Author: Hilde Corneliussen
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262033704
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
"This book examines the complexity of World of Warcraft from a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and social implications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds.The contributors have immersed themselves in the World of Warcraft universe, spending hundreds of hours as players (leading guilds and raids, exploring moneymaking possibilities in the in-game auction house, playing different factions, races, and classes), conducting interviews, and studying the game design - as created by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer, and as modified by player-created user interfaces. The analyses they offer are based on both the firsthand experience of being a resident of Azeroth and the data they have gathered and interpreted.The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world - exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character - both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters." -- BOOK JACKET.
Digital Culture, Play, and Identity
Author: Hilde Corneliussen
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262033704
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
"This book examines the complexity of World of Warcraft from a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and social implications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds.The contributors have immersed themselves in the World of Warcraft universe, spending hundreds of hours as players (leading guilds and raids, exploring moneymaking possibilities in the in-game auction house, playing different factions, races, and classes), conducting interviews, and studying the game design - as created by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer, and as modified by player-created user interfaces. The analyses they offer are based on both the firsthand experience of being a resident of Azeroth and the data they have gathered and interpreted.The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world - exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character - both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters." -- BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262033704
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
"This book examines the complexity of World of Warcraft from a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and social implications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds.The contributors have immersed themselves in the World of Warcraft universe, spending hundreds of hours as players (leading guilds and raids, exploring moneymaking possibilities in the in-game auction house, playing different factions, races, and classes), conducting interviews, and studying the game design - as created by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer, and as modified by player-created user interfaces. The analyses they offer are based on both the firsthand experience of being a resident of Azeroth and the data they have gathered and interpreted.The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world - exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character - both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters." -- BOOK JACKET.
Playful Identities
Author: Michiel de Lange
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789089646392
Category : Computer games
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
In this publication, eighteen scholars examine the increasing role of digital media technologies in identity construction through play. This interdisciplinary collection argues that present-day play and games are not only appropriate metaphors for capturing postmodern human identities, but are in fact the means by which people create their identity.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789089646392
Category : Computer games
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
In this publication, eighteen scholars examine the increasing role of digital media technologies in identity construction through play. This interdisciplinary collection argues that present-day play and games are not only appropriate metaphors for capturing postmodern human identities, but are in fact the means by which people create their identity.
Introduction to Digital Culture
Author: Tessa Joseph Nicholas
Publisher: Cognella Academic Publishing
ISBN: 9781609271503
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
"Introduction to Digital Culture: Living and Thinking in an Information Age" brings together essays on the phenomenon of the Internet and its influence on the humans who create and use it. In a series of accessible readings, this unique anthology explores the ways in which the everyday use of digital media shapes our lives and culture. The essays examine a range of perspectives on the most relevant topics for student readers, including attention, online identity, video games and online role-play, digital-age creativity and piracy, virtuality, and cyberculture. Students are invited to analyze the ethics of online presence through readings by contemporary ethicists. The readings in Introduction to Digital Culture have proven successful in creating an engaging classroom experience and encouraging vibrant discourse among students. Each selection is supplemented with discussion questions and recommendations for further reading and research. This text will appeal to students and instructors across disciplines as a provocative introduction to the social, cultural and ethical questions provoked by life in the Information Age. Tessa Joseph-Nicholas teaches courses on digital culture and cyberculture for the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University. She is co-recipient of an Innovations Grant from UNC s Institute for the Arts and Humanities, which will support two years of study, symposia, and creative collaborations on alternative and serious video games.
Publisher: Cognella Academic Publishing
ISBN: 9781609271503
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
"Introduction to Digital Culture: Living and Thinking in an Information Age" brings together essays on the phenomenon of the Internet and its influence on the humans who create and use it. In a series of accessible readings, this unique anthology explores the ways in which the everyday use of digital media shapes our lives and culture. The essays examine a range of perspectives on the most relevant topics for student readers, including attention, online identity, video games and online role-play, digital-age creativity and piracy, virtuality, and cyberculture. Students are invited to analyze the ethics of online presence through readings by contemporary ethicists. The readings in Introduction to Digital Culture have proven successful in creating an engaging classroom experience and encouraging vibrant discourse among students. Each selection is supplemented with discussion questions and recommendations for further reading and research. This text will appeal to students and instructors across disciplines as a provocative introduction to the social, cultural and ethical questions provoked by life in the Information Age. Tessa Joseph-Nicholas teaches courses on digital culture and cyberculture for the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University. She is co-recipient of an Innovations Grant from UNC s Institute for the Arts and Humanities, which will support two years of study, symposia, and creative collaborations on alternative and serious video games.
Play Between Worlds
Author: T. L. Taylor
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262250543
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
A study of Everquest that provides a snapshot of multiplayer gaming culture, questions the truism that computer games are isolating and alienating, and offers insights into broader issues of work and play, gender identity, technology, and commercial culture. In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces. Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262250543
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
A study of Everquest that provides a snapshot of multiplayer gaming culture, questions the truism that computer games are isolating and alienating, and offers insights into broader issues of work and play, gender identity, technology, and commercial culture. In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces. Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.
Reading Digital Culture
Author: David Trend
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631223016
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Computer technology has transformed many fundamental parts of life: how we work and play, how we communicate and consume, how we create knowledge and learn, even how we understand politics and participate in public life. Reading Digital Culture is a comprehensive collection of the most influential essays on digital media written in recent years.
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631223016
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Computer technology has transformed many fundamental parts of life: how we work and play, how we communicate and consume, how we create knowledge and learn, even how we understand politics and participate in public life. Reading Digital Culture is a comprehensive collection of the most influential essays on digital media written in recent years.
Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture
Author: Steve Gennaro
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648893201
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455
Book Description
‘Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture’ explores the practices, relationships, consequences, benefits, and outcomes of children’s experiences with, on, and through social media by bringing together a vast array of different ideas about childhood, youth, and young people’s lives. These ideas are drawn from scholars working in a variety of disciplines, and rather than just describing the social construction of childhood or an understanding of children’s lives, this collection seeks to encapsulate not only how young people exist on social media but also how their physical lives are impacted by their presence on social media. One of the aims of this volume in exploring youth interaction with social media is to unpack the structuring of digital technologies in terms of how young people access the technology to use it as a means of communication, a platform for identification, and a tool for participation in their larger social world. During longstanding and continued experience in the broad field of youth and digital culture, we have come to realize that not only is the subject matter increasing in importance at an immeasurable rate, but the amount of textbooks and/or edited collections has lagged behind considerably. There is a lack of sources that fully encapsulate the canon of texts for the discipline or the rich diversity and complexity of overlapping subject areas that create the fertile ground for studying young people’s lives and culture. The editors hope that this text will occupy some of that void and act as a catalyst for future interdisciplinary collections. ‘Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture’ will appeal to undergraduate students studying Child and Youth Studies and—given the interdisciplinary nature of the collection— scholars, researchers and students at all levels working in anthropology, psychology, sociology, communication studies, cultural studies, media studies, education, and human rights, among others. Practitioners in these fields will also find this collection of particular interest.
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648893201
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455
Book Description
‘Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture’ explores the practices, relationships, consequences, benefits, and outcomes of children’s experiences with, on, and through social media by bringing together a vast array of different ideas about childhood, youth, and young people’s lives. These ideas are drawn from scholars working in a variety of disciplines, and rather than just describing the social construction of childhood or an understanding of children’s lives, this collection seeks to encapsulate not only how young people exist on social media but also how their physical lives are impacted by their presence on social media. One of the aims of this volume in exploring youth interaction with social media is to unpack the structuring of digital technologies in terms of how young people access the technology to use it as a means of communication, a platform for identification, and a tool for participation in their larger social world. During longstanding and continued experience in the broad field of youth and digital culture, we have come to realize that not only is the subject matter increasing in importance at an immeasurable rate, but the amount of textbooks and/or edited collections has lagged behind considerably. There is a lack of sources that fully encapsulate the canon of texts for the discipline or the rich diversity and complexity of overlapping subject areas that create the fertile ground for studying young people’s lives and culture. The editors hope that this text will occupy some of that void and act as a catalyst for future interdisciplinary collections. ‘Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture’ will appeal to undergraduate students studying Child and Youth Studies and—given the interdisciplinary nature of the collection— scholars, researchers and students at all levels working in anthropology, psychology, sociology, communication studies, cultural studies, media studies, education, and human rights, among others. Practitioners in these fields will also find this collection of particular interest.
Seeing Ourselves Through Technology
Author: Jill W. Rettberg
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137476664
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110
Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY license. Selfies, blogs and lifelogging devices help us understand ourselves, building on long histories of written, visual and quantitative modes of self-representations. This book uses examples to explore the balance between using technology to see ourselves and allowing our machines to tell us who we are.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137476664
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 110
Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY license. Selfies, blogs and lifelogging devices help us understand ourselves, building on long histories of written, visual and quantitative modes of self-representations. This book uses examples to explore the balance between using technology to see ourselves and allowing our machines to tell us who we are.
Serious Play
Author: Catherine Beavis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134979045
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
Serious Play is a comprehensive account of the possibilities and challenges of teaching and learning with digital games in primary and secondary schools. Based on an original research project, the book explores digital games’ capacity to engage and challenge, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative and deep learning and enable curricula that connect with young people today. These exciting approaches illuminate the role of context in gameplay as well as the links between digital culture, gameplay and identity in learners’ lives, and are applicable to research and practice at the leading edge of curriculum and literacy development.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134979045
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
Serious Play is a comprehensive account of the possibilities and challenges of teaching and learning with digital games in primary and secondary schools. Based on an original research project, the book explores digital games’ capacity to engage and challenge, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative and deep learning and enable curricula that connect with young people today. These exciting approaches illuminate the role of context in gameplay as well as the links between digital culture, gameplay and identity in learners’ lives, and are applicable to research and practice at the leading edge of curriculum and literacy development.
Digital Spirits in Religion and Media
Author: Alvin Eng Hui Lim
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351188852
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
In many contemporary and popular forms of religious practice, digital technology and the spiritual are inseparable. Ranging from streaming broadcasts of spiritual possessions to screenings of mass prayer conferences in stadiums, spirits and divinities now have new forms in which they can materialise. By offering the notion of ‘digital spirits’, this book critically attends to the intersections of digital media and spiritual beings. It also puts forward a new performative perspective on how they interact. Taking cues from the work of Stewart Hoover and Heidi Campbell, among others, the book begins with an outline of the current debates around religion, performance and digital media. It then moves on to examine how mediality and religion, where embodied practices are carried out alongside virtual practices, work together in contemporary Asia. These case studies focus on lived religious practices in combination with various forms of media, and so help demonstrate that digital technology in particular reveals the layered processes of spirituality in practice. Gods and divinities have always relied on media to manifest, and this book is a fascinating exploration of how digital media has continued that tradition and taken it in new directions. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religious studies, digital media and performance studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351188852
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
In many contemporary and popular forms of religious practice, digital technology and the spiritual are inseparable. Ranging from streaming broadcasts of spiritual possessions to screenings of mass prayer conferences in stadiums, spirits and divinities now have new forms in which they can materialise. By offering the notion of ‘digital spirits’, this book critically attends to the intersections of digital media and spiritual beings. It also puts forward a new performative perspective on how they interact. Taking cues from the work of Stewart Hoover and Heidi Campbell, among others, the book begins with an outline of the current debates around religion, performance and digital media. It then moves on to examine how mediality and religion, where embodied practices are carried out alongside virtual practices, work together in contemporary Asia. These case studies focus on lived religious practices in combination with various forms of media, and so help demonstrate that digital technology in particular reveals the layered processes of spirituality in practice. Gods and divinities have always relied on media to manifest, and this book is a fascinating exploration of how digital media has continued that tradition and taken it in new directions. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religious studies, digital media and performance studies.
The Warcraft Civilization
Author: William Sims Bainbridge
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262288370
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
An exploration of the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft as a virtual prototype of the real human future. World of Warcraft is more than a game. There is no ultimate goal, no winning hand, no princess to be rescued. WoW is an immersive virtual world in which characters must cope in a dangerous environment, assume identities, struggle to understand and communicate, learn to use technology, and compete for dwindling resources. Beyond the fantasy and science fiction details, as many have noted, it’s not entirely unlike today’s world. In The Warcraft Civilization, sociologist William Sims Bainbridge goes further, arguing that WoW can be seen not only as an allegory of today but also as a virtual prototype of tomorrow, of a real human future in which tribe-like groups will engage in combat over declining natural resources, build temporary alliances on the basis of mutual self-interest, and seek a set of values that transcend the need for war. What makes WoW an especially good place to look for insights about Western civilization, Bainbridge says, is that it bridges past and future. It is founded on Western cultural tradition, yet aimed toward the virtual worlds we could create in times to come.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262288370
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
An exploration of the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft as a virtual prototype of the real human future. World of Warcraft is more than a game. There is no ultimate goal, no winning hand, no princess to be rescued. WoW is an immersive virtual world in which characters must cope in a dangerous environment, assume identities, struggle to understand and communicate, learn to use technology, and compete for dwindling resources. Beyond the fantasy and science fiction details, as many have noted, it’s not entirely unlike today’s world. In The Warcraft Civilization, sociologist William Sims Bainbridge goes further, arguing that WoW can be seen not only as an allegory of today but also as a virtual prototype of tomorrow, of a real human future in which tribe-like groups will engage in combat over declining natural resources, build temporary alliances on the basis of mutual self-interest, and seek a set of values that transcend the need for war. What makes WoW an especially good place to look for insights about Western civilization, Bainbridge says, is that it bridges past and future. It is founded on Western cultural tradition, yet aimed toward the virtual worlds we could create in times to come.