| 1. |
- Dymek, Mikolaj, 1978-
(author)
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Industrial Phantasmagoria : Subcultural Interactive Cinema Meets Mass-Cultural Media of Simulation
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The video game industry has in three decades gone from a garage hobby to a global multi-billion euro media industry that challenges the significantly older and established cultural industries. After decades of explosive growth the industry surprisingly finds itself in a crisis – in terms of sales, future trajectories and creative paradigms. The global gaming culture receives substantial attention from society, media and academia – but the industry itself appears in comparison as an enigmatic terra incognita with astonishingly little dedicated research. This thesis aims to amend this situation by presenting a study at the cross-section of the video game industry, game studies, literary theory, cultural industries and business studies. It deals with the following question: how does the global game industry relate to its own product, in terms of communication and media dimensions, and what are the (business) consequences, in terms of production, strategy and commercial/creative innovation, of this relationship? This study’s departure point is constituted by a comprehensive description of the industry’s structure, dynamics and processes, based on extensive interviews with industry professionals. It is followed by an examination and comparison of the game industry with other media/cultural industries in relation to their economy and business dynamics. With inconclusive answers regarding the medium-industry relation, this study proceeds by exploring literary theories from the field of game studies, in order to gain insights into the dynamics of medium and industry. Literary theories from ludology and narratology provide rewarding perspectives on this inquiry, since it is found that the ontological dichotomy of simulation vs. respresentation present in the interpretational realm of the game medium is also reflected in the industry and its dynamics. This has pivotal consequences for the analysis of the game industry. This study concludes by positing the current critical condition of the industry as an extremely decisive moment in its history: will it become a truly universal mass-medium, or will it continue down its subcultural path? Subcultural “interactive cinema” meets mass-cultural media of simulation – how will the industry evolve?
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| 2. |
- Lundberg, Hans, 1967-
(author)
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Kommunikativt entreprenörskap : Underhållningsidrott som totalupplevelse före, under och efter formeringen av den svenska upplevelseindustrin 1999-2008
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In 2003, sixteen Swedish humanists proposed the idea of a communicative democracy. Same year, leading Scandinavian organizational theory scholars proposed that Scandinavian welfare states efforts to revitalize their democracies can be understood as ”a movement toward the development of a more charismatic and communicative model of leadership [where] focus has shifted to the organization of communication processes and the necessity of including several viewpoints in decision processes and public debates” (Byrkjeflot, 2003). The sixteen humanists proposed that the core of this way of making sense of post-industrial ICT societies could be understood trough the concepts of technology, democracy and academy (Kylhammar & Battail, 2003).In agreement with such line of thinking, the point of departure for this study is that a communicative democracy hardly can be generative without a fourth concept, the entrepreneur, which infuses agency to the humanist’s promising but rather structurally oriented conceptualization. The entrepreneurial agency is far from being an unproblematic one, though. As a celebrated form of agency in contemporary societies, to such an extent that the entrepreneur ”stands as a powerful creature capable of summoning the energies of the market society through sheer will power, creating the magic of entrepreneurship” (Rehn & Taalas, 2004), one better think twice about the sort of magic brought in.Invited here, with the purpose of empirically describing and theoretically introducing communicative entrepreneurship, is the rough-and-tumble secular magic of sports as entertainment. Guttmann (1978) declared sports being ”among the most discussed and least understood phenomena of our time”, a catchy but relevant slogan for an industry that at one hand generates an intense communicative presence in contemporary societies – “Sporting metaphors saturate everyday language […] sporting expressions pepper political, economic, educational and social discussions” (Booth, 2004) – but on the other hand is in the outskirts of the nowadays so embraced creative industry, as sports was excluded from the formative efforts undertaken by the Knowledge Foundation (KK-stiftelsen) when the Swedish version of the creative industry, the experience industry, was generated via innovative forms of communicative entrepreneurship.This tension between the proper and the grotesque is intriguing. Therefore – being a life philosophy for thousands of athletes and millions of their followers, an extremely detailed applied science, a globally omnipresent form of popular culture, a practice that since the rise of Olympism discursively is rooted in religion, and a multibillion dollar industry in which many stakeholders invest and extract their shares – the multidimensional practice of sports and entertainment and its communicative capacity is scrutinized via a close reading methodology termed genealogical storytelling (Hjorth, 2004).
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| 3. |
- Ihrfors, Robert, 1969-
(author)
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Spelfrossa : Spelets makt och maktens spel
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In Sweden, there has been a major change in the role of gambling during the 20th century. Gambling used to be morally and ethically unjustifiable and something to be fought, whereas gambling today is seen as a normal activity, not only accepted by the society, but in some situations something to be en-couraged. The attitude towards gambling is that it stimulates, motivates, encourages creativity, and also brings pleasure and excitement. It generates national incomes, supports organizational activities and has become an im-portant factor in the Swedish regional planning. Today our values concern-ing gambling are governed by the possible immorality that can arise around it, such as risk with illegal activity coupled to gambling and the increasing debate around problem gambling. The ‘normalisation’ of gambling creates new boundaries for what is to be seen as, and what is an acceptable level, of gambling. As a consequence each individual has been given the responsibil-ity to respect this level. New boundaries create series of conflicts associated to what is normal and what is not, and our society has to find an acceptable balance. We have to respect the individual, our individuality, our right to spend our money and leisure time in a way that suits us. On the other hand, the society has a responsibility towards its citizens to make sure gambling will have no negative social consequences. This dissertation studies Swedish parliament documentation on gambling applying Michel Foucault’s method of genealogy. Starting from his theory of power a description of the development of the Swedish debate on gambling is given. It thereby sheds light on the game of truth within a discourse as well as the disciplinary impact discourses have on society.
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| 4. |
- Svendsen, Jens Martin, 1953-
(author)
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Gör som jag säger! igen och igen : om lojalitet och lek i marknadsföringen: en beskrivning av legitimeringssystematik
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Marknadsföring bildar ett system av kompetenser baserade på kunskap om förfarande. Beroende på hur förfarandet är beskrivet så faller kunskapen ut. Genom att undersöka beskrivningarnas systematik, både vad gäller meningsinnehåll och sammansättning, undersöker texten beskrivningarnas system för legitimering av handlingsalternativ och handlingsrekommendationer: hur denna systematik bildar sambandet mellan är:et och bör:et behandlas. Avslutningsvis ställs en beskrivning av repetitivt förfarande mot en annan beskrivning av samma förfarande – leken. Genom denna kontrasterande beskrivning blir Forskarens (Rekommenderarens) och Hanterarens roller tydliga: beskrivningarna bestämmer de möjliga handlingsalternativen och legitimerar dem, beskrivningarna bestämmer också implicit vilken roll som Forskaren och Hanteraren liksom Kunden (Konsumenten) och den Anställde får. Beskrivningarna bildar – förutom att vara en beskrivning av vad som finns i världen i termer av ting, händelser, egenskaper och rättigheter – också en slags tillskrivande av roller, möjligheter och legitimitet.
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| 5. |
- Abrahamsson, Christian, 1977-
(author)
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Topoi/graphein
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to map the paradoxical limit of the in-between. In its most basic form the thesis is a paradox in itself, for how am I to comprehend and communicate the ever-changing world in a language which is characterised by fixed points and stable relations? The thesis consists of three main parts: a prologue, six chapters and an epilogue. Each of these parts can be read separatly, but togheter they form a set of conceptual maps whose focus is on the displacements, transpositions, juxtapositions, fluctuations and transformations that fill the gap between delimited categories. In the prologue, Primo Levi's question from Auschwitz – "is this a human being?" – is transposed into the infamous images from Abu Ghraib. The prologue is followed by a section entitled Topoi/graphies, in total six chapters organized into two columns with three chapters in each. In the first pair of chapters we are in the taken-for-granted space of identity thinking, the world of the Euclidian fixed point. In the second pair the taken-for-granted universe of the fixed point has all but evaporated and we are instead witnessing how relations are being stabilized. In the third pair there is the horror of neither fixed points nor relations. Rephrased, the six chapters enact a journey that starts within a fixed spatiality in which human thought-and-action is anchored in the given of identity. It then moves through a social world in which the spatio-temporal transformations are neither fixed nor taken-for-granted. Finally it edges into a pure temporality that lies beyond the maps of fixed points and social relations.It is in its own topic that the thesis cannot come to a definite conclusion. The epilogue nevertheless reaches out for a conceptual synthesis – nine minimalist figures with accompanying texts.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Jensen, Tommy Nöhr
(author)
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Översättningar av konkurrens i ekonomiska laboratorier : Om ekonomiska teoriers förenkling, komplexitet och fördunkling i hälso- och sjukvården
- 2004
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- FRAGMENTERAD SAMMANFATTNINGAktörerna i Stockholms läns landsting simulerar marknad och konkurrens och är väl medvetna om att de gör detta (Den Stora Upphandlingen; en inre marknad inom ramen för en förvaltningsstyrd struktur). Det är inte det denna alternativa berättelse om konkurrens avslöjar. Aktörerna vet precis vad de försöker göra när de försöker organisera hälso- och sjukvården i Stockholms läns landsting genom att låta sig influeras av andra ”världar”. En särskilt relevant ”annan värld” är ekonomen och ekonomisk teori. Men i den till synes medvetna processen händer något, det uppstår komplexitet; det uppträder många olika världar som cirkulerar i Stockholms läns landsting. Men översättningsprocessen av konkurrens stannar inte här. Aktörerna intensifierar sina ansträngningar för att komma tillrätta med det som blivit komplicerat. Nya förslag på hur hälso- och sjukvården ska organiseras konstrueras, där var och en för fram Det Bästa Sättet för att komma till rätta med de observerade problemen. Situationen och tillvaron blir fördunklad och ekonomisk teori har nu översatts så många gånger, av så många olika aktörer, att det cirkulerar otaliga kopior av den. Det är processen av förenkling, komplexitet och fördunkling som är essensen i min re-presentation och i mina anspråk på att försöka förstå konkurrensprocesser. En essens som jag fångar och illustrerar med hur aktörer i aktörsnätverk översätter (associerar, enrollerar och etiketterar) den neoklassiska marknaden.Men annat står också på spel. Aktörer översätter såväl människor som ting samtidigt som ting i sin tur influerar mänskliga föreställningar och ageranden. Men tings förmåga att konstruera människor är begränsat eftersom ting agerar utifrån givna koder, en given Ordning, (som givetvis kan bryta samman och ta oanade vägar, till exempel dataprogram), men som i sig är fyllda av mänskliga avsikter och intentioner. Vissa ”sociotekniska” ting är designade att centrera ”världar”, exempelvis Stockholms läns landsting uttryckt i siffror i en årsredovisning. Likafullt är det bara människor som, i processerna av förenkling, komplexitet och fördunkling, kan träda fram och konstruera och centrera heterogent materiella världar, men genom att centrera mängder av heterogena material (såväl människor som ting) förmår ting visa epistemologiska möjligheter för mänskligt agerande. Människor kan med andra ord färdas långt ut i världen med hjälp av ting. En empirisk observation är att ju längre aktörerna, i hälso- och sjukvården i Stockholms läns landsting, reser i de centrerade heterogent materiella världarna desto mer närsynta blir de samtidigt som potentialen att orsaka allvarliga sidoeffekter blir större och större. En annan empirisk observation i studien är att sidoeffekter hanteras på samma sätt i den nationalekonomiska neoklassiska teorin som i hälso- och sjukvårdens praktik, där internaliserade och väl avgränsade ekonomiska transaktioner antas utgöra normen och sidoeffekter undantagen på marknaden. Istället förhåller sig det precis tvärtom: Sidoeffekter är normen och internaliserade och väl avgränsade ekonomiska transaktioner utgör undantagen.
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| 8. |
- Sköld, David, 1976-
(author)
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Bakom den gröna lacken : Den estetiska ekonomins perverterande kärna
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- To better understand the forces propelling the excess which characterizes much of Western society and culture, management scholars increasingly appear to be addressing notions such as play and playfulness. Through a number of narratives, homing in on a do-it-yourself movement within the heavy trucks industry in which users are displaying a keen interest in aesthetic aspects of their work tools, this book attempts to further and complement such discussions. It does so by exploring the creative processes which seem to constitute a certain playfulness, a certain playful practice set on excessive decoration of heavy duty vehicles — a practice which, moreover, appears to be spreading aesthetic values more generally within this industry. From a psychoanalytical perspective, and emphasizing and examining the relationship between fantasy and desire, it argues that in order to understand the driving mechanisms at work in such processes, one has, however, to look beyond the idea of the playful as being something thoroughly harmonic or pleasurable. Drawing mainly on Slavoj Zizek’s readings of the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, it argues that we must instead look beyond the pleasure principle in order to understand why something always emerges, where nothing really seemed to be needed.
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| 9. |
- Wihlman, Thomas, 1949-
(author)
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Innovation in Municipal Welfare Services
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis investigates, analyzes and discusses innovation efforts and the use and understanding of the innovation concept and related policies in municipal welfare services. There are two main themes in the study, policy and practice. It is based on interviews with employees and managers in four Swedish municipalities. Also, an analysis of related policy documents on both a national and local level was done. Methods used were document analysis, thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis.The results indicate differences between management levels in the view of innovation and what was achieved. Senior managers stressed the importance of innovation, but experienced obstacles in the form of old structures, ways of working, and employees lack of time for innovation. Employee innovations achieved were accordingly not acknowledged.Middle managers and employees experienced opportunities for employee-driven innovation (EDI). However, barriers such as time and lack of internal communication existed. The study suggests that an excessive control, insufficient empowerment and limited autonomy for employees may be of hindrance for innovation.Local authorities stressed the importance of innovation in strategic documents, but the dynamic resources of the municipalities were not used to support and develop innovation.Innovation procurement was prominent in central governmental policies, but concrete elements were otherwise missing. The documents were also influenced by New Public Management, for example on control and efficiency.Research on welfare services innovation is limited. The study contributes with an understanding of the challenges management meet and knowledge of what barriers and opportunities employees experience for their taking part in innovation. It also raises several fundamental questions about innovation in welfare services, such as if a different approach to innovation in welfare services may be needed as compared to other sectors or if innovation is less important in this context.This study develops welfare sector innovation research, from empirical knowledge to concept development and a better understanding of the conditions for innovation in welfare services. Further research is needed, addressing the question how innovation, if at all, ought to be managed within the context of welfare services.
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