(Digital) tools as professional and generational identity badges in the Chinese creative industries

Animators, architects, designers, and others active in the Chinese creative industries are expert users of tools, both analog and digital. Performances of expert tool use (the wearing of professional identity badges) are strategic ways of signaling creativity understood as sets of skills and character traits essential for attracting work projects but also for professional identity formation. Analogue tools are generally associated with creative openness and fluidity whereas digital tools are discursively constructed as a technological other to the analogue. ‘Older’ creatives (born before 1980) tend to apply some of the media-inflected discourse around the balinghou generation (born 1980–1989) to their younger competitors, including an assumed affinity with digital media and technologies (the pinning on of a generational identity badge). Such generational assumptions can have the effect of reinforcing project hierarchies and denying expert users of digital tools their claims to creativity

Metareferentiality through in-game images in immersive simulation games

Digital games have a tenuous relationship to reality; in most cases, they are rather simulacra than simulations, offering a simulation-like situation that does not relate to any preceding reality but creates a virtual world precedented only in other fictional or virtual works. The visuals of mainstream, Triple-A games counteract this ontological disconnect through an overabundance of detail and flourish in a perennial struggle for verisimilitude. This paper discusses two examples which, while generally adhering to this convention, introduce elements of subversion into their visual logic. It will show that there are various metaleptic ludic devices - such as virtual reality environments within virtual worlds and reality-changing paintings - with which contemporary digital games reflect subtly upon their own relationship to reality, and upon the player's oscillation between agency and powerlessness

How society’s negative view of videogames can discourage brands from sponsoring eSports

The purpose of this research was to identify the main motives that contribute to society’s negative view of videogames and that present a risk to the eSports sponsors’ image. To achieve this, an exploratory, qualitative, and integrative literature review was conducted. According to the theoretical data, there are four main reasons why society has a negative perception of videogames. It is commonly believed that: (1) gaming is an unproductive activity, (2) violent videogames incite aggressive behaviors, (3) videogames lead to gaming-addiction, and (4) eSports lead to eSports-related gambling addiction. However, while the literature presents convincing evidence that gaming can create addiction and that eSports can promote gambling addiction, there is no conclusive evidence to assume that violent videogames lead to aggressiveness and there is evidence showing that playing videogames can be a productive activity. Nevertheless, these four beliefs are a threat to the eSports sponsors’ image and may lead them to cancel their existing sponsorships or lead other brands to not want to sponsor eSports to prevent being associated with these negative notions. This research will help expand the minor literature on eSports sponsorships and advance the knowledge of why some eSports sponsorships are terminated and why some brands may be reluctant to sponsor eSports.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A deep seimic reflection line in the Danish Central Graben

Results are presented from a deep seismic reflection line, recorded to 16 seconds trave1 time, across the Coffee Soil Fault in the southern part of the Danish Central Graben. Data processing has been focused on the deeper parts of the sedimentary sequences, the crystalline crust and the crust-mantle boundary. Depth migration is performed down to 15 km depth, and time migration is performed on the entire section. The Coffee Soil Fault is clearly imaged as a normal fault dipping about 45" from about 2.5 to 9 km depth. Interpretation of the sedimentary sequences is constrained by well data and shows an almost uniform 2 km thick unit of post-chalk deposits. The thickness of the Mezosoic sequences is to a large extent controlled by faulting and highly influenced by movements of Zechstein salt. They exceed 4 km of thickness in the halfgraben immediately west of the Coffee Soil Fault. Large block-faulted pre-Zechstein units of more than 2 km thickness are seen indicating a total depth of at least 8 km to the crystalline basement. The crystalline crust is generally non-reflective. Around 11 seconds two-way trave1 time (about 28 km depth) reflectivity interpreted as the crust-mantle boundary (Moho) is observed. Comparison with other deep seismic profiles across the Central Graben is taken to indicate a local crustal thinning by a factor of 1.5 associated with graben formation by extension.</jats:p

Erratum

In the article by Klinkby et al. ‘A deep seismic reflection line in the Danish Central Graben’ (Bulletin of the Geological Society of Denmark, Vol. 44(2), pp. 151–159, 1998), Tables 1 and 2 were unfortunately omitted. These are printed below.</jats:p