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This content analysis and methodological literature review of the social science research on character identification in traditional entertainment media focuses on the conceptual and operational definitions of identification and the level of consistency between them.

Stage 1 IPA at PCI RR

Our study tests the way that expectations and their violation in the conclusion of a narrative affect the enjoyment and appreciation of romantic comedies. In an online experiment, participants read a pretested romantic comedy story and are randomly assigned to read and ending that either confirmed expectations set up by the story's exposition or violated their expectations in either a major or minor way. We measure enjoyment and appreciation of the story, and see how violated expectations, self-esteem, need for cognitive closure, and relatedness need fulfillment moderate story appeal.

In this exploratory project we aim to explore how people use ICTs during the isolation period due to COVID-19

Videogame research was at least partly established on autographic methods (e.g. Sudnow 1983; Dibbell 1994) and later made significant breakthroughs via ethnography, and autoethnography in particular (e.g. Boellstorff 2008; Pearce 2011). The persistent and occasionally fair criticism against autoethnographic approaches in the study of play and everything else has always been that one scholar, from their own experiential perspective, is relatively limited when it comes building an understanding of a phenomenon in its often wide-ranging diversity (e.g. Atkinson & Hammersley 1983). The awareness of one’s first-person resources and viewpoints is often enough for an attentive scholar to make good use of any limited method (as all methods are), however, personal approaches like autoethnography – unless mixed with other methods – remain the most suitable for exploratory analysis of selected focus areas. In the research of videogames, including single player games, this is a special limitation due to their “forking paths” that make sure that a playthrough never reveals more than a part of the design (e.g. Miller 2008). To further develop the methodology of autoethnographic technology use, this study introduces multiverse autoethnography: a first-person study of videogames and other playable technology by several scholars at once. With reference to tandem approaches that have been experimented earlier (e.g. Sundén & Sveningsson 2012), a multiverse autoethnography of several scholars concerning a single videogame pursues a comprehensive “front yard” of the garden that, ultimately, helps to understand the rich playable multiverse. As such, this study paves the way for crowdsourced approaches that include the benefits of in-depth autoethnographic understanding without being limited to a single or dual points of view. The study will be carried out with several students in January-March 2021 at University of Jyväskylä. All students carry out a personal autoethnography in Cyberpunk 2077 or Among Us, either by playing them or following related live-streams for a minimum of 30 hours. Personal field notes are coded, combined, and turned into code families that are comparative analyzed to produce a map of the most central themes and their relations in these videogames. The ultimate goal of the study is to develop multiverse autoethnography as a method, i.e. to explore which field note, coding, and analytic techniques are best suited to be collectively applied in future projects.

To create suspenseful, dramatic or comical situations, filmmakers make creative decisions about the flow of story information: when, how and, most importantly, who to deliver information for it to come across effectively. They often use Dramatic Irony, a narrative device where the audience knows something that at least one characters does not, thereby creating drama and a divergence in perspectives in relation to the differential knowledge provided. Viewers are first shown the installation scenes that reveal the key information that the character(s) does not have access to and following, are shown the exploitation scenes that stage the dramatic irony conflict, in which the characters’ goals or wellbeing are impacted as a consequence of their ignorance e.g. misunderstandings or decoys. We hypothesized that the salient divergence of knowledge in dramatic irony scenes prompts spectators to infer the character’s mental states and thus proposed Theory of Mind (ToM) as a critical sociocognitive mechanism underlying the comprehension of dramatic irony. For the first time, we directly tested the hypothesis that ToM is implicated in film narratives by manipulating audience access to knowledge from the installation scenes (Study 1). In a between-subjects design, participants watched one of two knowledge conditions: in the Dramatic Irony condition, they watched 6 clips from different Harold Lloyd silent comedy films with complete scenes of dramatic irony (context, installation scene and exploitation scene); and in the Control condition, the installation scenes were edited out so participants only watched the context and exploitation scenes, which still maintained narrative coherence, allowing us to compare whether viewers process the same exploitation scenes engaging more in ToM reasoning when they know more than the character vs. when they do not. We hypothesized that if participants in the dramatic irony condition build a more complex event model, or alternatively different event models for character perspectives, there would be deeper moments of processing of the cognitive states in the exploitation scenes. This should be confirmed by delays or slowed-down moments in a novel self-paced viewing task as well as eye-tracking data: (a) pupil data as an indirect marker of processing load and (b) the analysis of spatio-temporal distribution of attention, i.e. what part of the images participants are processing differently across conditions, which would inform us about how participants extract information about characters’ mental states, and whether there are longer viewing times when event models are switched/updated to follow character perspectives.

This article explores the state of affairs in Zimbabwe’s film industry. It addresses the question: does a Zimbabwean film industry exist? The complex answer depends on at least two parameters. The first is one’s chosen definition of a film industry. The second is the extent of one’s knowledge of realities on the ground. The article argues that the Zimbabwean film industry, like most in Africa, is necessarily a work in progress. That is, it is constantly adapting to social, political and economic conditions in the search for a sustainable model or growth. Since 1980, the industry has been in a prolonged search for itself. A general feature has been the search for ways with which to replace thirty-year old colonial heritages of filmmaking, distribution and exhibition. Today what was traditionally a minority activity is becoming open to broader participation. The future, though, remains an unknown x. Funding, distribution and profitability are still sore points. For the first time, however, what seem like true foundations are being laid.

Pengaruh empat dimensi Social Identity, yakni Reflective, Belonging, Unsatisfaction, Unconcious terhadap perilaku perundungan dunia maya (Cyberbullying) dalam lingkup komunitas penggemar konten-konten bertemakan pahlawan super di Indonesia.

Pengaruh empat dimensi Social Identity, yakni Reflective, Belonging, Unsatisfaction, Unconcious terhadap perilaku perundungan dunia maya (Cyberbullying) dalam lingkup komunitas penggemar konten-konten bertemakan pahlawan super di Indonesia.

Hubungan faktor faktor Social Identity oleh Cameron (2004), yakni In-group Ties, Centrality dan In Group Affection dengan perilaku perundungan dunia maya (Cyberbullying) terhadap outgroup dalam lingkup komunitas penggemar konten-konten bertemakan pahlawan super di Indonesia.

This research project addresses the process of innovation and discovery in culture, using a large historical dataset of video game speedruns.

This study seeks to investigate how the inclusion of perceived stereotypical vs. individuating traits of media characters influence character judgments.

In recent years research assumed that ever since the airing of The Sopranos, the amount of morally ambiguous characters (MACs) in popular media increased. But since there is little empirical evidence for this plausible but not proven claim, we conduct a content analysis investigating plot and character summaries of the 250 most popular movies which released between 1996 and 2020. We analyze the protagonists in terms of their moral nature, their character traits, and moral transgressions they commit. We aim to make statements about the prevalence, role, and position of MACs in movies over the past twenty five years. As theoretical background we include relevant aspects of the Model of Intuitive Morality and Exemplars (MIME) and the Affective Disposition Theory (ADT).

This project proposes a series of experimental studies to examine the use of Theory of Mind (ToM) in cinematic narrative understanding and in particular to investigate the cognitive processing of dramatic irony, as a proposed limit case of viewers’ ToM. Dramatic irony is a narrative device, often used in cinema, where the audience is shown critical facts ahead of one or more characters, thereby creating drama and a divergence in perspectives in relation to the differential knowledge provided. Understanding cinematic dramatic irony requires inferring and updating mental states in a dynamic way over time, integrating different sources of information, therefore capturing some of the richness and complexity that defines real-world ToM processing in comparison to classic psychological lab tasks which require participants to recognize false beliefs from highly-stylized and decontextualized images or cartoons.

Paid loot boxes are randomised monetisation methods in video games that provide the player-consumer with randomised rewards of varying value (Nielsen & Grabarczyk, 2019). Loot boxes are structurally and psychologically similar to gambling (Drummond & Sauer, 2018). Loot box purchasing has been linked to problem gambling in 15 published studies in Western countries (Close et al., 2021; Garea et al., 2021; Zendle & Cairns, 2018). Publishing loot box probability disclosures that reveal the exact probabilities of obtaining randomised rewards has been proposed as a non-restrictive consumer protection measure that provides transparency and may reduce potential loot box harms (King & Delfabbro, 2019; McCaffrey, 2019; Xiao, 2021). Presently, this measure has been adopted as law only in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (Xiao et al., 2021). In all other countries (e.g., the US, South Korea, Japan), the video game industry has broadly adopted the measure as self-regulation (Entertainment Software Association (ESA), 2019; NHN Japan 株式会社 [NHN Japan Corporation] et al., 2012; 한국게임산업협회 [Korea Association of Game Industry; K-GAMES], 2018): for example, all mobile games on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in all countries are required to provide them (Gach, 2019; Kuchera, 2017; McCaffrey, 2019; Xiao et al., 2021). Xiao et al. (2021) conducted a survey of the loot box probability disclosures of the 100 highest-grossing iPhone games in the PRC and found that 95.6% of video games containing loot boxes disclosed probabilities. However, because the PRC legal requirement and Apple’s self-regulation were in force simultaneously, it could not be determined whether the PRC legal requirement was necessary in addition to Apple’s self-regulation to ensure a high level of compliance. A replication of the survey in another country would shed light on the effectiveness of self-regulation acting alone. Xiao et al. (2021)’s survey found a variety of different methods of disclosure of varying prominence and accessibility because the relevant loot box probability disclosure law did not require specific methods of disclosure. This is reflected in two aspects: firstly, the location of the disclosure, and secondly, the method of disclosure at any given location. There are three possibilities as to location: (i) disclosure made in-game only; (ii) disclosure made on the official website only; and (iii) disclosure made at both locations. As to the second aspect, Xiao et al. (2021) identified six subcategories of in-game disclosures and five subcategories of official website disclosures. Probability disclosure self-regulation in Western countries is similarly worded in general terms and did not require specific, uniform and prominent methods of disclosure (cf. the South Korean industry self-regulation (한국게임산업협회 [Korea Association of Game Industry; K-GAMES], 2018)). It is expected that loot box probability disclosures prompted by Western self-regulation are not prominent and not easily accessible, similar to the situation identified in the PRC by Xiao et al. (2021). Zendle et al. (2020) conducted a survey of the prevalence of loot boxes in UK iPhone games using a highest-grossing list captured on February 28th 2019. It has been suggested that, since then, video game companies have begun to stop implementing loot boxes and instead adopt other monetisation methods, such as battle passes (Petrovskaya & Zendle, 2020), either to avoid bad press or to act more ethically (Xiao, 2021), as demonstrated by commercial decisions taken by companies such as Epic Games (Fortnite Team, 2019; Psyonix Team, 2019; Valentine, 2019). A further survey in the UK would shed light on whether loot box prevalence has decreased two years after Zendle et al. (2020)’s survey. Therefore, a survey replicating Xiao et al. (2021)’s methodology will be conducted in the UK to assess: (i) the effectives of self-regulation acting alone, (ii) the methods of compliance (i.e., prominence and accessibility of probability disclosures) in Western countries, and (iii) any industry changes in loot box implementation and prevalence. References: Close, J., Spicer, S. G., Nicklin, L. L., Uther, M., Lloyd, J., & Lloyd, H. (2021). Secondary analysis of loot box data: Are high-spending “whales” wealthy gamers or problem gamblers? Addictive Behaviors, 117, 106851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106851 Drummond, A., & Sauer, J. D. (2018). Video Game Loot Boxes Are Psychologically Akin to Gambling. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(8), 530–532. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0360-1 Entertainment Software Association (ESA). (2019, August 7). Video Game Industry Commitments to Further Inform Consumer Purchases. ESA Official Website. https://www.theesa.com/perspectives/video-game-industry-commitments-to-further-inform-consumer-purchases/ Fortnite Team. (2019, January 25). Loot Unboxing. Fortnite Official Website. https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/loot-unboxing Gach, E. (2019, May 30). Google Now Requires App Makers to Disclose Loot Box Odds. Kotaku. kotaku.com/google-now-requires-app-makers-to-disclose-loot-box-odd-1835134642 Garea, S. S., Drummond, A., Sauer, J. D., Hall, L. C., & Williams, M. N. (2021). Meta-analysis of the relationship between problem gambling, excessive gaming and loot box spending. International Gambling Studies, 0(0), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14459795.2021.1914705 King, D. L., & Delfabbro, P. H. (2019). Video Game Monetization (e.g., ‘Loot Boxes’): A Blueprint for Practical Social Responsibility Measures. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 17(1), 166–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-0009-3 Kuchera, B. (2017, December 21). Apple adds new rules for loot boxes, requires disclosure of probabilities. Polygon. https://web.archive.org/web/20200821095535/https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/21/16805392/loot-box-odds-rules-apple-app-store McCaffrey, M. (2019). The macro problem of microtransactions: The self-regulatory challenges of video game loot boxes. Business Horizons, 62(4), 483–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.03.001 NHN Japan 株式会社 [NHN Japan Corporation], グリー株式会社 [GREE, Inc.], 株式会社サイバーエージェント [CyberAgent, Inc.], 株式会社ディー・エヌ・エー [DeNA Co., Ltd.], 株式会社ドワンゴ [DWANGO Co., Ltd.], & 株式会社ミクシィ [mixi, Inc.]. (2012). ゲーム内表示等に関するガイドライン [Guidelines for In-Game Disclosures and Other Matters]. https://web.archive.org/web/20120709220824/http:/www.gree.co.jp/news/press/2012/0622_01/In-game_display_guidelines.pdf Nielsen, R. K. L., & Grabarczyk, P. (2019). Are Loot Boxes Gambling? Random Reward Mechanisms in Video Games. Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 4(3), 171–207. https://doi.org/10.26503/todigra.v4i3.104 Petrovskaya, E., & Zendle, D. (2020). The Battle Pass: A Mixed-Methods Investigation into a Growing Type of Video Game Monetisation. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/vnmeq Psyonix Team. (2019, August 6). Crates Leaving Rocket League Later This Year. Rocket League Official Website. www.rocketleague.com/news/crates-leaving-rocket-league-later-this-year Valentine, R. (2019, August 9). Epic Games commits to loot box transparency across portfolio. GamesIndustry.Biz. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-08-09-epic-games-commits-to-loot-box-transparency-across-portfolio Xiao, L. Y. (2021). Regulating Loot Boxes as Gambling? Towards a Combined Legal and Self-Regulatory Consumer Protection Approach. Interactive Entertainment Law Review, 4(1), __. Xiao, L. Y., Henderson, L. L., Yang, Y., & Newall, P. W. S. (2021). Gaming the system: Sub-optimal compliance with loot box probability disclosure regulations in China. Behavioural Public Policy, Forthcoming, __. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/e6yw8 Zendle, D., & Cairns, P. (2018). Video game loot boxes are linked to problem gambling: Results of a large-scale survey. PLoS One 13(11): E0206767, 13(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206767 Zendle, D., Meyer, R., Cairns, P., Waters, S., & Ballou, N. (2020). The prevalence of loot boxes in mobile and desktop games. Addiction, 115(9), 1768–1772. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14973 한국게임산업협회 [Korea Association of Game Industry; K-GAMES]. (2018). 건강한 게임문화 조성을 위한 자율규제 시행기준 [Criteria on Implementation of Self-regulation for Healthy Game Culture]. http://www.gsok.or.kr/regulations-on-self-regulation/?uid=89&mod=document&pageid=1

ReaGilès are pre-fabricated, self-contained, education and entertainment complexes situated on 400m² sites at local schools or public open spaces consisting of a 60-seat cinema, 30- seat computer and Internet facility, community care and policing centre. These complexes are intended to service historically underserviced peri-urban black dormitory townships of South Africa and to help create jobs, especially amongst the youth, women and the disabled. The ReaGilè concept, on roll-out, has the potential to revolutionise exhibition and distribution in local film industries in ways mirroring the ground-breaking Nollywood straight-to-DVD model. The article discusses the potential of the ReaGilè concept to offer solutions to the twincrises of 1) representation stemming from existing film distribution networks that limit microbudget filmmakers, and 2) of government departments and local municipalities’ tendency towards dividing practices that objectivise the subject through frustrating development via delays, paperwork, never-ending meetings, fees, endless formalities and legalities, and red tape. The authors posit that ReaGilè has the potential to creatively disrupt and redesign formal distribution models and to fracture the narrow modernisation paradigm they deploy, replacing them with a responsive communication re/ordering and flexible distribution that restore subjectivity to the disenfranchised South African subject (the filmmaker and audience from the township).

Discussions of violence in cinema and the ‘cinema of violence’ have tended to fixate on the limited definition of violence in its mimetic, graphic forms. Violence is traced to ‘screen violence’, horror movies and thrillers, a definition of ‘violent cinema’ linked Simkin calls ‘the representation of the damaged body’. This special issue conceptualizes violence in infinitely more interesting ways. It emphasizes the fact that violence is, in fact, not out there at all. Rather, it is all around us, all over us, and is – indeed – us. Not only is violence often invisible to the naked eye, but it is always implicating us such that without us there would be no violence. In fact, there is no single violence. Rather, violence is regarded in the plural. There are violences. Furthermore, the act ofseeing of violences is, in this account, impossible on the basis of dominant, monocular ways of seeing. As such, there are plural visualities as opposed to any one organizing visuality. The trope of mimetic violence is not only layeredon top of other amimetic tropes but is undermined by them. The articles presented here therefore encourage us to visualize violence critically. We are encouraged to see, first of all, the everyday worlds and subtexts that produce,reproduce and sustain significantly finer, less visible, quotidian violences and cultures of violence that march in step with our daily practices