Bibliographies: 'Fonz (video game)'

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Waszkiewicz, Agata. "Audiovisual Media Convergence and the Metareferential Strategies in "Layers of Fear 2"." Panoptikum, no. 24 (October 20, 2020): 68–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.26881/pan.2020.24.04.

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There seems to be a certain agreement among game scholars that video games can be considered as inherently metareferential. The practices of emphasizing game’s “gameness” have the vast potential of creating the sense of rupture, Brechtian alienation or estrangement, and it can be obtained through a number of strategies. The article examines the typology of such methods presented by Matteo Bittanti (2007) which are expanded upon and applied to film influences on video games. The final part of the article contains a discussion of the metareferential strategies fond in Layers of Fear 2 video game (2019, Bloober Team).

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Purnomo, SF Luthfie Arguby, SF Lukfianka Sanjaya Purnama, and Lilik Untari. "PROSTHETIC TRANSLATION: RETRANSLATIONS OF VIDEO GAME REMAKES AND REMASTERS REFUTE RETRANSLATION HYPOTHESIS." Humanus 18, no. 1 (April 29, 2019): 12. http://dx.doi.org/10.24036/humanus.v18i1.103507.

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Retranslation Hypothesis claims that retranslations tend to be more source-oriented than the first translations. Video game translation (VGT) refutes this hypothesis since retranslations in VGT, occuring on game remakes and remasters, are target oriented. We argue that retranslations in VGT context are better to be termed prosthetic translation, a retranslation involving game mechanics adjustments at intertextual level. To prove that prosthetic translation is of existence, we applied theories of retranslation, multiplicity, commodified nostalgia, and intertextual continuity on seven titles of Square Enix’s award winning Final Fantasy series. The original Japanese versions, North American versions, their first translations, and retranslations were analyzed to prove the presence of prosthetic translation. The findings show that retranslations on the series are oriented to target gaming system and the aesthetics of mechanics and narrative intertextuality and thus refuting Retranslation Hypothesis. Based on the findings, we argue that retranslation of video game remakes and remasters focuses on repairing extremities or intertextual losses, occuring due to game narrative and mechanical aesthetics. These intertextual losses are repaired by attaching mechanical prostheses like dialogue box extension or modification, font type and size alteration, and other mechanical modification to ensure present time recontextualization of the remade and remastered games. Keywords: Retranslation hypothesis, prosthetic translation, remakes, remasters, video game translationPENERJEMAHAN PROSTETIK: SANGGAHAN TERHADAP HIPOTESIS PENERJEMAHAN ULANG (RETRANSLATION HYPOTHESIS) MELALUI REMAKE DAN REMASTER VIDEO GAME AbstrakHipotesis Penerjemahan Ulang (Retranslation Hypothesis) menyatakan bahwa penerjemahan ulang cenderung lebih berorientasi pada sumber jika dibandingkan dengan penerjemahan pertama. Penerjemahan video game menyanggah pernyataan ini karena penerjemahan ulang dalam konteks video game yang muncul pada remake dan remaster cenderung lebih berorientasi pada target penggunanya. Tulisan ini menyarankan bahwa penerjemahan ulang dalam penerjemahan video game sebaiknya disebut dengan penerjemahan prostetik, penerjemahan ulang yang mengikutsertakan penyesuaian mekanisme game-nya pada tataran intertekstual. Untuk membuktikan keberadaan penerjemahan prostetik, teori penerjemahan ulang, multiplicity yang membahas mengenai remake dan remaster, komodifikasi nostalgia, dan kontinuitas intertekstual diaplikasikan pada tujuh judul serial Final Fantasy untuk mengungkapkan keberadaan penerjemahan prostetik. Ketujuh judul tersebut terdiri dari versi asli Jepangnya, versi terjemahan bahasa Inggrisnya, versi terjemahan pertama dan terjemahan ulangnya. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penerjemahan ulang dalam video game berorientasi pada sistem game sasarannya dan estetika intertekstualitas mekanis dan naratif game-nya. Temuan ini menyanggah Hipotesis Penerjemahan Ulang. Temuan juga menunjukkan bahwa penerjemahan prostetik berfungsi untuk memperbaiki ekstrimitas atau rumpang intertekstual, yang muncul karena estetika mekanis dan naratif dalam sebuah game. Rumpang intertekstual ini diperbaiki melalui prostetik mekanis seperti ekstensifikasi atau modifikasi kotak dialog, alterasi ukuran font, dan modifikasi mekanis lainnya guna terjaminnya rekontekstualisasi masa kini sebuah remake dan remaster video game.Kata Kunci: Hipotesis penerjemahan ulang, penerjemahan prostetik, remake, remaster, penerjemahan video game

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Makai, Péter. "Video Games as Objects and Vehicles of Nostalgia." Humanities 7, no. 4 (November 25, 2018): 123. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h7040123.

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Barely 50 years old, video games are among the newest media today, and still a source of fascination and a site of anxiety for cultural critics and parents. Since the 1970s, a generation of video gamers have grown up and as they began to have children of their own, video games have become objects evoking fond memories of the past. Nostalgia for simpler times is evident in the aesthetic choices game designers make: pixelated graphics, 8-bit music, and frustratingly hard levels are all reminiscent of arcade-style and third-generation console games that have been etched into the memory of Generation X. At the same time, major AAA titles have become so photorealistic and full of cinematic ambition that video games can also serve as vehicles for nostalgia by “faithfully” recreating the past. From historical recreations of major cities in the Assassin’s Creed series and L. A. Noire, to the resurrection of old art styles in 80 Days, Firewatch or Cuphead all speak of the extent to which computer gaming is suffused with a longing for pasts that never were but might have been. This paper investigates the design of games to examine how nostalgia is used to manipulate affect and player experience, and how it contributes to the themes that these computer games explore. Far from ruining video games, nostalgia nonetheless exploits the associations the players have with certain historical eras, including earlier eras of video gaming. Even so, the juxtaposition of period media and dystopic rampages or difficult levels critically comment upon the futility of nostalgia.

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Wu, Yan Hai, Jia Xin Li, and Fang Ni Zhang. "The Improved Corner Detection for Video Text Positioning Algorithm." Applied Mechanics and Materials 263-266 (December 2012): 1523–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.263-266.1523.

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This article mainly aims at the problem of the video text font size, achieved a algorithm of multi-scale corner text detection, and combined with the characteristic of word usually has the same color, even more precise positions the text area with color clustering way.This algorithm not only detect the game scene, video ads and video news kind of information in words, but also be used for the natural scene of the text of the detection positioning.Finally, test a public data sets, and the test results show that the proposed method can detect and positioning video the text in the complex information.

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Gomes, Jorge, Raphael Melo, Saulo Oliveira, and Manoel Costa. "Exergames podem ser uma ferramenta para acréscimo de atividade física e melhora do condicionamento físico?" Revista Brasileira de Atividade Física & Saúde 20, no. 3 (October 23, 2015): 232. http://dx.doi.org/10.12820/rbafs.v.20n3p232.

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A atividade física é um fator importante na prevenção e tratamento da obesidade, doenças cardiovasculares e outras morbidades. Segundo o American College of Sports Medicine, adultos jovens devem realizar 30 minutos de atividade física moderada-vigorosa com intensidade 50 e 69% da frequência cardíaca máxima em no mínimo 5 dias na semana. Neste sentido, os Exergames (EXGs) surgem como uma prática com maior movimentação corporal elevando os níveis de atividade física diária. O objetivo da presente revisão foi identificar estudos que analisaram a influência dos EXGs nas variáveis hemodinâmicas. Foi realizada uma pesquisa nas bases de dados BIREME, PUBMED, SCIENCE DIRECT e WEB OF KNOWLEDGE, utilizando os termos e descritores: exergames, active video games, active gaming e video games. Os estudos para análise deveriam conter a mensuração das seguintes variáveis: frequência cardíaca (FC), gasto energético (GE) ou consumo de oxigênio (VO2). Foram selecionados 19 estudos. Destes EXGs o mais utilizado foi o Boxe (63% dos estudos). Foram observadas elevações significativas nas variáveis hemodinâmicas proporcionando intensidade de leve a vigorosa. Os EXGs do console Xbox 360º com Kinect® promovem maior gasto energético e consumo de oxigênio em relação a outros consoles, tais como o Nintendo Wii®. Conclui-se que os EXGs podem ser uma alternativa de aumento do nível de atividade física, porém, são necessários outros estudos de ordem longitudinal para a devida caracterização enquanto exercício físico para gerar adaptações ao sistema cardiovascular.

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Larche, Chanel J., Peter Tran, Tyler B. Kruger, Navi Dhaliwal, and Mike J. Dixon. "Escaping the Woes Through Flow? Examining the Relationship Between Escapism, Depression, and Flow Experience in Role-Playing and Platform Games." Journal of Gambling Issues 46 (February 18, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.4309/jgi.2021.46.9.

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Playing video games to escape daily life is associated with problem video gaming and depression. Playing to escape is an especially common motive among players of role-playing games (RPGs). Given that RPGs are highly immersive, a possible source of positive affect for depressed escape players may be the rewarding aspects of flow or immersion. We aimed to ascertain whether players who report gaming to escape are more prone to experiencing flow while playing RPGs but not arcade-type platform games. In Experiment 1, we measured the depression symptoms and player motives of 56 participants while they played an RPG. We measured subjective arousal, flow, and positive affect after each condition of an ABBA design (A was a control condition featuring a simplified game, B the fully immersive game). In Experiment 2, we recruited 65 players to play a simple platform game (also measuring problem video gaming and mindfulness). In both studies, we contrasted those in the upper tercile of escape motivation scores with those in the lower tercile of these scores. Escape gamers (n = 20) had greater flow and positive affect while playing an RPG (Experiment 1) than did non-escape players (n = 19), but escape (n = 22) and non-escape (n = 22) gamers did not differ in flow and affect when playing a platform game (Experiment 2). Gaming to escape was significantly correlated with depression in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed that escape gaming was associated with problem video gaming and mindfulness problems. These findings suggest that escape gamers may find relief through the enjoyment of experiencing flow, but only in immersive games.RésuméLa pratique des jeux vidéo comme moyen de s’évader de la vie quotidienne est associée au problème de la dépendance au jeu et à la dépression. Cette motivation s’observe particulièrement chez les adeptes de jeux de rôle. Étant donné la nature fortement immersive de ces derniers, l’expérience gratifiante que procure la fluidité/l’immersion pourrait être une source possible d’affect positif pour les joueurs déprimés. Nous avons voulu savoir si les joueurs qui disent pratiquer les jeux vidéo par désir d’évasion font davantage l’expérience de la fluidité dans le cadre des jeux de rôle que dans les plateformes de jeux de type arcade. Dans la 1re expérience, nous avons évalué la symptomatologie dépressive et les motivations chez 56 joueurs dans le cadre d’un jeu de rôle. Nous avons mesuré le degré d’excitation subjective, de fluidité et d’affect positif au terme de deux situations de jeu suivant un modèle ABBA (A correspondant à un jeu simplifié, B à un jeu pleinement immersif). Dans la 2e expérience, 65 joueurs ont joué à un simple jeu de plateforme (tout en évaluant leur degré de dépendance aux jeux vidéo et leur capacité d’attention). Dans chaque cas, on a comparé les résultats des tertiles supérieur et inférieur relativement au désir d’évasion. Les joueurs en quête d’évasion (n=20) ont montré une fluidité et un affect positif supérieurs par rapport aux autres joueurs (n=19) dans le cadre du jeu de rôle (1re expérience); toutefois, aucune différence n’a été relevée entre les deux groupes, ni sur le plan de la fluidité, ni sur le plan de l’affect, dans le cadre du jeu de plateforme (2e expérience). La pratique des jeux vidéo comme moyen d’évasion est fortement corrélée avec la dépression dans la 1re expérience; la 2e montre qu’elle est associée à la dépendance au jeu et à des problèmes de capacité d’attention. Ces résultats laissent penser que le plaisir associé à l’expérience de la fluidité procure peut-être aux joueurs qui pratiquent les jeux vidéo un sentiment de soulagement, mais que cela se produirait uniquement dans les jeux immersifs.

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Thorne, Hannah Briony, Belinda Goodwin, Erika Langham, Matthew Rockloff, and Judy Rose. "Preferred electronic gaming machine environments of recreational versus problem gamblers: An in-venue mixed methods study." Journal of Gambling Issues, no. 34 (August 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.4309/jgi.2016.34.12.

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The aim of the current study was to examine the different EGM environmental preferences of recreational compared to problem gamblers in Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 59 EGM gamblers recruited from EGM venues in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia. Interview data were organised using a thematic analysis into 42 major environmental features that gamblers identified as being of importance in choosing where and what to play. The frequency with which certain environmental characteristics were mentioned was analysed quantitatively, along with demographic information and PGSI status. Results showed that the most common reason for selecting the gambling platform was social, and in-venue gambling was largely but not exclusively preferred for this reason. The most frequently mentioned reason for selecting the provider was based on being close to home and enjoying the service at the venue. Finally, games were frequently selected based on features such as free spins, minimum bet sizes, graphics and in-game sounds. The survey results identified that persons experiencing gambling problems more frequently mentioned the availability of a number of game choices and the perceived potential for winning as important aspects in choosing an EGM environment. This study provides some preliminary evidence on what features of the EGM environment are important to players, and most conducive to safer gambling environments. The findings from this study will inform policy initiatives for player protection through the development of safer EGM gambling environments.L’objectif de la présente étude était d’examiner les différentes préférences quant à l’environnement d’un site d’appareils de loterie vidéo entre les joueurs qui font un usage récréatif de ces appareils et les joueurs à problèmes en Australie. Des entrevues semi-dirigées ont été menées auprès de 59 utilisateurs d’appareils de loterie vidéo recrutés dans divers lieux où de tels appareils sont accessibles dans le Queensland et en Nouvelle-Galles-du-Sud (Australie). Une analyse thématique des données des entrevues a permis d’organiser les données en 42 grandes caractéristiques environnementales ayant de l’importance pour les joueurs dans le choix d’un jeu et de l’endroit où jouer. La fréquence dans laquelle certaines caractéristiques environnementales ont été mentionnées a fait l’objet d’une analyse quantitative, de même que les données démographiques et l’indice de gravité du jeu problématique des joueurs. Les résultats indiquent que les raisons les plus communes pour le choix d’une plateforme de jeux étaient d’ordre social, et que, par conséquent, la préférence était en grande partie, mais non exclusivement, accordée aux espaces de jeu situés dans des lieux publics. La raison la plus fréquemment mentionnée pour le choix d’un lieu de jeu était la courte distance de la résidence et les services offerts par l’établissement. Enfin, le choix des jeux reposait généralement sur des caractéristiques comme l’offre de parties gratuites, le montant minimal des mises et les effets visuels et sonores du jeu. Les résultats de l’enquête indiquent que les personnes aux prises avec des problèmes de jeu mentionnaient plus fréquemment, parmi les caractéristiques importantes pour le choix d’un site d’appareils de loterie vidéo, l’éventail des jeux offerts et la perception d’une plus grande possibilité de gagner. Cette étude fournit de manière préliminaire des données probantes sur les caractéristiques environnementales des sites d’appareils de loterie vidéo qui sont importantes pour les joueurs et sur celles qui sont les plus propices à la création d’environnements de jeu sécuritaires. Les conclusions de l’étude éclaireront l’élaboration d’initiatives stratégiques visant à protéger les joueurs par l’établissement de sites d’appareils de loterie vidéo sécuritaires.

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Thorne, Hannah Briony, Belinda Goodwin, Erika Langham, Matthew Rockloff, and Judy Rose. "Preferred electronic gaming machine environments of recreational versus problem gamblers: An in-venue mixed methods study." Journal of Gambling Issues, no. 34 (August 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.4309/jgi.v0i34.3965.

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The aim of the current study was to examine the different EGM environmental preferences of recreational compared to problem gamblers in Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 59 EGM gamblers recruited from EGM venues in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia. Interview data were organised using a thematic analysis into 42 major environmental features that gamblers identified as being of importance in choosing where and what to play. The frequency with which certain environmental characteristics were mentioned was analysed quantitatively, along with demographic information and PGSI status. Results showed that the most common reason for selecting the gambling platform was social, and in-venue gambling was largely but not exclusively preferred for this reason. The most frequently mentioned reason for selecting the provider was based on being close to home and enjoying the service at the venue. Finally, games were frequently selected based on features such as free spins, minimum bet sizes, graphics and in-game sounds. The survey results identified that persons experiencing gambling problems more frequently mentioned the availability of a number of game choices and the perceived potential for winning as important aspects in choosing an EGM environment. This study provides some preliminary evidence on what features of the EGM environment are important to players, and most conducive to safer gambling environments. The findings from this study will inform policy initiatives for player protection through the development of safer EGM gambling environments.L’objectif de la présente étude était d’examiner les différentes préférences quant à l’environnement d’un site d’appareils de loterie vidéo entre les joueurs qui font un usage récréatif de ces appareils et les joueurs à problèmes en Australie. Des entrevues semi-dirigées ont été menées auprès de 59 utilisateurs d’appareils de loterie vidéo recrutés dans divers lieux où de tels appareils sont accessibles dans le Queensland et en Nouvelle-Galles-du-Sud (Australie). Une analyse thématique des données des entrevues a permis d’organiser les données en 42 grandes caractéristiques environnementales ayant de l’importance pour les joueurs dans le choix d’un jeu et de l’endroit où jouer. La fréquence dans laquelle certaines caractéristiques environnementales ont été mentionnées a fait l’objet d’une analyse quantitative, de même que les données démographiques et l’indice de gravité du jeu problématique des joueurs. Les résultats indiquent que les raisons les plus communes pour le choix d’une plateforme de jeux étaient d’ordre social, et que, par conséquent, la préférence était en grande partie, mais non exclusivement, accordée aux espaces de jeu situés dans des lieux publics. La raison la plus fréquemment mentionnée pour le choix d’un lieu de jeu était la courte distance de la résidence et les services offerts par l’établissement. Enfin, le choix des jeux reposait généralement sur des caractéristiques comme l’offre de parties gratuites, le montant minimal des mises et les effets visuels et sonores du jeu. Les résultats de l’enquête indiquent que les personnes aux prises avec des problèmes de jeu mentionnaient plus fréquemment, parmi les caractéristiques importantes pour le choix d’un site d’appareils de loterie vidéo, l’éventail des jeux offerts et la perception d’une plus grande possibilité de gagner. Cette étude fournit de manière préliminaire des données probantes sur les caractéristiques environnementales des sites d’appareils de loterie vidéo qui sont importantes pour les joueurs et sur celles qui sont les plus propices à la création d’environnements de jeu sécuritaires. Les conclusions de l’étude éclaireront l’élaboration d’initiatives stratégiques visant à protéger les joueurs par l’établissement de sites d’appareils de loterie vidéo sécuritaires.

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Burwell, Catherine. "New(s) Readers: Multimodal Meaning-Making in AJ+ Captioned Video." M/C Journal 20, no. 3 (June 21, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1241.

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IntroductionIn 2013, Facebook introduced autoplay video into its newsfeed. In order not to produce sound disruptive to hearing users, videos were muted until a user clicked on them to enable audio. This move, recognised as a competitive response to the popularity of video-sharing sites like YouTube, has generated significant changes to the aesthetics, form, and modalities of online video. Many video producers have incorporated captions into their videos as a means of attracting and maintaining user attention. Of course, captions are not simply a replacement or translation of sound, but have instead added new layers of meaning and changed the way stories are told through video.In this paper, I ask how the use of captions has altered the communication of messages conveyed through online video. In particular, I consider the role captions have played in news reporting, as online platforms like Facebook become increasingly significant sites for the consumption of news. One of the most successful producers of online news video has been Al Jazeera Plus (AJ+). I examine two recent AJ+ news videos to consider how meaning is generated when captions are integrated into the already multimodal form of the video—their online reporting of Australian versus US healthcare systems, and the history of the Black Panther movement. I analyse interactions amongst image, sound, language, and typography and consider the role of captions in audience engagement, branding, and profit-making. Sean Zdenek notes that captions have yet to be recognised “as a significant variable in multimodal analysis, on par with image, sound and video” (xiii). Here, I attempt to pay close attention to the representational, cultural and economic shifts that occur when captions become a central component of online news reporting. I end by briefly enquiring into the implications of captions for our understanding of literacy in an age of constantly shifting media.Multimodality in Digital MediaJeff Bezemer and Gunther Kress define a mode as a “socially and culturally shaped resource for meaning making” (171). Modes include meaning communicated through writing, sound, image, gesture, oral language, and the use of space. Of course, all meanings are conveyed through multiple modes. A page of written text, for example, requires us to make sense through the simultaneous interpretation of words, space, colour, and font. Media such as television and film have long been understood as multimodal; however, with the appearance of digital technologies, media’s multimodality has become increasingly complex. Video games, for example, demonstrate an extraordinary interplay between image, sound, oral language, written text, and interactive gestures, while technologies such as the mobile phone combine the capacity to produce meaning through speaking, writing, and image creation.These multiple modes are not simply layered one on top of the other, but are instead “enmeshed through the complexity of interaction, representation and communication” (Jewitt 1). The rise of multimodal media—as well as the increasing interest in understanding multimodality—occurs against the backdrop of rapid technological, cultural, political, and economic change. These shifts include media convergence, political polarisation, and increased youth activism across the globe (Herrera), developments that are deeply intertwined with uses of digital media and technology. Indeed, theorists of multimodality like Jay Lemke challenge us to go beyond formalist readings of how multiple modes work together to create meaning, and to consider multimodality “within a political economy and a cultural ecology of identities, markets and values” (140).Video’s long history as an inexpensive and portable way to produce media has made it an especially dynamic form of multimodal media. In 1974, avant-garde video artist Nam June Paik predicted that “new forms of video … will stimulate the whole society to find more imaginative ways of telecommunication” (45). Fast forward more than 40 years, and we find that video has indeed become an imaginative and accessible form of communication. The cultural influence of video is evident in the proliferation of video genres, including remix videos, fan videos, Let’s Play videos, video blogs, live stream video, short form video, and video documentary, many of which combine semiotic resources in novel ways. The economic power of video is evident in the profitability of video sharing sites—YouTube in particular—as well as the recent appearance of video on other social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.These platforms constitute significant “sites of display.” As Rodney Jones notes, sites of display are not merely the material media through which information is displayed. Rather, they are complex spaces that organise social interactions—for example, between producers and users—and shape how meaning is made. Certainly we can see the influence of sites of display by considering Facebook’s 2013 introduction of autoplay into its newsfeed, a move that forced video producers to respond with new formats. As Edson Tandoc and Julian Maitra write, news organisations have had been forced to “play by Facebook’s frequently modified rules and change accordingly when the algorithms governing the social platform change” (2). AJ+ has been considered one of the media companies that has most successfully adapted to these changes, an adaptation I examine below. I begin by taking up Lemke’s challenge to consider multimodality contextually, reading AJ+ videos through the conceptual lens of the “attention economy,” a lens that highlights the profitability of attention within digital cultures. I then follow with analyses of two short AJ+ videos to show captions’ central role, not only in conveying meaning, but also in creating markets, and communicating branded identities and ideologies.AJ+, Facebook and the New Economies of AttentionThe Al Jazeera news network was founded in 1996 to cover news of the Arab world, with a declared commitment to give “voice to the voiceless.” Since that time, the network has gained global influence, yet many of its attempts to break into the American market have been unsuccessful (Youmans). In 2013, the network acquired Current TV in an effort to move into cable television. While that effort ultimately failed, Al Jazeera’s purchase of the youth-oriented Current TV nonetheless led to another, surprisingly fruitful enterprise, the development of the digital media channel Al Jazeera Plus (AJ+). AJ+ content, which is made up almost entirely of video, is directed at 18 to 35-year-olds. As William Youmans notes, AJ+ videos are informal and opinionated, and, while staying consistent with Al Jazeera’s mission to “give voice to the voiceless,” they also take an openly activist stance (114). Another distinctive feature of AJ+ videos is the way they are tailored for specific platforms. From the beginning, AJ+ has had particular success on Facebook, a success that has been recognised in popular and trade publications. A 2015 profile on AJ+ videos in Variety (Roettgers) noted that AJ+ was the ninth biggest video publisher on the social network, while a story on Journalism.co (Reid, “How AJ+ Reaches”) that same year commented on the remarkable extent to which Facebook audiences shared and interacted with AJ+ videos. These stories also note the distinctive video style that has become associated with the AJ+ brand—short, bold captions; striking images that include photos, maps, infographics, and animations; an effective opening hook; and a closing call to share the video.AJ+ video producers were developing this unique style just as Facebook’s autoplay was being introduced into newsfeeds. Autoplay—a mechanism through which videos are played automatically, without action from a user—predates Facebook’s introduction of the feature. However, autoplay on Internet sites had already begun to raise the ire of many users before its appearance on Facebook (Oremus, “In Defense of Autoplay”). By playing video automatically, autoplay wrests control away from users, and causes particular problems for users using assistive technologies. Reporting on Facebook’s decision to introduce autoplay, Josh Constine notes that the company was looking for a way to increase advertising revenues without increasing the number of actual ads. Encouraging users to upload and share video normalises the presence of video on Facebook, and opens up the door to the eventual addition of profitable video ads. Ensuring that video plays automatically gives video producers an opportunity to capture the attention of users without the need for them to actively click to start a video. Further, ensuring that the videos can be understood when played silently means that both deaf users and users who are situationally unable to hear the audio can also consume its content in any kind of setting.While Facebook has promoted its introduction of autoplay as a benefit to users (Oremus, “Facebook”), it is perhaps more clearly an illustration of the carefully-crafted production strategies used by digital platforms to capture, maintain, and control attention. Within digital capitalism, attention is a highly prized and scarce resource. Michael Goldhaber argues that once attention is given, it builds the potential for further attention in the future. He writes that “obtaining attention is obtaining a kind of enduring wealth, a form of wealth that puts you in a preferred position to get anything this new economy offers” (n.p.). In the case of Facebook, this offers video producers the opportunity to capture users’ attention quickly—in the time it takes them to scroll through their newsfeed. While this may equate to only a few seconds, those few seconds hold, as Goldhaber predicted, the potential to create further value and profit when videos are viewed, liked, shared, and commented on.Interviews with AJ+ producers reveal that an understanding of the value of this attention drives the organisation’s production decisions, and shapes content, aesthetics, and modalities. They also make it clear that it is captions that are central in their efforts to engage audiences. Jigar Mehta, former head of engagement at AJ+, explains that “those first three to five seconds have become vital in grabbing the audience’s attention” (quoted in Reid, “How AJ+ Reaches”). While early videos began with the AJ+ logo, that was soon dropped in favour of a bold image and text, a decision that dramatically increased views (Reid, “How AJ+ Reaches”). Captions and titles are not only central to grabbing attention, but also to maintaining it, particularly as many audience members consume video on mobile devices without sound. Mehta tells an editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab:we think a lot about whether a video works with the sound off. Do we have to subtitle it in order to keep the audience retention high? Do we need to use big fonts? Do we need to use color blocking in order to make words pop and make things stand out? (Mehta, qtd. in Ellis)An AJ+ designer similarly suggests that the most important aspects of AJ+ videos are brand, aesthetic style, consistency, clarity, and legibility (Zou). While questions of brand, style, and clarity are not surprising elements to associate with online video, the matter of legibility is. And yet, in contexts where video is viewed on small, hand-held screens and sound is not an option, legibility—as it relates to the arrangement, size and colour of type—does indeed take on new importance to storytelling and sense-making.While AJ+ producers frame the use of captions as an innovative response to Facebook’s modern algorithmic changes, it makes sense to also remember the significant histories of captioning that their videos ultimately draw upon. This lineage includes silent films of the early twentieth century, as well as the development of closed captions for deaf audiences later in that century. Just as he argues for the complexity, creativity, and transformative potential of captions themselves, Sean Zdenek also urges us to view the history of closed captioning not as a linear narrative moving inevitably towards progress, but as something far more complicated and marked by struggle, an important reminder of the fraught and human histories that are often overlooked in accounts of “new media.” Another important historical strand to consider is the centrality of the written word to digital media, and to the Internet in particular. As Carmen Lee writes, despite public anxieties and discussions over a perceived drop in time spent reading, digital media in fact “involve extensive use of the written word” (2). While this use takes myriad forms, many of these forms might be seen as connected to the production, consumption, and popularity of captions, including practices such as texting, tweeting, and adding titles and catchphrases to photos.Captions, Capture, and Contrast in Australian vs. US HealthcareOn May 4, 2017, US President Donald Trump was scheduled to meet with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in New York City. Trump delayed the meeting, however, in order to await the results of a vote in the US House of Representatives to repeal the Affordable Care Act—commonly known as Obama Care. When he finally sat down with the Prime Minister later that day, Trump told him that Australia has “better health care” than the US, a statement that, in the words of a Guardian report, “triggered astonishment and glee” amongst Trump’s critics (Smith). In response to Trump’s surprising pronouncement, AJ+ produced a 1-minute video extending Trump’s initial comparison with a series of contrasts between Australian government-funded health care and American privatised health care (Facebook, “President Trump Says…”). The video provides an excellent example of the role captions play in both generating attention and creating the unique aesthetic that is crucial to the AJ+ brand.The opening frame of the video begins with a shot of the two leaders seated in front of the US and Australian flags, a diplomatic scene familiar to anyone who follows politics. The colours of the picture are predominantly red, white and blue. Superimposed on top of the image is a textbox containing the words “How does Australia’s healthcare compare to the US?” The question appears in white capital letters on a black background, and the box itself is heavily outlined in yellow. The white and yellow AJ+ logo appears in the upper right corner of the frame. This opening frame poses a question to the viewer, encouraging a kind of rhetorical interactivity. Through the use of colour in and around the caption, it also quickly establishes the AJ+ brand. This opening scene also draws on the Internet’s history of humorous “image macros”—exemplified by the early LOL cat memes—that create comedy through the superimposition of captions on photographic images (Shifman).Captions continue to play a central role in meaning-making once the video plays. In the next frame, Trump is shown speaking to Turnbull. As he speaks, his words—“We have a failing healthcare”—drop onto the screen (Image 1). The captions are an exact transcription of Trump’s awkward phrase and appear centred in caps, with the words “failing healthcare” emphasised in larger, yellow font. With or without sound, these bold captions are concise, easily read on a small screen, and visually dominate the frame. The next few seconds of the video complete the sequence, as Trump tells Turnbull, “I shouldn’t say this to our great gentleman, my friend from Australia, ‘cause you have better healthcare than we do.” These words continue to appear over the image of the two men, still filling the screen. In essence, Trump’s verbal gaffe, transcribed word for word and appearing in AJ+’s characteristic white and yellow lettering, becomes the video’s hook, designed to visually call out to the Facebook user scrolling silently through their newsfeed.Image 1: “We have a failing healthcare.”The middle portion of the video answers the opening question, “How does Australia’s healthcare compare to the US?”. There is no verbal language in this segment—the only sound is a simple synthesised soundtrack. Instead, captions, images, and spatial design, working in close cooperation, are used to draw five comparisons. Each of these comparisons uses the same format. A title appears at the top of the screen, with the remainder of the screen divided in two. The left side is labelled Australia, the right U.S. Underneath these headings, a representative image appears, followed by two statistics, one for each country. For example, the third comparison contrasts Australian and American infant mortality rates (Image 2). The left side of the screen shows a close-up of a mother kissing a baby, with the superimposed caption “3 per 1,000 births.” On the other side of the yellow border, the American infant mortality rate is illustrated with an image of a sleeping baby superimposed with a corresponding caption, “6 per 1,000 births.” Without voiceover, captions do much of the work of communicating the national differences. They are, however, complemented and made more quickly comprehensible through the video’s spatial design and its subtly contrasting images, which help to visually organise the written content.Image 2: “Infant mortality rate”The final 10 seconds of the video bring sound back into the picture. We once again see and hear Trump tell Turnbull, “You have better healthcare than we do.” This image transforms into another pair of male faces—liberal American commentator Chris Hayes and US Senator Bernie Sanders—taken from a MSNBC cable television broadcast. On one side, Hayes says “They do have, they have universal healthcare.” On the other, Sanders laughs uproariously in response. The only added caption for this segment is “Hahahaha!”, the simplicity of which suggests that the video’s target audience is assumed to have a context for understanding Sander’s laughter. Here and throughout the video, autoplay leads to a far more visual style of relating information, one in which captions—working alongside images and layout—become, in Zdenek’s words, a sort of “textual performance” (6).The Black Panther Party and the Textual Performance of Progressive PoliticsReports on police brutality and Black Lives Matters protests have been amongst AJ+’s most widely viewed and shared videos (Reid, “Beyond Websites”). Their 2-minute video (Facebook, Black Panther) commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, viewed 9.5 million times, provides background to these contemporary events. Like the comparison of American and Australian healthcare, captions shape the video’s structure. But here, rather than using contrast as means of quick visual communication, the video is structured as a list of five significant points about the Black Panther Party. Captions are used not only to itemise and simplify—and ultimately to reduce—the party’s complex history, but also, somewhat paradoxically, to promote the news organisation’s own progressive values.After announcing the intent and structure of the video—“5 things you should know about the Black Panther Party”—in its first 3 seconds, the video quickly sets in to describe each item in turn. The themes themselves correspond with AJ+’s own interests in policing, community, and protest, while the language used to announce each theme is characteristically concise and colloquial:They wanted to end police brutality.They were all about the community.They made enemies in high places.Women were vocal and active panthers.The Black Panthers’ legacy is still alive today.Each of these themes is represented using a combination of archival black and white news footage and photographs depicting Black Panther members, marches, and events. These still and moving images are accompanied by audio recordings from party members, explaining its origins, purposes, and influences. Captions are used throughout the video both to indicate the five themes and to transcribe the recordings. As the video moves from one theme to another, the corresponding number appears in the centre of the screen to indicate the transition, and then shrinks and moves to the upper left corner of the screen as a reminder for viewers. A musical soundtrack of strings and percussion, communicating a sense of urgency, underscores the full video.While typographic features like font size, colour, and placement were significant in communicating meaning in AJ+’s healthcare video, there is an even broader range of experimentation here. The numbers 1 to 5 that appear in the centre of the screen to announce each new theme blink and flicker like the countdown at the beginning of bygone film reels, gesturing towards the historical topic and complementing the black and white footage. For those many viewers watching the video without sound, an audio waveform above the transcribed interviews provides a visual clue that the captions are transcriptions of recorded voices. Finally, the colour green, used infrequently in AJ+ videos, is chosen to emphasise a select number of key words and phrases within the short video. Significantly, all of these words are spoken by Black Panther members. For example, captions transcribing former Panther leader Ericka Huggins speaking about the party’s slogan—“All power to the people”—highlight the words “power” and “people” with large, lime green letters that stand out against the grainy black and white photos (Image 3). The captions quite literally highlight ideas about oppression, justice, and social change that are central to an understanding of the history of the Black Panther Party, but also to the communication of the AJ+ brand.Image 3: “All power to the people”ConclusionEmploying distinctive combinations of word and image, AJ+ videos are produced to call out to users through the crowded semiotic spaces of social media. But they also call out to scholars to think carefully about the new kinds of literacies associated with rapidly changing digital media formats. Captioned video makes clear the need to recognise how meaning is constructed through sophisticated interpretive strategies that draw together multiple modes. While captions are certainly not new, an analysis of AJ+ videos suggests the use of novel typographical experiments that sit “midway between language and image” (Stöckl 289). Discussions of literacy need to expand to recognise this experimentation and to account for the complex interactions between the verbal and visual that get lost when written text is understood to function similarly across multiple platforms. In his interpretation of closed captioning, Zdenek provides an insightful list of the ways that captions transform meaning, including their capacity to contextualise, clarify, formalise, linearise and distill (8–9). His list signals not only the need for a deeper understanding of the role of captions, but also for a broader and more vivid vocabulary to describe multimodal meaning-making. Indeed, as Allan Luke suggests, within the complex multimodal and multilingual contexts of contemporary global societies, literacy requires that we develop and nurture “languages to talk about language” (459).Just as importantly, an analysis of captioned video that takes into account the economic reasons for captioning also reminds us of the need for critical media literacies. AJ+ videos reveal how the commercial goals of branding, promotion, and profit-making influence the shape and presentation of news. As meaning-makers and as citizens, we require the capacity to assess how we are being addressed by news organisations that are themselves responding to the interests of economic and cultural juggernauts such as Facebook. In schools, universities, and informal learning spaces, as well as through discourses circulated by research, media, and public policy, we might begin to generate more explicit and critical discussions of the ways that digital media—including texts that inform us and even those that exhort us towards more active forms of citizenship—simultaneously seek to manage, direct, and profit from our attention.ReferencesBezemer, Jeff, and Gunther Kress. “Writing in Multimodal Texts: A Social Semiotic Account of Designs for Learning.” Written Communication 25.2 (2008): 166–195.Constine, Josh. “Facebook Adds Automatic Subtitling for Page Videos.” TechCrunch 4 Jan. 2017. 1 May 2017 <https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/04/facebook-video-captions/>.Ellis, Justin. “How AJ+ Embraces Facebook, Autoplay, and Comments to Make Its Videos Stand Out.” Nieman Labs 3 Aug. 2015. 28 Apr. 2017 <http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/08/how-aj-embraces-facebook-autoplay-and-comments-to-make-its-videos-stand-out/>.Facebook. “President Trump Says…” Facebook, 2017. <https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/954884227986418/>.Facebook. “Black Panther.” Facebook, 2017. <https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/820822028059306/>.Goldhaber, Michael. “The Attention Economy and the Net.” First Monday 2.4 (1997). 9 June 2013 <http://firstmonday.org/article/view/519/440>.Herrera, Linda. “Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt.” Harvard Educational Review 82.3 (2012): 333–352.Jewitt, Carey.”Introduction.” Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. Ed. Carey Jewitt. New York: Routledge, 2009. 1–8.Jones, Rodney. “Technology and Sites of Display.” Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. Ed. Carey Jewitt. New York: Routledge, 2009. 114–126.Lee, Carmen. “Micro-Blogging and Status Updates on Facebook: Texts and Practices.” Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media. Eds. Crispin Thurlow and Kristine Mroczek. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2011. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199795437.001.0001.Lemke, Jay. “Multimodality, Identity, and Time.” Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. Ed. Carey Jewitt. New York: Routledge, 2009. 140–150.Luke, Allan. “Critical Literacy in Australia: A Matter of Context and Standpoint.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43.5 (200): 448–461.Oremus, Will. “Facebook Is Eating the Media.” National Post 14 Jan. 2015. 15 June 2017 <http://news.nationalpost.com/news/facebook-is-eating-the-media-how-auto-play-videos-could-put-news-websites-out-of-business>.———. “In Defense of Autoplay.” Slate 16 June 2015. 14 June 2017 <http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/06/autoplay_videos_facebook_twitter_are_making_them_less_annoying.html>.Paik, Nam June. “The Video Synthesizer and Beyond.” The New Television: A Public/Private Art. Eds. Douglas Davis and Allison Simmons. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977. 45.Reid, Alistair. “Beyond Websites: How AJ+ Is Innovating in Digital Storytelling.” Journalism.co 17 Apr. 2015. 13 Feb. 2017 <https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/beyond-websites-how-aj-is-innovating-in-digital-storytelling/s2/a564811/>.———. “How AJ+ Reaches 600% of Its Audience on Facebook.” Journalism.co. 5 Aug. 2015. 13 Feb. 2017 <https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-aj-reaches-600-of-its-audience-on-facebook/s2/a566014/>.Roettgers, Jank. “How Al Jazeera’s AJ+ Became One of the Biggest Video Publishers on Facebook.” Variety 30 July 2015. 1 May 2017 <http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/how-al-jazeeras-aj-became-one-of-the-biggest-video-publishers-on-facebook-1201553333/>.Shifman, Limor. Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.Smith, David. “Trump Says ‘Everybody’, Not Just Australia, Has Better Healthcare than US.” The Guardian 5 May 2017. 5 May 2017 <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/trump-healthcare-australia-better-malcolm-turnbull>.Stöckl, Hartmut. “Typography: Visual Language and Multimodality.” Interactions, Images and Texts. Eds. Sigrid Norris and Carmen Daniela Maier. Amsterdam: De Gruyter, 2014. 283–293.Tandoc, Edson, and Maitra, Julian. “New Organizations’ Use of Native Videos on Facebook: Tweaking the Journalistic Field One Algorithm Change at a Time. New Media & Society (2017). DOI: 10.1177/1461444817702398.Youmans, William. An Unlikely Audience: Al Jazeera’s Struggle in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.Zdenek, Sean. Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Media and Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.Zou, Yanni. “How AJ+ Applies User-Centered Design to Win Millennials.” Medium 16 Apr. 2016. 7 May 2017 <https://medium.com/aj-platforms/how-aj-applies-user-centered-design-to-win-millennials-3be803a4192c>.

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Servais, Olivier, and Sarah Sepulchre. "Towards an Ordinary Transmedia Use: A French Speaker’s Transmedia Use of Worlds in Game of Thrones MMORPG and Series." M/C Journal 21, no. 1 (March 14, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1367.

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Game of Thrones (GoT) has become the most popular way of referring to a universe that was previously known under the title A Song of Ice and Fire by fans of fantasy novels. Indeed, thanks to its huge success, the TV series is now the most common entry into what is today a complex narrative constellation. Game of Thrones began as a series of five novels written by George R. R. Martin (first published in 1996). It was adapted as a TV series by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for HBO in 2011, as a comic book series (2011—2014), several video games (Blood of Dragons, 2007; A Game of Thrones: Genesis, 2011; Game of Thrones, 2012; Game of Thrones Ascent, 2013; Game of Thrones, 2014), as well as several prequel novellas, a card game (A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, 2002), and a strategy board game (2003), not to mention the promotional transmedia developed by Campfire to bring the novels’ fans to the TV series. Thus, the GoT ensemble does indeed look like a form of transmedia, at least at first sight.Game of Thrones’ UniverseGenerally, definitions of transmedia assemble three elements. First, transmedia occurs when the content is developed on several media, “with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. … Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained so you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game, and vice versa” (Jenkins 97-98). The second component is the narrative world. The authors of Transmédia Dans Tous Ses États notice that transmedia stories “are in some cases reduced to a plain link between two contents on two media, with no overall vision” (Collective 4). They consider these ensembles weak. For Gambarato, the main point of transmedia is “the worldbuilding experience, unfolding content and generating the possibilities for the story to evolve with new and pertinent content,” what Jenkins called “worldmaking” (116). The third ingredient is the audience. As the narrative extends itself over several platforms, consumers’ participation is essential. “To fully experience any fictional world, consumers must assume the role of hunters and gatherers, chasing down bits of the story across media channels” (Jenkins 21).The GoT constellation does not precisely match this definition. In the canonical example examined by Jenkins, The Matrix, the whole was designed from the beginning of the project. That was not the case for GoT, as the transmedia development clearly happened once the TV series had become a success. Not every entry in this ensemble unfolds new aspects of the world, as the TV series is an adaptation of the novels (until the sixth season when it overtook the books). Not every component is self-contained, as the novels and TV series are at the narrative system’s centre. This narrative ensemble more closely matches the notion of “modèle satellitaire” conceived by Saint-Gelais, where one element is the first chronologically and hierarchically. However, this statement does not devalue the GoT constellation, as the canonical definition is rarely actualized (Sepulchre “La Constellation Transmédiatique,” Philipps, Gambarato “Transmedia”), and as transmedia around TV series are generally developed after the first season, once the audience is stabilized. What is most noticeable about GoT is the fact that the TV series has probably replaced the novels as the centre of the ensemble.Under the influence of Jenkins, research on transmedia has often come to be related to fan studies. In this work, he describes very active and connected users. Research in game studies also shows that gamers are creative and form communities (Berry 155-207). However, the majority of these studies focused on hardcore fans or hardcore gamers (Bourdaa; Chen; Davis; Jenkins; Peyron; Stein). Usual users are less studied, especially for such transmedia practices.Main Question and MethodologyDue to its configuration, and the wide spectrum of users’ different levels of involvement, the GoT constellation offers an occasion to confront two audiences and their practices. GoT transmedia clearly targets both fiction lovers and gamers. The success of the franchise has led to heavy consumption of transmedia elements, even by fans who had never approached transmedia before, and may allow us to move beyond the classical analysis. That’s why, in that preliminary research, by comparing TV series viewers in general with a quite specific part of them, ordinary gamers of the videogame GOT Ascent, we aim to evaluate transmedia use in the GOT community. The results on viewers are part of a broader research project on TV series and transmedia. The originality of this study focuses on ordinary viewers, not fans. The goal is to understand if they are familiar with transmedia, if they develop transmedia practices, and why. The paper is based on 52 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2012 (11) and 2013 (41). Consumers of fictional extensions of TV series and fans of TV series were selected. The respondents are around twenty years old, university students, white, mostly female (42 women, 10 men), and are not representative outside the case study. Therefore, the purpose of this first empirical sample was simply to access ordinary GOT viewers’ behaviours, and to elaborate an initial landscape of their use of different media in the same world.After that, we focused our analysis on one specific community, a subset of the GOT’s universe’s users, that is, players of the GoT Ascent videogame (we use “gamers” as synonym for “players” and “users”). Through this online participative observation, we try to analyse the players’ attitudes, and evaluate the nature of their involvement from a user perspective (Servais). Focusing on one specific medium in the GOT constellation should allow us to further flesh out the general panorama on transmedia, by exploring involvement in one particular device more deeply. Our purpose in that is to identify whether the players are transmedia users, and so GoT fans, or if they are firstly players. During a three month in-game ethnography, in June-August 2013, we played Aren Gorn, affiliated to House Tyrell, level 91, and member of “The Winter is Dark and Full of Terrors” Alliance (2500 members). Following an in-game ethnography (Boellstorff 123-134), we explored gamers’ playing attitudes inside the interface.The Users, TV Series, and TransmediaThe respondents usually do not know what transmedia is, even if a lot of them (36) practice it. Those who are completely unaware that a narrative world can be spread over several media are rare. Only ten of them engage in fan practices (cosplay, a kind of costuming community, fan-fiction, and fan-vidding, that is fans who write fiction or make remix videos set in the world they love), which tends to show that transmedia does not only concern fans.Most of the ordinary viewers are readers, as 23 of them cite books (True Blood, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Les Piliers de la Terre), one reads a recipe book (Plus Belle la Vie), and seven consume comics (The Walking Dead, Supernatural). They do not distinguish between novelisation (the novel adapted from a TV series) and the original book. Other media are also consumed, however a lot less: animation series, special episodes on the Internet, music, movies, websites (blogs, fictional websites), factual websites (about the story, the production, actors), fan-fiction, and cosplay.Transmedia does not seem to be a strong experience. Céline and Ioana respectively read the novels adapted from Plus Belle la Vie and Gossip Girl, but don’t like them. “It is written like a script … There’s no description, only the dialogues between characters” (Ioana). Lora watched some webisodes of Cougar Town but didn’t find them funny. Aurélie has followed the Twitter of Sookie Stackouse (True Blood) and Guilleaume D. sometimes consumes humoristic content on 9gag, but irregularly. “It’s not my thing” (Aurélie). The participants are even more critical of movies, especially the sequels of Sex and the City.That does not mean the respondents always reject transmedia components. First, they enjoy elements that are not supposed to belong to the world. These may be fan productions or contents they personally inject into the universe. Several have done research on the story’s topic: Alizée investigated mental disorders to understand United States of Tara; Guilleaume G. wandered around on Google Earth to explore Albuquerque (Breaking Bad); for Guilleaume D., Hugh Laurie’s music album is part of the character of Gregory House; Julie adores Peter Pan and, for her, Once Upon A Time, Finding Neverland, and Hook are part of the same universe. Four people particularly enjoy when the fictional characters’ couples are duplicated by real relationships between actors (which may explain all the excitement surrounding Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie’s real-life love story, paralleling their characters’ romance on GOT). If there is a transmedia production, it seems that there is also a kind of “transmedia reception,” as viewers connect heteroclite elements to build a coherent world of their own. Some respondents even develop a creative link to the world: writing fan-fiction, poetry, or building scale models (but that is not this paper’s topic, see Sepulchre “Les Constellations Narratives”, “Editorial”).A second element they appreciate is the GOT TV series. Approximately half of the respondents cite GoT (29/52). They are not fundamentally different from the other viewers except that more of them have fan practices (9 vs. 1), and a few more develop transmedia consumption (76% against 61%). To the very extent that there is consensus over the poor quality of the novels (in general), A Song of Ice and Fire seems to have seduced every respondent. Loic usually hates reading; his relatives have pointed out to him that he has read more with GoT than in his entire lifetime. Marie D. finds the novels so good that she stopped watching the TV series. Marine insists she generally reads fan-fiction because she hates the novelisations, but the GoT books are the only good ones. The novels apparently allow a deeper immersion into the world and that is the manifest benefit of consuming them. Guilleaume G. appreciates the more detailed descriptions. Céline, Florentin, Ioana, and Marine like to access the characters’ thoughts. Julie thinks she feels the emotions more deeply when she reads. Sometimes, the novels can change their opinions on a character. Emilie finds Sansa despicable in the TV series, but the books led her to understand her sensibility.Videogames & TransmediaThe vast majority of transmedia support from the GoT universe primarily targets “world lovers,” that is, users involved in media uses because they love the fantasy of the universe. However, only video games allow a personalized incarnation as a hero over a long term of time, and thus a customized active appropriation. This is in fact undoubtedly why the GoT universe’s transmedia galaxy has also been deployed in video games. GOT Ascent is a strategy game edited by Disruptor Beam, an American company specialising in TV games. Released in February 2013, the franchise attracted up to 9,000,000 players in 2014, but only 295,107 monthly active users. This significant difference between the accumulated number of players and those actually active (around 3 %) may well testify that those investing in this game are probably not a community of gamers.Combining role playing and strategy game, GoT Ascent is designed in a logic that deeply integrates the elements, not only from the TV series, but also from books and other transmedia extensions. In GoT Ascent, gamers play a small house affiliated to one of the main clans of Westeros. During the immersive game experience, the player participates in all the GoT stories from an insider’s point of view. The game follows the various GoT books, resulting in an extension whenever a new volume is published. The player interacts with others by PVE (Player versus Environment) or PVP (Player versus Player) alliances with a common chat and the possibility of sending goods to other members. With a fair general score (4,1 on 10), the game is evaluated weakly by the players (JeuxOnLine). Hence a large majority of them are probably not looking for that kind of experience.If we focus on the top players in GoT Ascent, likely representing those most invested, it is interesting to examine the names they choose. Indeed, that choice often reveals the player’s intention, either to refer to a gamer logic or the universe of GoT. During our research, we clearly distinguished two types of names, self-referential ones or those referring to the player’s general pseudonym. In concrete terms, the name is a declination of a pseudonym of more general avatars, or else refers to other video game worlds than GoT. In GoT Ascent, the second category of names, those very clearly anchored in the world of Martin, are clearly dominant.Is it possible to correlate the name chosen and the type of player? Can we affirm that people who choose a name not related to the GoT universe are players and that the others are GoT fans? Probably not obviously, but the consistency of a character’s name with the universe is, in the GoT case, very important for an immersive experience. The books’ author has carefully crafted his surnames and, in the game, assuming a name is therefore very clearly a symbolically important act in the desire to roleplay in that universe. Choosing one that is totally out of sync with the game world clearly means you are not there to immerse yourself in the spirit of GoT, but to play. In short, the first category is representative of the gamers, but the players are not restricted to those naming their avatar out of the world’s spirit.This intuition is confirmed by a review of the names related to the rank of the players. When we studied high-level players, we realized that most of them use humorous names, which are totally out of the mood of the GoT universe. Thus, in 2013, the first ranked player in terms of power was called Flatulence, a French term that is part of a humorous semantics. Yet this type of denomination is not limited to the first of the list. Out the top ten players, only two used plausible GoT names. However, as soon as one leaves the game’s elite’s sphere, the plausible names are quickly in the majority. There is a sharp opposition between the vast majority of players, who obviously try to match the world, and pure gamers.We found the same logic for the names of the Alliances, the virtual communities of players varying from a few to hundreds. Three Alliances have achieved the #1 rank in the game in the game’s first two years: Hear Me Roar (February 2013), Fire and Blood (January 2014), and Kong's Landing (September 2014). Two of those Alliances are of a more humoristic bent. However, an investigation into the 400 alliances demonstrates that fewer than 5 % have a clear humoristic signification. We might estimate that in GoT Ascent the large majority of players increase their immersive experience by choosing a GoT role play related Alliance name. We can conclude that they are mainly GoT fans playing the game, and that they seek to lend the world coherence. The high-level players are an exception. Inside GOT Ascent, the dominant culture remains connected to the GoT world.ConclusionA transmedia story is defined by its networked configuration, “worldmaking,” and users’ involvement. The GoT constellation is clearly a weak ensemble (Sepulchre, 2012). However, it has indeed developed on several platforms. Furthermore, the relationship between the novels and the TV series is quite unprecedented. Indeed, both elements are considered as qualitative, and the TV series has become the main entry for many fans. Thus, both of them acquire an equal authority.The GoT transmedia storyworld also unfolds a fictional world and depends on users’ activities, but in a peculiar way. If the viewers and gamers are analysed from fan or game studies perspectives, they appear to be weak users. Indeed, they do not seek new components; they are mainly readers and do not enjoy the transmedia experience; the players are not regular ones; and they are much less creative and humorous than high-level gamers.These weak practices have, however, one function: to prolong the pleasure of the fictional world, which is the third characteristic of transmedia. The players experiment with GoT Ascent by incarnating characters inserted into Alliances whose names may exist in the original world. This appears to be a clear attempt to become immersed in the universe. The ordinary viewers appreciate the deeper experience the novels allow. When they feed the world with unexpected elements, it is also to improve the world.Thus, transmedia appropriation by users is a reality, motivated by a taste for the universe, even if it is a weak consumption in comparison with the demanding, creative, and sometimes iconoclastic practices gamers and fans usually develop. It is obvious, in both fields, that they are new TV series fans (they quote mainly recent shows) and beginners in the world of games. For a significant part of them, GoT was probably their first time developing transmedia practices.However, GoT Ascent is not well evaluated by gamers and many of them do not repeat the experience (as the monthly number of gamers shows). Likewise, the ordinary viewers neglect the official transmedia components as too marketing oriented. The GoT novels are the exception proving the rule. They demonstrate that users are quite selective: they are not satisfied with weak elements. The question that this paper cannot answer is: was GoT a first experience? Will they persevere in the future? Yet, in this preliminary research, we have seen that studying ordinary users’ weak involvement (series viewers or gamers) is an interesting path in elaborating a theory of transmedia user’s activities, which takes the public’s diversity into account.ReferencesBerry, Vincent. L’Expérience Virtuelle: Jouer, Vivre, Apprendre Dans un Jeu Video. Rennes: UP Rennes, 2012.Boellstorff, Tom. “A Typology of Ethnographic Scales for Virtual Worlds.” Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. Ed. William Sim Bainbridge. London: Springer, 2009.Bourdaa, Mélanie. “Taking a Break from All Your Worries: Battlestar Galactica et Les Nouvelles Pratiques Télévisuelles des Fans.” Questions de Communication 22 (2012) 2014. <http://journals.openedition.org/questionsdecommunication/6917>.Chen, Mark. Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of An Expert Player Group in World of Warcraft. New York: Peter Lang, 2012.Collective. Le Transmédia Dans Tous Ses États: Les Cahiers de Veille de la Fondation Télécom. Paris: Fondation Télécom, 2012. 29 Dec. 2017 <https://www.fondation-mines-telecom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2012-cahier-veille-transmedia.pdf\>.Davis, C.H. “Audience Value and Transmedia Products.” Media Innovations. Eds. T. Storsul and A. Krumsvik. Gothenburg: Nordicom, 2013. 179-190.Gambarato, Renira. “How to Analyze Transmedia Narratives?” Conference New Media: Changing Media Landscapes. Saint Petersburg, 2012. 2017 <http://prezi.com/fovz0jrlfsn0/how-to-analyze-transmedia-narratives>.Gambarato, Renira. “Transmedia Storytelling.” Serious Science, 2016. 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thZnd_K8Vfs>.Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. Updated ed. New York: New York UP, 2006.JeuxOnLine. “Game of Thrones Ascent.” 2013. <http://www.jeuxonline.info/jeu/Game_of_Thrones_Ascent>.Peyron, David. Culture Geek. Limoges: FYP Editions, 2013.Philipps, Andrea. A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling: How to Captivate and Engage Audiences across Multiple Platforms. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2012.Saint-Gelais, Richard. Fictions Transfuges. La Transfictionnalité et Ses Enjeux. Paris: Seuil, 2011.Sepulchre, S. Le Transmédia Dans Tous Ses États: Les Cahiers de Veille de la Fondation Télécom. Paris: Fondation Télécom, 2012. 29 Dec. 2017 <https://www.fondation-mines-telecom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2012-cahier-veille-transmedia.pdf>.———. “La Constellation Transmédiatique de Breaking Bad: Analyse de la Complémentarité Trouvée entre la Télévision et Internet.” ESSACHESS-Journal for Communication 4.1 (2011). 29 Dec. 2017 <http://www.essachess.com/index.php/jcs/article/view/111>. ———. “Les Constellations Narratives: Que Font les Téléspectateurs des Adaptations Multimédiatiques des Séries Télévisées?” TV/Series 3 (2013). 29 Dec. 2017 <http://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/729>. ———. “Editorial.” Inter Pares: Revue Électronique de Jeunes Chercheurs en Sciences Humains et Sociales 6 (2016). 29 Dec. 2017 <https://epic.univ-lyon2.fr/medias/fichier/inter-pares-6-maquette-v8web_1510576660265-pdf>.Servais, Olivier. “Funerals in the “World of Warcraft”: Religion, Polemic, and Styles of Play in a Videogame Universe.” Social Compass 62.3 (2015): 362-378.Stein, Louisa Ellen, and Kristina Busse. Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC series. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014.

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