AbstractIn this essay, I have performed a study on peer cultures and how these peer cultures are expressed in a group of pre-school children. My questions are as following:What positions/power positions can be seen in children?s play, and how will these be expressed?How do the children gain access to play?How do children act when they want to exclude other children?In order to understand this I have chosen to do observations as a method. In order to investigate these questions I chose to spend six whole mornings with a group of pre-school children, closely observing their behavior. The focus was on children, three years of age or older.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the consequences following an adaptation from literature to video game formatby comparing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with American McGee's Alice and,primarily, Alice: Madness Returns. In order to answer this, aspects of both game theory and literary critique are takeninto consideration, regarding for example the narrative potential of the game medium and the gameplay's possibleresemblance with Wolfgang Iser's theory of the reading process.The analysis shows in what ways the original narrative has been altered in order to fit its new medium. Some of thebooks' main ingredients are simply retold in the games' so called information spaces, i.e. text and video sequenceswhere the otherwise playable character is not controlled. Others, instead, have undergone a ludolization or ergodizationwhere the story events are experienced as playable elements in the games' action spaces.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the unintentional learning that happens during the use of computer games. With the use of interviews with students in the ages 13-15 who all have played the game series Assassin?s Creed, and then compared them with students who does not play the game, we have been able to identify that some learning is taking place, but that the student?s attitude towards the subject, and their maturity, also is vital for the learning. Even tough, the students who didn?t really enjoy history as a subject showed better knowledge after playing the game, than the students who hadn?t played at all, which indicates that computer games can be a good source for learning.

AbstractTitle: Interactivity and participation - a qualitative study about the making of machinima withWorld of Warcraft (Interaktivitet och och deltagande ? en kvalitativ studie kring skapandet avmachinima med World of Warcraft)Number of pages: 68 total, 50 without appendixAuthor: Peter BrandbergTutor: Else NygrenPeriod: Autumn 2006Course: Media and Communication Studies CUniversity: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The aim of this study is to take a closer look at the phenomenon machinima by analysing a number of specific movies from the site worldcraftmovies.com. This analyse is focusing on how the content of these movies relate to the wider game culture of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, what specific elements in the movies is referring to and if there is differences or similarities between different genres (or categories).Material/Method: The method used in analysing the movies is a combined method inspired by hermeneutic, semiotics and discourse analysis.Main results: Instead of answers this study raises many questions about the diverse content of the movies. A general division can be seen between movies focusing on the games rules and movies that are trying to present a fictive world. But the study also shows how there are many movies moving between these two points.

Syftet med studien var att bland högskoleanställda undersöka skillnader i Work-Life Balance och arbetstillfredsställelse beroende på deltagarnas kön samt beroende på om deltagarna hade barn under 18 år eller ej. Studien syftade även till att undersöka skillnader i arbetstillfredsställelse beroende på deltagarnas ålder. I studien ingick manliga och kvinnliga högskoleanställda som arbetade minst 80 % och som undervisade och/eller forskade inom den aktuella tjänsten. Studien genomfördes som en web-enkätundersökning på två högskolor i Sverige. Totalt besvarade 125 deltagare på enkäten som utgick ifrån två olika mätinstrument; Netemeyers, Boless och McMurrians (1996) skala som användes för att mäta Work-Life Balance uppdelat på Family-Work Conflict samt Work-Family Conflict och Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) som mätte inre och yttre arbetstillfredsställelse.

En hel del tidigare forskning tyder på att ha en balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv är viktigt för att uppleva ett psykiskt välmående samt för att kunna prestera bra på arbetsplatsen. Då verkstadschefer på ett industriföretag genomgår ett stort förändringsarbete undersöktes hur fem manliga chefer upplevde sin balans mellan privatliv och arbetsliv. Delsyften med studien var att undersöka hur chefens roll i privatlivet påverkade balansen, i vilken grad stöd hemifrån påverkade balansen samt vilka konsekvenser en balans eller konflikt skulle kunna få. Studien genomfördes kvalitativt, med en semistrukturerad intervjuguide, där samtliga respondenter var påverkade av förändringsarbetet. Resultatet visade att det fanns verkstadschefer som upplevde en konflikt mellan arbetsliv och privatliv men även de som upplevde en balans.

During a political election the public?s interest in politics and political journalism increases significantly. During the American presidential election in 2012 a big amount of articles on that topic were published in two of Sweden?s largest newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. Political journalism tends to frame politics as sports, game and scandals rather than focusing on the political issues.

Att använda sig av virtuella tv- och dataspel inom rehabilitering är ett relativt nytt medel som det finns begränsat med forskning inom. Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att beskriva till vilket ändamål virtuella tv- och dataspel används inom rehabilitering och vad det ger för utfall. Metod: En systematisk litteraturstudie användes som metod i uppsatsen. De databaser som använts är Amed, Cinahl, PubMed och Medline (via Ebsco). De sökord som använts är virtual video game, video game, computer game, rehabilitation, outcome, movement, playthings och occupational therapy.

Abstrakt I den här uppsatsen undersöks hur ett narrativ kan drivas inom digitala spel enbart med hjälp av spelmiljön. Syftet är att få förståelse för vad miljöberättande behärskar som en självständig form av berättande och vad författarna kan göra för att uppnå detta mål. För att undersöka problemområdet genomfördes en spelproduktion där metoder framtagna under undersökningens gång applicerades. Produktionen testades av utomstående studenter i medieteknik och resultaten sammanställdes med reflektioner kring vad som uppnåtts och de metoder som applicerats. Undersökningen beskriver arbetsprocessen och metoder och visar hur dessa kan driva ett narrativ med en spelmiljö.

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to examine if manual signs used as support to spoken and written language can be a god mnemonic for learning of word-pictures. I performed my study as an experiment in which I made a Memory game with word-pictures. I played the game with the children twice. The first time, we played without manual signs and the second time I used sign as a support. I observed the children and noted the words they learned to read with and without the support of manual signs.

Adjustment to a neutral colour balance when printing was the starting point in this degree project. Onthis base ICC-profiles were evaluated and assessed. The survey was concentrated on the similarity betweenreproductions on different papers with various ICC-profiles. The colour balancing introduced aconsistent variable between four graphic papers. With raised uniformity the probability increased toreceive similarities between the various combinations of ICC-profiles and papers.Numerous of measurements and calculations have been carried out, mainly to confirm whether or notadjustment to a neutral colour balance is possible and repeatable.

Episodic gaming is a relatively new phenomenon, that hasn?t been as extensively explored as other areas in game research. In this paper we research how episodic narratives and gameplay engage players compared to regular continuous storytelling. By exploring this we get a better understanding of how to design games that captivate players to the point of them wanting to play the next episode.  A user study is conducted where ten players play two episodes each of an episodic game. We apply observations and interviews to capture a large amount of empirical data.

This essay is about the use of narrative in video games, and the discussion surrounding it. For years ludologists (game researchers) and narratologists (narrativity researchers) have been arguing about how to analyze narrativity in games. While ludologists have chosen to see games as a product by itself, and therefore something to be analyzed separately, narratologists instead see games as a narrative medium alongside film, theater and books. This essay starts by taking a look at the arguments from both sides, and then introduces three questions regarding narrative in games, and how this phenomenon has changed over the past 13 years. To answer these questions, five case studies are carried out, analyzing games with the help of a new framework built on narrative theory.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.