Torbjörn Svensson

About Torbjörn

Torbjörn Svensson holds a PhD from the School of informatics, University of Skövde, Sweden, and is a member of the research group GAME (Games Art Media Experience) at the Game Development Department at the School of Informatics, University of Skövde, Sweden. His PhD thesis From Games to News: Creating an Engament Model for Digital Local News was defended on the 28th of February 2024.

Torbjörn is mostly working within the subject of Media Arts, Aesthetics and Narration connected to the computer game development programs at School of Informatics. He was formerly program coordinator for Computer game development Game Writing together with Marcus Toftedahl from its start 2012 until december 2015.

Research interests

Projects

Creating and maintaing a Demonstrator environment for the Computer Game Education, situated at the ground floor of the Portalen building at University of Skövde to schowcase student games, game trailers, education information and research as well as promoting the Game Development education on Bachelor's and Master's level. The Demonstrator was built in cooperation with colleagues at the department (Katrin Dannberg, Ulf Wilhelmsson, Mikael Lebram and Anette Andersson) and AMK (Marketing and Communications Office, Anna Vibrandt). 

Project manager and lead designer for the iPad game The Mystery of St:Elin during spring 2013. The game is a research platform to study knowledge transfer with digital games. Can you, as a youngster (8-12 years old) understand a city's development and growth through participation in a location based pervasive game. In the game you are to help Elin, 13 years old, to complete tasks at 5 different locations in central Skövde.

Published papers and conference presentations

2024

Docotoral Dissertation
From Games to News: Creating an Engagement Model for Digital Local news.

Svensson, Torbjörn (2024) University of Skövde, School of Informatics. University of Skövde, Informatics Research Environment.(GAME) ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5991-5972
Get fulltext at: https://his.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1836504&dswid=-7317

2019

Publication in Proceedings for ICIDS 2019

Svensson T. Using VR to Simulate Interactable AR Storytelling
Interactive Storytelling: 12th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, ICIDS 2019, Little Cottonwood Canyon, UT, USA, November 19–22, 2019, Proceedings

Conference paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33894-7_33

2018

Publication in procedings for ICIDS2018

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_40
Svensson, T., L. Holloway-Attaway, and E. Beroldy. Leaving the Small Screen: Telling News Stories in a VR Simulation of an AR News Service. in International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling. 2018. Springer.

Demonstration of VR simulation of an AR news service, ICIDS2018 Dublin, 6/12 2018

Demonstrating and letting the ICIDS visitors test the VR simulation of an AR news service that was programmed by Etienne Beroldy, 2018. Further details can be found in the conference paper or contact me torbjorn.svensson@his.se for further information or link to Git-hub repository.

Thesis proposal - 50% seminar

28th of May. External discussant was Rebecca Rouse, RPI, US. The text for the seminar can be found at http://his.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1254021/FULLTEXT01.pdf

2017

Presentation at doctoral consortium, ICIDS2017, Madeira

I presented about how interaction with local digita news can be designed by taking in to consideration how psychological needs could be fullfilled according to Self Determination Theory. Leaders for the DC was Nuno Correia (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) and Nuno Nunes (Instituto Superior Técnico,  Portugal)

Publication in proceedings for ICIDS2017

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71027-3_49
Svensson T. (2017) User and Player Engagement in Local News and/as Interactive Narratives. In: Nunes N., Oakley I., Nisi V. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 10690. Springer, Cham

Presentation at doctoral consortium DiGRA2017 Melbourne Australia

Presented thoughts about using Self Determination Theory to study news engagement at the doctoral consortium, 3rd of July, at the DiGRA 2017 conference in Melbourne Australia. Leaders for the DC were Dr Steven Conway, Swinburne university, Melbourne. The presentation was also commented on by Dr Shouvik Mukherjee, University of Kolkata, India.

Presentation at Digital Media Europe conference 25th of April in Copenhagen, Denmark

Seminar at the Wan-Ifra conference Digital Media Europe  25 april 2017 called ”Look to the nordics” arranged by GAMI (Global Alliance for Media Innovation). Me and Johan Hoffman from GSP presented our respective parts of the Level Up project for around 50 participants from the european media business. The main discussion after the presentations were focused on the media-houses somewhat conservative stance and that it has to a large extent hindered innovation and the development of new solutions for news distribution. Disruptive innovation seldom comes from within the established actors. In the programme for the conference you can se the topics for the seminar presenters. Look at 15:00 the 25th of April. http://events.wan-ifra.org/events/digital-media-europe-2017/programme

2016

Presentation: Research Proposal - september 2016

The research proposal titled Engagement from Interactability was presented at a seminar in the Scientific Seminar series at University of Skövde. Readers for the paper was Associate Professor and director of MTEC research group Lissa Holloway Attaway  and senior lecturer in cognitive science Tarja Susi. If you are interested you can contact me for a .pdf file of the Research Proposal

Presentation at the doctoral consortium POCG2016 Malta

I presented and got feedback from Olli Tapio Leino (Assistant Professor, Univ. of Hong Kong) and Ivan Callus (Professor, Univ. of Malta) and fellow presenters on my thoughts about the term interactable and interactability at the doctoral consortium of the 10th Philosophy of Computer Games conference in Malta 30th oct - 4th nov 2016.

2015

Presentation: Gamification, möjligheter och problemområden inom teknik och innehåll

(Gamification, possibilities and problems.) Presentation at the seminar "Om inkluderande arbete, interaktiv design och effektmål utifrån utställningsprojektet "Det ligger i tiden". (About interactive design and effect in the exhibition It´s about time.) 
11-12 February 2015, the regional museum in Kristianstad, Sweden.

Presentation: Kan dataspel göra oss klokare? Spelteknologi, nyhetsmedier och kulturarv

(Can computer games make us wiser. Game technology, news media and cultural heritage). Presented together with associate professor Jonas Ingvarsson at MEG2015, National news media symposium, Göteborg Media Days 5-6 March 2015.

2014

Co-author to article

Alvarez Diaz, M, Svensson, T, Toftedahl M, 2014 The Mystery of Elin. Incorporating a City Cultural Program on History and Heritage into a Pervasive Game Interactive Entertainment conference '14, Dec 2 – Dec 3 2014, Newcastle, AU, Australia.

Conference presentation

Uncanny motion portraits, presentation at the international, interdisciplinary conference Gothic and Uncanny Explorations. University of Karlstad 10-12 September 2014

Selected courses taught

• Digital Culture, 7,5 credits
• Experimental Game Narratives, 15 credits
• Game Narratives, 7,5 credits

Academic record

MA in film studies

Lund university, Lund, Sweden 2006
The Big Lebowski: The narrative, the narration and the narrator
Full text in Swedish

Publication page at Lunds university
http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lup/publication/1329962

BA in film studies

University of Skövde, 1994
Machine Man – Creation and creations in film
Contact torbjorn.svensson@his.se for a Swedish version.