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Over the past few decades, women have had a significant influence on video games. The industry that was once dominated by men has now undergone major changes in female representation with the participation of more women gamers and staff. With an increasing number of women receiving higher education and gaining importance in their careers, the appropriate portrayal of females and gender-friendly gameplay in video games are taken into consideration by video game corporations and Nintendo is no exception. This thesis will explore Nintendo's video games in female representation in terms of character design and gameplay with two cases: the Japanese role-playing game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) and the life simulation game Animal Crossing (2020), which are all exclusive for Nintendo Switch, the latest hardware console of Nintendo. By analyzing the text of these two games, in combination with the influence of the feminist movements in Japanese society on the whole video game industry, the paper will discuss the shaping of gender identity by Nintendo.

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The thesis reports the results of the 4-month internship at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR). The aim of the internship was to investigate the feasibility of using the Transkribus HTR software to transcribe historical documents and maps at KBR with the Ferraris map and the accompanying Mémoires as examples. The Ferraris map is one of the most consulted documents at KBR and had been already fully transcribed manually. However, KBR would like to find a faster and more efficient substitute for manual transcription of maps to apply it at the department of Maps and Plans. During the internship, several HTR models have been trained for the Mémoires and the Ferraris map to find the best possible solutions. The results of the internship lead to a conclusion that Transkribus is an efficient tool for transcribing such documents as the Mémoires, but it requires more training data for such complicated layouts as maps and, thus, may not always be feasible. However, Transkribus may be useful even if an institution resorts to manual transcription as the software is able to recognize text regions and allows the user to fill in the transcription manually directly in Transkribus and export it afterwards in various formats. The introduction provides a brief insight into the explored documents and the software as well as into other approaches to HTR and OCR on maps apart from Transkribus. The first and the second chapters present the experiments carried out in Transkribus and the results for the Mémoires and the Ferraris map, respectively, and describe encountered problems and limitations as well as new opportunities, such as keyword search. Each chapter provides a short workload analysis and guidelines for further work with handwritten documents and maps, respectively, in Transkribus. The conclusion is a summary of achievements and prospects. The Appendices part contains screenshots of the software interface which represent the practical outcome of the internship. The outcome of the internship is 12 ready-to-use HTR models stored in the Transkribus account and accessible on request, 24 documents in the Transkribus collection (also accessible on request), 49 and 26 unique pages of ground truth data for the Mémoires and the Ferraris map, respectively, stored on the Transkribus server, 194 automatically transcribed pages of the Mémoires stored on the Transkribus server and exported as PDF, DOCX, and TXT files, and TXT files with manual transcriptions of the training and validation sets.

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To explore big data in the context of EU’s cultural policies, this thesis first makes a review of the literature on big data and cultural policy. It brings together EU policy documents, gray literature, and academic articles and books on the subject. In terms of academic publishing, it does not limit its scope to strictly cultural policy studies, but instead, it includes the literature on humanities and cultural studies to have a closer look at how they are relevant to cultural policy studies. Before this discussion, to put the subject in context, it will briefly look at the term “big data” and its different uses, the data types, the most common analysis methods, along with EU’s digital transformation strategy and the big data’s role in that. The thesis also prepares the background for discussion by making a summary of the history of the cultural statistics and the EU’s cultural policy model priorities. Lastly, this master’s thesis will further examine four exploratory case studies which are EU level projects that use big data and related methodologies. While three of them are projects funded by Horizon 2020 program (INVENT, MESOC, and inDICEs), one of them, Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor have been designed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. These cases have been chosen because they are using big data and big data analytics in an experimental and innovative way to contribute to the EU cultural policies directly or indirectly. In all the projects, data used and analyzed are also relevant in terms of cultural participation. As the case studies are EU projects, they have extensive documentation in terms of their goals, activities, and most importantly data methodology. For building the cases, this official reporting and documentation have been closely reviewed. The terms “big data” and the “novel computational techniques” will be used to define and differentiate them from other data sources and methodologies that are relevant for the cultural and creative sectors. The discussions around these terms will also be addressed in scope of this thesis to clarify the choices. The aim of this master’s thesis to present the state-of-the-art knowledge on the topic while exploring the use of big data and big data analytics in the EU funded projects. Though these projects do not solely rely on big data, they are experimenting with and discovering the ways to integrate such methods into cultural policy. They might be the gateway to broader methodological changes at the EU level for collection and analysis of data to reflect cultural participation trends, the impact of culture which might bring close fields that use such methods more extensively, such as humanities and social sciences, together to design efficient cultural policies and mainstream culture at the EU policies. Thus, it is important to examine the case studies’ methodologies closely to be able to identify the further opportunities and challenges for the EU’s cultural policies.

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Abstract: Have you ever been completely immersed in a Science-Fiction film that the future felt like a place you’ve already visited? Stepping out of the theater might have constituted a struggle to get back to the present moment. But did you ever ask yourself why do we take in the hypothetical worlds? Why do we accept their suggestion as a solid existence? This thesis delves into the process of Sci-Fi world-building from design and filmmaking perspectives in an attempt to find a possible answer to these questions. By focusing on three major films of the genre, the analysis of Metropolis (1927), Blade Runner (1982) and Dune (2021) start to reveal more than one connecting thread. When examined closer, common elements begin to form a visual language that can be recognized in Sci-Fi through the decades and different narratives. With reality on one side and fiction on the other, the stitches bring the two closer together so tightly that the films show a solid repercussion of reality, especially when set in their respective time frames. In order to bring out the similarities and contrasts between them, the work takes on similar steps followed in design methodology and film world-building. By starting with concept design, a better understanding of the movie’s influences is cleared out. Production design takes on the analysis of different components that make up the cities of the future; whereas a more detailed view highlights the essential approach to technology through the machine. Lastly, since we’ve started by addressing the questions to you, a deeper look into the connection between spectator and visuals will be taken. By seeking support in affect theory, multiple notions will be overviewed to gain a better understanding of the communication between the films and their audiences’ response mechanisms.

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Deze thesis biedt een onderzoek over de bijdrage van virtual en augmented reality op gebruikservaring van musea en erfgoedsites. Hierbij wordt onderzocht of deze technologieën mensen meer geïnteresseerd maken in erfgoed, kunst, cultuur en geschiedenis. Daarbij aansluitend werd ook in vraag gesteld hoe de Vlaamse overheid hier een invulling aan geeft. Wat voor steun de Vlaamse overheid biedt en waaruit het nog kan leren? Deze studie heeft zich vooral gebaseerd op literatuuronderzoek, zowel op primaire en secundaire literaire bronnen. Er is informatie over erfgoed op internationaal en Vlaams niveau, en de praktische werking van virtual en augmented reality. Vervolgens komen er 3 casestudies aan bod: de thermen van Caracalla in Rome, de Sint-Baafskathedraal in Gent en het Historium in Brugge. Voor elke casestudie werd een introductie gegeven, het bezoek uitgelegd en beoordelingen van de bezoekers gegeven. Voor het Historium kon een interview met de voorzitter, Hans Vandamme, worden afgelegd. De casestudies werden met elkaar vergeleken om een conclusie te vormen. Over het algemeen kunnen VR en AR zeker bijdragen tot de gebruikservaring van musea en erfgoedsites. Echter gaat dit ook gepaard met veel kritiek en angsten in verband met het belang van musea en erfgoedsites. Op Vlaams niveau is ook nog een zekere weg te gaan om kunst, cultuur, geschiedenis en erfgoed meer aantrekkelijk en toegankelijk te maken voor het grote publiek.