Story Elements Research Articles

Mythical narratives in digital games and the digital apocalypse

ABSTRACT Digital games propagate mythical stories and revitalize medieval legends. Amplification of gothic elements in contemporary media and in digital games reflects an ideological and aesthetic transformation of cultural products in contemporary society. This essay discusses distinctiveness in game narratives by citing diverse theories, including semiotics and theories of psychoanalysis, as well as mythology and theology. Game narratives tend to deconstruct the conventional timeframes of chronological order seen in the narratives of traditional literature. Contrary to the formulaic structure of mythology described by Joseph Campbell, digital games introduce a new dimension of time in narratives akin to biblical apocalypse. Digital games deploy synchronic time, exclusively in the form of the present tense, which Tillich identifies as relating to kairos contingent on Heidegger’s notion of time. At their forefront, digital games visualize elements of literary stories as a result of deploying synchronic time in reimagined narratives. While digital games attract users via this new concept of transformative time and their visual embellishment of mysticism, innovative narratives in digital games function as a new means of ideology, resonating with the social psychology of users under the challenges of the contemporary world.

Purposeful Incorporation of Patient Narratives in the Medical Record in the Netherlands.

Structuring patient and practice data into episodes formed the foundation of the earliest evidence base of family medicine. We aim to make patients' narratives part of the evidence base for family medicine by incorporating coded and structured information on the patient's reason to visit the family physician (FP) and adding the patient's personal and contextual characteristics to routine registration data. This documentation allows studies of relations between morbidity and elements of the patient story, providing more insight into the range of problems presented to primary care and in the patient-centeredness applied by FPs. The Dutch Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN), named FaMe-Net, is the world's oldest PBRN. Seven Dutch family practices provide regular primary care and participate in the PBRN. It contains all morbidity data of the approximately 40,000 listed patients (308,000 patient-years and 2.2 million encounters from 2005 until 2019). All information belonging to 1 health problem is ordered in 1 episode. Morbidity (diagnoses), reasons for encounter (RFE), and interventions are coded according to the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC-2). Registration occurs within the electronic health record (EHR), specially designed to facilitate the extensive registration for the PBRN. Since 2016, the network expanded routine registration with the duration of symptoms and coded personal and contextual characteristics (eg, country of birth, level of education, family history, traumatic events) obtained through the self-reported 'context survey' of listed patients. These data are added to the EHR. Registered data are extracted from the EHR and processed for scientific research.We present data on the differences in RFEs of the most prominent symptoms of COVID-19 between 2019 and 2020; the relation between the diagnosis of pneumonia and presentation of the symptom 'cough,' and how personal determinants influence the chances of final diagnoses. Lastly, we show the relation of self-reported abuse with patient's contact frequency and psychosocial problems. Prompt introduction of registration rules brought insight into COVID-19-related symptoms early in the pandemic. In March 2020, symptoms related to COVID-19 were presented more often than in March 2019. Chronic conditions and prevention showed a collapsing contact frequency. Telephone, email, and video consultations increased from 31% to 53%.Episodes of pneumonia most frequently started with the RFE 'cough.' A combination of 'cough' and 'fever' as RFE increases the likelihood of pneumonia, as does cough in the presence of comorbid COPD among older men. The prevalence of pneumonia is higher among patients with low socioeconomic status. The Dutch PBRN FaMe-Net has started to add elements of patients' narratives and context to decades of morbidity registration, creating options for a scientific approach to primary care's core values. Assumptions of 'pre/post chances' of the final diagnosis, already existing implicitly in FPs minds, can be elaborated and quantified by investigating the associations between multiple registered variables, including parts of patients' 'stories.' This way, we aim to make visible what is intuitively already known by FPs.

A Possible Worlds Model of Belief for State-Space Narrative Planning

What characters believe, how they act based on those beliefs,and how their beliefs are updated is an essential element of many stories. State-space narrative planning algorithms treat their search spaces like a set of temporally possible worlds. We present an extension that models character beliefs as epistemically possible worlds and describe how such a space is generated. We also present the results of an experiment that demonstrates that the model meets the expectations of a human audience.

Cinematic, Ambient, Inhabitable Narrative Environments: Story Systems in Search of an Artificial Intelligence Engine

Cinematic, Ambient, Inhabitable Narrative Environments (CAINEs) are conceptual AI-driven interactive story systems combining text, audio, and visual imagery that are scalable and adaptable to a wide range of storytelling needs and interactor inputs. Conceived by at artist outside the AI community, they represent an opportunity to use AI in a nontraditional and immersive narrative fashion that relies not on the goal-based arrangement of story elements, but on the accretion and association of those elements in the minds of interactors. This paper represents the initial phase of the project’s development.

Mean Streets: Tracking the Dispositives of Address(es) with China Miéville’s “Reports of Certain Events in London”

Abstract Miéville’s short story stands out for its perhaps experimental, perhaps old-fashioned form: the story’s first-person narrator adopts, in nineteenth-century fashion, the persona of an editor and presents both his own view on the ‘events’ in question and a number of mock documents he has allegedly been sent. Readers are encouraged to piece together the story elements – events and characters – from postcards, minutes of a meeting, memos, personal letters, and tables. Typographically distinct and juxtaposed rather than narratively linked, these text fragments suggest internal conflicts in a group of people who track rogue streets – streets that change their location spontaneously and wreak havoc on the geographical and the political order of cities. It is no coincidence that a mix-up of names and addresses is the starting point of the story; the story’s ending hints at the consequences of having or not having a fixed address. My contribution examines Miéville’s use of the short story form in the context of fantastic literature. Following suggestions of Miéville’s “The Conspiracy of Architecture” (1998), the foregrounding of formal and quasi-material aspects of organising and mediating knowledge is read as an engagement with the power/knowledge dispositives made up of discursive ordering principles as well as city planning and city geography.

THE SHORT STORY LE PAPA DE SIMON: GUY DE MAUPASSANT’S SOCIAL CRITICISM OF 19TH CENTURYFRENCH SOCIETY

Literary work is not only a reflection of the socio-cultural conditions of a particular time but also a display of its people’s development of thinking. This study aims to describe the social situation of French society in the nineteenth century portrayed in the short story ‘Le Papa de Simon’ by Guy de Maupassant and explain the social criticism conveyed by the author. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative. Data in the form of words, phrases, and sentences were collected by library study techniques. Data in French were translated by the researcher and the results validated by native speaker. Data analysis was performed by grouping, interpreting, and studying the sociology of literary approach. The results of the study prove that (1) all narrative elements of the short story supported the depiction of social conditions (2) regarding the institution of marriage, family values and religion in nineteenth-century French society. (3) In addition to reflecting human character, Maupassant also proposes social criticism primarily related to the impact of low education, poverty, social inequality and the discrimination of women. From this study, it was found that the author conveyed his criticism of human cruelty in society, which often resulted from obeying to rules and norms.

Analisis Cerita Pendek “Der Tänzer Malige” Karya Johannes Bobrowski

The type of this research is descriptive qualitative. The purpose of this research is to describing theme, characters, plor, setting, message, and point of view in the short story “Der Tänzer Malige” by Johannes Bobrowski. The data in this study were obtained from reading the short story “Der Tänzer Malige” by Johannes Bobrowski. Data collection using library techniques, which are in the from of reading and notes technique on the object of research. The results of this study are as follws, a description of the theme elements: soldiers, character elements: main characters and extras, plot elements: mixed plot, background elements: place setting (village and army barracks) and time setting (August 1939 at the end of the season. Heat), the element of mandate: a high social spirit, the element of perspective: the third person point of view (Er).the interrelationship between the intrinsic elements of the short story, where the theme, character, plot, space and time setting, mandate, and point of view, shows a structure that influences one another. These elements cannot be separated from one another.

Story elements, narrative transportation, and schema incongruity: a framework for enhancing brand storytelling effectiveness

ABSTRACT Storytelling is a powerful tool used by brand marketers. However, most brand stories are neither memorable nor effective. This research proposes a model for increasing the effectiveness of brand storytelling through the use of incongruity. Incongruity can challenge the expectations of brand storytelling held in the minds of consumers (i.e., the brand story schema). This increases attentional focus on the story and triggers more complex cognitive processing. This level of processing is necessary for effective narrative transportation, or immersion into the story. This research identifies the key elements of storytelling (e.g., character, setting, and plot) and demonstrates how marketers can introduce incongruity through these elements. Moderating factors and brand outcomes are introduced to improve implementation and foster strategy development.

Clichés orientalistes et stéréotypes formels dans un roman satirique : le cas de La vieille dame du riad de Fouad Laroui

This article analyses the novel “La vieille dame du riad” (2011) by Fouad Laroui, a Moroccan-Dutch writer of French expression. We examine the strategies (generic and intertextual) used by the novelist to ridicule the Orientalist prejudices which persist in the current time. Generic hybridity (the presence of some elements of the detective story, fantasy novel and oriental tale) is used to develop the satirical dimension of the novel.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s The Beast in the Cave: an interpretation

The article proposes a concept study of one of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s earliest pieces The Beast in the Cave (1905). The author employs elements of biographical and mythological (Jungian) approaches to the text, synthetising them in order to achieve a complex understanding of Lovecraft’s work. In the study the author tries to reach three interconnected goals – to come up with an interpretation of the text previously ignored by the critics and thus to include The Beast in the Cave in the Lovecraftian canon, as well as to establish a link between the writer’s personal circumstances and their metaphorical embodiment in the text in question. The author of the article concentrates upon several crucial elements of the short story – the topos of the cave and the three principal characters (the protagonist, the beast, and the guide who comes to the narrator’s rescue in the end). Despite the fact that Lovecraft’s story had been composed almost thirty years prior to the first publication of some of Carl Gustav Jung’s principal ideas on archetypes of the collective unconscious, the young writer seems to be able to intuitively foresee the artistic potential of the cave monomyth (the hero goes down the abyss and fights the monster who lives there). Lovecraft masterfully relates the myth, simultaneously turning this general story into a very personal account of his own tragic experience and his way of coping with the crisis. Such an interpretation makes it possible to perceive The Beast as an early example of Lovecraft’s “mythologising” écriture.

Creating Narrative Entertainment for Health Communication: Perspectives from Practice

This project aimed to explore the perspectives of entertainment industry and health communication practitioners in the United States on creating health storylines in entertainment programming. These dual perspectives are usually not studied in tandem but together offer insights into the creation of impactful health-related narratives. In-depth interviews were conducted with entertainment industry and health professionals ( N = 6) who are experienced in creating health storylines. Questions aimed to illuminate how practitioners define ‘success’ of a health storyline, what they perceive as key elements for impactful health storylines, how key story elements are created and the nature of collaboration between the entertainment industry and public health. Grounded theory analysis identified three core themes for the successful combination of narrative entertainment and health: choosing teams with complementary strengths (e.g., leveraging professional collaboration and trust), knowing your audience (e.g., conducting formative research to understand who the story is intended for and why) and integrating health content in authentic ways (e.g., telling dramatic stories with universal themes, without creating from the intent of relaying health information). Best-practice guidelines for narrative entertainment to communicate about health, informed by the core themes and persuasion theory, are offered for narrative development, pre-production, content creation and dissemination.

Not Whodunit But Whydunit: Story Characters’ Motivations Influence Audience Interest in Services

Service providers and consumer well-being advocates often share stories to promote audience interest in relevant behavior. This research examines how characters’ motivations for engaging in service-related behavior in such stories influence consumers’ interest in services. Across five studies, we show that audiences are more interested in services after reading about a character who acts for intrinsically (vs. extrinsically) motivated reasons. We show that this occurs because the audience identifies more with intrinsically motivated characters. We also examine how consequences of characters’ actions (both for others and for themselves when they make miscalibrated decisions) shape an audience’s service interest in targeted ways, specifically encouraging interest in services that help people while avoiding unintended negative consequences. The results of this work suggest that stories can be an effective way to encourage consumers’ interest in services that enhance personal and societal well-being and identify critical story elements that influence their success in doing so.

Psychological distance in mobile telepresence

We compared psychological distance in a mock job interview that was conducted either in-person or via mobile telepresence. In the mobile telepresence setting, the interviewers communicated through a telepresence robot. In one of the first explorations of how mobile telepresence affected psychological distance, we analyzed use of pronouns that suggested distance or closeness, and we also analyzed interviewer behavior (backchanneling) across the conditions. In addition, we analyzed stories told as part of the interview. We looked at elements of the stories as well as how interviewees interacted with physical objects on a table in front of them. We found that mobile telepresence disrupts conversational processes and content and amplifies psychological distance. There were fewer backchannels in the mobile telepresence setting and changed story elements. Interviewees also made use of objects differently in the mobile telepresence setting. Pronoun use went against our hypotheses, but can be interpreted as a response to psychological distance. Taken together, the evidence suggests that in-person interviews are more grounded and interactive than interviews via mobile telepresence robots.

Interview with Hannah Berry

In this interview, the Brighton-based comics artist Hannah Berry discuses her current role as Comics Laureate, which has included the commissioning of a survey into the conditions of work of comics artists in the United Kingdom and has demonstrated the financial hardship that most of them endure. She also talks about the importance of mentoring, organising work around childcare, and how she came to produce a weekly strip for the New Statesman. The interview then focuses on Berry’s three published graphic novels, touching on the influence of films, the tension between storytelling and play with the codes of the medium, the use of gutters and text as elements in a horror story, comics as a corrective to fake news, and the political research that underlies satire.

Interview with Hannah Berry

In this interview, the Brighton-based comics artist Hannah Berry discuses her current role as Comics Laureate, which has included the commissioning of a survey into the conditions of work of comics artists in the United Kingdom and has demonstrated the financial hardship that most of them endure. She also talks about the importance of mentoring, organising work around childcare, and how she came to produce a weekly strip for the New Statesman. The interview then focuses on Berry’s three published graphic novels, touching on the influence of films, the tension between storytelling and play with the codes of the medium, the use of gutters and text as elements in a horror story, comics as a corrective to fake news, and the political research that underlies satire.

Do gamified elements affect young people’s use behaviour on consumption-related mobile applications?

PurposeThis study aims to investigate whether gamified elements affect the use behaviour of young people (between age 12 and 25 years) on consumption-related mobile applications.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted on 151 young people between the ages of 12 and 25 years.FindingsThe results showed that use behaviour on consumption mobile applications was affected by gamification. Behavioural intention to use was affected by the performance expectancy (PE) and effort expectancy (EE) of mobile application designs. Mobile applications characteristics do not affect behavioural intention to use mobile applications but through the mediator mobile application designs.Research limitations/implicationsThis study also proposes mechanisms that explain how mobile apps characteristics affect EE and PE through app designs. Use behaviour is affected by Gamification elements. Affective need and social need link up uses and gratification (U&G) theory and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT)in gamification context. This study confirms the affective need affecting behavioural intention (Thongsri et al., 2018). In this regard, the mechanism between the relationship of affective need and behavioural intention was showed. Affective need through both PE and EE influencing behavioural intention.Practical implicationsCorporations should consider adding gamified elements into consumption-related mobile apps to increasing usage behaviour. Lucky draws, quizzes and games could be built in for mobile apps. Mobile app designs and characteristics could improve user experience by allowing consumers to perform their search and buying processes easily. Mobile app designs will not directly influence “behavioral intention to use” but use behaviour.Social implicationsPractitioners need to look at the problem from technological and customer perspectives. From technological viewpoint, both mobile apps characteristics and design are important in affecting user behaviour. From customer’s perspective, it would be helpful to add gaming elements to the mobile apps and induce emotion. One may also use visual image to create an immersive experience on the development of storyline. Prospective customers might focus on what is going on in the story and pay less attention on its own logic. Thus, simply lucky draw might not have a true effect since player have its own belief working. A suitable story element could have positive effect on mobile apps use behaviour.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to examine the association between gamification and use behaviour on consumption-related mobile applications. A new framework was proposed by integrating UTAUT model and U&G theory.

How gamified branded applications drive marketing effectiveness?

PurposeCompanies understand the potential to use gamification marketing to facilitate a better connection. However, most endeavours in gamification fail. This study aims to identify the design factors that drive the marketing effectiveness of branded applications (apps) with gamification features.Design/methodology/approachThis study investigates branded apps covering various industries such as hospitality, retail and financial services. A total of 296 respondents were recruited from an online questionnaire platform.FindingsThe results show that playability, design aesthetics, goal clarity, incentive provision and symbolic benefits were drivers of consumer–brand engagement, which in turn generated purchase intention, app continuance intention and brand loyalty.Originality/valueBased on the elemental tetrad model, this study specified relevant factors identified in the literature to represent the technology, aesthetic, mechanical and story elements. The authors contribute to the literature by identifying design factors as drivers of consumer–brand engagement in the branded app context.

Bringing the News from Ghent to Axanar: Fan Works and Copyright after Deckmyn and Subsequent Developments

Fan works offer a lens through which to view the complex future of copyright law. Recent years have seen an explosion in academic interest in fan works, for reasons including the ongoing crisis in copyright law, changes in the way we consume copyrighted content, and increasing interest in fandom itself. Scholarship on fan works has continued to explore the key questions of fair use, parody, and First Amendment protection that allow fan works to exist yet fail to clearly delineate the boundaries of the legal twilight zone in which they reside and thrive. It has also continued to address the intersection between fanfic and gender and what this says about the gendered nature of intellectual property law. Much has also been written about the future of copyright in general, and of fan works in particular, often looking at fan works from new perspectives, including law and economics and the closely related vexing problem, for content owners, of how to address possible infringement without alienating the fanbase. This article looks at recent developments relating to fanfic first by looking at the historical context and current state of fan works, and next by looking at story elements and the ways in which they are and are not protected by copyright. The article devotes special attention to the related issues of cultural appropriation and reinterpretation, looking at Own Voices stories and street murals as a means of reclaiming a right to cultural property appropriated by others. The article then looks at the shrinking space for online fan works, with a look at two fairly recent decisions dealing with works based on existing popular culture franchises. One, Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Axanar Productions, deals with true fan art (a Star Trek fan film), while the other, Deckmyn v. Vandersteen, deals with hate speech masquerading as fan art. Ultimately the article concludes that there is both good and bad news for fans in the current situation. The good news is that the formerly frustratingly nebulous legal status of fan works is increasingly coming to be understood by fan work creators, courts, and content owners. The bad news is that the balance of powers in copyright generally, is increasingly shifting to large content owners.

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ON NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING STORY FACE STRATEGY

AbstractThis research aimed to improve students’ ability to comprehend narrative text by using Story Face as the strategy, especially to improve students’ ability in identifying details of story elements, and understanding the meaning. The writer applied Classroom Action Research for this research. This research was conducted in three cycles of meetings and the subject of this research was the eighth grade students of SMPN 3 Sambas, in Academic Year 2018/2019. There were 24 participants attending the process and during the process, it was found out that the students were excited and active in the class. The data revealed that the students improved their ability to comprehend the reading elements of narrative text in identifying details of story elements and understanding the meaning. Students avarage score in the first cycle was 73.75 mean score then improved to 83.04 in second cycle, and then became 83.47 in third cycle.The conclusion is that the use of Story Face Strategy improved students’ ability to comprehend narrative text, especially in identifying details of story elements and understanding the meaning of text. Beside that, the use of Story Face Strategy also increased student activities in reading process.Keywords: Story Face Strategy, Narrative Text, Reading Comprehension

Egypt without Slavery—Tracing the Tradition of Israel’s Residence in Egypt

ABSTRACT The narrative of the people’s redemption from Egyptian oppression plays a central role in the Hebrew bible in numerous books, genres and literary sources. Among these biblical references some occurrences lack a central element of the familiar story—the peoples’ slavery. This article discusses the narrative of the Israelites’ experience in Egypt as presented in the idiosyncratic review of Israel’s chronicle in Ezekiel 20 and as implied by other references in the biblical laws, narratives and prophecies. It argues for a gradual evolution of the narrative of the Egyptian slavery and oppression, and thus of the redemption of Israel.