphone. Leading among the apps that e-teens found to be appealing were educational, entertainment and information/news, with communicative and participatory features of new media technologies appealing to e-teens highly. Also, educational, sociability and social inclusion, respectively, were the most popular gratifications sought and obtained by e-teens. It is submitted that social inclusion, educational and sociability gratifications are considered to be directly in line with the unique developmental needs of e-teens. However, it is recommended, among other things, that educational use of new media, which was one of the strong points for new media use, should be further encouraged as new media provides borderless opportunities forlearning. The researcher believes that the conceptual model for e-teen use and appropriation of new media technologies provide a firm ground for further research on topics related to this subject matter. To provide support and substance to the e-teen model, other researchers are encouraged to test and extend it where necessary. In conclusion, the findings provide evidence that new media technologies are highly appropriated by e-teens because the technologies help them meet their unique gratification needs. Therefore, the study recommends that, although new media use among e-teens can be encouraged, it is important to ensure proper usage, which will not be detrimental to them. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

The inquiry documented in this thesis is located at the nexus of technological innovation and traditional schooling. As we enter the second decade of a new century, few would argue against the increasingly urgent need to integrate digital literacies with traditional academic knowledge. Yet, despite substantial investments from governments and businesses, the adoption and diffusion of contemporary digital tools in formal schooling remain sluggish. To date, research on technology adoption in schools tends to take a deficit perspective of schools and teachers, with the lack of resources and teacher ‘technophobia’ most commonly cited as barriers to digital uptake. Corresponding interventions that focus on increasing funding and upskilling teachers, however, have made little difference to adoption trends in the last decade. Empirical evidence that explicates the cultural and pedagogical complexities of innovation diffusion within long-established conventions of mainstream schooling, particularly from the standpoint of students, is wanting. To address this knowledge gap, this thesis inquires into how students evaluate and account for the constraints and affordances of contemporary digital tools when they engage with them as part of their conventional schooling. It documents the attempted integration of a student-led Web 2.0 learning initiative, known as the Student Media Centre (SMC), into the schooling practices of a long-established, high-performing independent senior boys’ school in urban Australia. The study employed an ‘explanatory’ two-phase research design (Creswell, 2003) that combined complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to achieve both breadth of measurement and richness of characterisation. In the initial quantitative phase, a self-reported questionnaire was administered to the senior school student population to determine adoption trends and predictors of SMC usage (N=481). Measurement constructs included individual learning dispositions (learning and performance goals, cognitive playfulness and personal innovativeness), as well as social and technological variables (peer support, perceived usefulness and ease of use). Incremental predictive models of SMC usage were conducted using Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modelling: (i) individual-level predictors, (ii) individual and social predictors, and (iii) individual, social and technological predictors. Peer support emerged as the best predictor of SMC usage. Other salient predictors include perceived ease of use and usefulness, cognitive playfulness and learning goals. On the whole, an overwhelming proportion of students reported low usage levels, low perceived usefulness and a lack of peer support for engaging with the digital learning initiative. The small minority of frequent users reported having high levels of peer support and robust learning goal orientations, rather than being predominantly driven by performance goals. These findings indicate that tensions around social validation, digital learning and academic performance pressures influence students’ engagement with the Web 2.0 learning initiative. The qualitative phase that followed provided insights into these tensions by shifting the analytics from individual attitudes and behaviours to shared social and cultural reasoning practices that explain students’ engagement with the innovation. Six indepth focus groups, comprising 60 students with different levels of SMC usage, were conducted, audio-recorded and transcribed. Textual data were analysed using Membership Categorisation Analysis. Students’ accounts converged around a key proposition. The Web 2.0 learning initiative was useful-in-principle but useless-in-practice. While students endorsed the usefulness of the SMC for enhancing multimodal engagement, extending peer-topeer networks and acquiring real-world skills, they also called attention to a number of constraints that obfuscated the realisation of these design affordances in practice. These constraints were cast in terms of three binary formulations of social and cultural imperatives at play within the school: (i) ‘cool/uncool’, (ii) ‘dominant staff/compliant student’, and (iii) ‘digital learning/academic performance’. The first formulation foregrounds the social stigma of the SMC among peers and its resultant lack of positive network benefits. The second relates to students’ perception of the school culture as authoritarian and punitive with adverse effects on the very student agency required to drive the innovation. The third points to academic performance pressures in a crowded curriculum with tight timelines. Taken together, findings from both phases of the study provide the following key insights. First, students endorsed the learning affordances of contemporary digital tools such as the SMC for enhancing their current schooling practices. For the majority of students, however, these learning affordances were overshadowed by the performative demands of schooling, both social and academic. The student participants saw engagement with the SMC in-school as distinct from, even oppositional to, the conventional social and academic performance indicators of schooling, namely (i) being ‘cool’ (or at least ‘not uncool’), (ii) sufficiently ‘compliant’, and (iii) achieving good academic grades. Their reasoned response therefore, was simply to resist engagement with the digital learning innovation. Second, a small minority of students seemed dispositionally inclined to negotiate the learning affordances and performance constraints of digital learning and traditional schooling more effectively than others. These students were able to engage more frequently and meaningfully with the SMC in school. Their ability to adapt and traverse seemingly incommensurate social and institutional identities and norms is theorised as cultural agility – a dispositional construct that comprises personal innovativeness, cognitive playfulness and learning goals orientation. The logic then is ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or’ for these individuals with a capacity to accommodate both learning and performance in school, whether in terms of digital engagement and academic excellence, or successful brokerage across multiple social identities and institutional affiliations within the school. In sum, this study takes us beyond the familiar terrain of deficit discourses that tend to blame institutional conservatism, lack of resourcing and teacher resistance for low uptake of digital technologies in schools. It does so by providing an empirical base for the development of a ‘third way’ of theorising technological and pedagogical innovation in schools, one which is more informed by students as critical stakeholders and thus more relevant to the lived culture within the school, and its complex relationship to students’ lives outside of school. It is in this relationship that we find an explanation for how these individuals can, at the one time, be digital kids and analogue students.

Text in English / Born at a time of abundance of technology, including new media, e-teens have their lives woven around the use of new media technologies to the extent that they virtually do everything with the aid of these technologies, including learning, playing, socialising and communicating. E-teens, besides, demonstrate marked expertise in the use of these technologies. Although there have been various studies done on this group of users supported by models and theories on the use, gratifications and appropriation of new media technologies, the premise of this study was on two assumptions. First, there are limited studies that have been conducted in the sub-Saharan African context, especially, Ghana. Second, most available theories and models that guide the study of e-teens’ use, appropriation and the use of new media technologies are generalized and do not sufficiently highlight the unique attributes and gratification needs that are tied to their developmental stage. In light of these assumptions, the study was undertaken to provide empirical evidence on the types of new media e-teens have access to; the types of new media used by e-teens in their scheme of things and e-teens’ purposes for using new media. It also sought to find out the gratifications sought and obtained from the use of new media technologies by e-teens; the key features of new media appropriation and experience among e-teens and to identify the features of new media technologies which are most appealing to e-teens. The other objective, which serves as the main contribution of this study, was to develop a conceptual model representing new media use and appropriation among e-teens, thereby filling the theoretical or conceptual gap that exists in this context. The study adopted a quantitative approach whereby data was collected using close-5ended questionnaires. The target population were teens from age 13 to 19 in senior high schools in the Greater Accra region of Ghana, selected using a simple random sampling. The results of the study show that, overall, the most popular new media technology that e-teens had access to and owned was the smartphone. Leading among the apps that e-teens found to be appealing were educational, entertainment and information/news, with communicative and participatory features of new media technologies appealing to e-teens highly. Also, educational, sociability and social inclusion, respectively, were the most popular gratifications sought and obtained by e-teens. It is submitted that social inclusion, educational and sociability gratifications are considered to be directly in line with the unique developmental needs of e-teens. However, it is recommended, among other things, that educational use of new media, which was one of the strong points for new media use, should be further encouraged as new media provides borderless opportunities for learning. The researcher believes that the conceptual model for e-teen use and appropriation of new media technologies provide a firm ground for further research on topics related to this subject matter. To provide support and substance to the e-teen model, other researchers are encouraged to test and extend it where necessary. In conclusion, the findings provide evidence that new media technologies are highly appropriated by e-teens because the technologies help them meet their unique gratification needs. Therefore, the study recommends that, although new media use among e-teens can be encouraged, it is important to ensure proper usage, which will not be detrimental to them. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Communication)

Text in English with abstracts in English and Afrikaans / The objective of this study was to investigate how the integration of social media applications such as Facebook can be advantageous to students in Open Distance Learning (ODL) settings or environments. This study was carried out in the context and recognition that the use of social media has become a norm in modern-day society where people in general, and students in particular, can upload videos, images and texts towards achieving a common purpose. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the researcher employed two theoretical frameworks, namely Connectivism and New Media Theory. The study also used Qualitative Research Methodology, particularly the qualitative content analysis research technique and focus group interviews. The study found that the use of Facebook provided students with better access to online resources and facilitated more interaction with fellow students. In an ever-changing world, the study established that technology has the potential to innovate distance learning, providing students with an open space to learn, collaborate and communicate more effectively. This means that social media applications have the power to connect people and bridge the gaps of time and distance. This is especially relevant in ODL environments where students operate in isolated spaces and have little or no direct interaction with their lecturers and fellow students. / Die doel van die studie is om ‘n ondersoek te loods na sosiale media integrasie, meer spesifiek Facebook, en hoe voordelig die gebruik daarvan vir studente in die konteks van ‘n Oop- en Afstandsonderrigleer (OAL) is. Die studie was gedoen binne die konteks, en met inagneming van, hoe die gebruik van sosiale media ‘n norm in die hedendaagse samelewing geword het, en hoe mense oor die algemeen videos, prente, en teks kan oplaai om ‘n gesamentlike akademiese doel te bereik. Ten einde die doel van die betrokke studie te bereik, het die navorser twee teoretiese raamwerke gebruik, naamlik Konnektivisme (Connectivism) en Nuwe media-teorie. Die studie het gebruik gemaak van ‘n kwalitatiewe navorsingsmetode, meer spesifiek kwalitatiewe inhoudsanalise en fokus-groep onderhoude. Die studie het bevind dat die gebruik van Facebook studente beter toegang tot aanlynhulpbronne verleen, en ook meer interaksie tussen studente bewerkstellig. In ‘n veranderende wêreld het die studie bevestig dat die gebruik van tegnologie oor die potensiaal beskik om innoverende afstandonderrig aan te bied en ope platforms vir studente bied om met mekaar saam te werk asook meer effektief te kommunikeer. Sosiale media beskik dus oor die vermoë om mense nader aan mekaar te bring, en ook die gaping van tyd en afstand te oorbrug. Dit is hierin ook die geval waar studente dikwels in isolasie, met min of geen direkte kontak met dosente of mede studente in ‘n OAL konteks, studeer. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Science)