PLOMS Journal of Humanities

Competition, Cooperation and Community: an Ethnographic Study of Gamified Persuasion with Augmented Reality Game Ingress in the Arctic Fennoscandia

2021-08-26T11:56:29-07:00

Augmented reality (AR) games is an emerging genre of moving games. In this article we have studied the persuasive factors of Ingress that motivate the players to go out and move. Based on the qualitative ethnographical study, we have identified three distinguishable factors that increase physical activity (PA) among Ingress players: competition, cooperation and community. The study is largely based on material acquired in the Finnish Arctic region, where the climate and environmental conditions are sometimes challenging for AR gameplay. Despite the Arctic challenges –– such as vast distances, darkness, cold and snow –– Ingress players have demonstrated remarkable perseverance and activity while playing the game in difficult conditions.

Keywords: Ingress, Ingress Prime, persuasion, physical activity, gamification, augmented reality.

Gender Issues in Mahesh Dattani’s Tara

2021-07-23T23:49:18-07:00

‘Gender Issues in Mahesh Dattani’s Tara’ exhibits a shocking account of the gender bias in the form of deep-rooted prejudice and discrimination that exists in Indian society against the girl child. It is a shocking pointer to the patriarchal Indian society’s age-old bias against the girl child and its favoring and giving preference to whatever is ‘male’. It also focuses on the family as a microcosm of society where individuals are socialized to accept certain gendered roles and to give preference to what is ‘male’. The article explores how an individual falls an easy victim to the powers of patriarchy and how his life is painfully crushed between the two colliding forces of the family on the one hand, and that of patriarchy, on the other hand. Along with exposing the modern educated urban Indian family’s adherence to the conventional attitude of favoring anything that is masculine, it also portrays the corruption prevalent in the bureaucratic society and the ethical deterioration of the medical profession.

Rhetorical theorization according to Ibn Khaldun

2023-03-28T22:29:51-07:00

The study is divided into three sections, preceded by a prelude and an introduction, followed by a conclusion and a glossary; The first topic: the rhetorical history of Ibn Khaldun consists of four points: 1- The order of linguistics. 2- The relationship between rhetoric and the Qur'anic miracles. 3- Rhetorical taste as a tool for understanding the miracles. 4- rhetoric from emergence to maturity. The second topic: the philosophy of science and its issues: It has three points: 1- The division of rhetoric into the three known branches. 2- Ibn Khaldun's study of subjects related to the science: - semantics - stylistics, - literary techniques. 3. Rhetorical books and their authors. The third topic: rhetorical criticism according to Ibn Khaldun: has included four points: 1 - what Ibn Khaldun agreed with rhetoricians before him. 2- Ibn Khaldun's criticism of the rhetoricians. 3- His preferences regarding multi-opinion issues: a) Preference in semantics. b) Preferences in stylistics. c) Preferences in literary techniques. 4- Comparison between the scholars of the East and the west: (4) Glossary of rhetorical terms according to Ibn Khaldun: Then the conclusion on the most important findings of the study.

Culture Text Privacy in the Age of Social Networks

2021-08-26T11:53:34-07:00

This research paper aims to study the issue of the cultural specificity of the literary text in light of the current situation of the era of hypothetical communication, that age that pushes human societies to push for a revolution of radical change in all affairs of their lives. A change that keeps pace with the accelerating knowledge and technical development movements that have gathered the cultures of the whole world into a single spider web, and accordingly the Arab identity of the literary text faces a real threat in its intellectual origins and the artistic traditions of the text, as a result of its unwilling involvement in cultural globalization. And many of the questions preoccupy researchers about the state of the cultural specificity of the literary text at that time. Hence, this research paper focused on presenting the dimensions of the cultural specificity of the Arabic literary text, and also an introduction to the theory of cultural relativism as a common path between the various cultures, and to present a new vision. How to approach systematically between the cultural specificity and the global acculturation of literary text. Literature alone can draw the geographical boundaries of the cultural specificity of the nation, and it is the same that documents the cultural cross-fertilization movement in the era of virtual communication.