This article examines the form and function of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in terms of social engagement. Combining conclusions from media effects research informed by the communication ...effects literature with those from ethnographic research informed by a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning, we present a shared theoretical framework for understanding (a) the extent to which such virtual worlds are structurally similar to “third places” (Oldenburg, 1999) for informal sociability, and (b) their potential function in terms of social capital (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000). Our conclusion is that by providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new “third place” for informal sociability. Participation in such virtual “third places” appears particularly well suited to the formation of bridging social capital—social relationships that, while not usually providing deep emotional support, typically function to expose the individual to a diversity of worldviews.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Esports Research: A Literature Review Reitman, Jason G.; Anderson-Coto, Maria J.; Wu, Minerva ...
Games and culture,
01/2020, Volume:
15, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Accompanying esports’ explosion in popularity, the amount of academic research focused on organized, competitive gaming has grown rapidly. From 2002 through March 2018, esports research has developed ...from nonexistent into a field of study spread across seven academic disciplines. We review work in business, sports science, cognitive science, informatics, law, media studies, and sociology to understand the current state of academic research of esports and to identify convergent research questions, findings, and trends across fields.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article has two primary goals: (a) to illustrate how a closer analysis of language can lead to fruitful insights into the activities that it helps constitute, and (b) to demonstrate the ...complexity of the practices that make up Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOGaming) through just such an analysis. The first goal is in response to the way we sometimes treat language in studies of activity, despite calls for more nuanced analyses (e.g., Wells, 2002), as a mere conduit for information in which its other (social, identity) functions are overlooked. The second goal is in response to the diatribes against video games in the media and their frequent dismissal as barren play. In this article, I use functional linguistics to unpack how a seemingly inconsequential turn of talk within the game Lineage reveals important aspects of the activity in which it is situated as well as the broader "forms of life" enacted in the game through which members display their allegiance and identity.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Despite the rise of esports over the last decade, to date there is little effort to coordinate research related to the subject. This special issue attempts to address this gap by presenting a ...diversity of research exemplars from scholars both within and outside the United States The articles included herein were culled from the top peer-reviewed papers presented at the first annual Esports Research Conference (https://uciesc.org) held October 2018 at the University of California, Irvine, attended by more than 200 academic researchers and esports industry professionals. Together, the collection of articles represents the range of theoretical, methodological, and thematic perspectives in contemporary esports research.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This volume is the first reader on video games and learning of its kind. Covering game design, game culture and games as twenty-first-century pedagogy, it demonstrates the depth and breadth of ...scholarship on games and learning to date. The chapters represent some of the most influential thinkers, designers and writers in the emerging field of games and learning - including James Paul Gee, Soren Johnson, Eric Klopfer, Colleen Macklin, Thomas Malaby, Bonnie Nardi, David Sirlin and others. Together, their work functions both as an excellent introduction to the field of games and learning and as a powerful argument for the use of games in formal and informal learning environments in a digital age.
Games are an extremely valuable context for the study of cognition as inter(action) in the social and material world. They provide a representational trace of both individual and collective activity ...and how it changes over time, enabling the researcher to unpack the bidirectional influence of self and society. As both designed object and emergent culture, g/Games (a) consist of overlapping well-defined problems enveloped in ill-defined problems that render their solutions meaningful; (b) function as naturally occurring, selfsustaining, indigenous versions of online learning communities; and (c) simultaneously function as both culture and cultural object—as microcosms for studying the emergence, maintenance, transformation, and even collapse of online affinity groups and as talkaboutable objects that function as tokens in public conversations of broader societal issues within contemporary offline society. In this article, the author unpacks each of these claims in the context of the massively multiplayer online games.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Video Games and Digital Literacies Steinkuehler, Constance
Journal of adolescent & adult literacy,
09/2010, Volume:
54, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Today's youth are situated in a complex information ecology that includes video games and print texts. At the basic level, video game play itself is a form of digital literacy practice. If we widen ...our focus from the “individual player + technology” to the online communities that play them, we find that video games also lie at the nexus of a complex constellation of literacy practice. Because video games are an area of passionate interest for many young people (particularly males), they are one place where you can see what students that may not perform well in literacy‐related courses are actually capable of—not because gaming is such an exceptional interest area, but because it is such a common one.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
9.
Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds Steinkuehler, Constance; Duncan, Sean
Journal of science education and technology,
12/2008, Volume:
17, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In today's increasingly "flat" world of globalization (Friedman 2005), the need for a scientifically literate citizenry has grown more urgent. Yet, by some measures, we have done a poor job at ...fostering scientific habits of mind in schools. Recent research on informal games-based learning indicates that such technologies and the communities they evoke may be one viable alternative—not as a substitute for teachers and classrooms, but as an alternative to textbooks and science labs. This paper presents empirical evidence about the potential of games for fostering scientific habits of mind. In particular, we examine the scientific habits of mind and dispositions that characterize online discussion forums of the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft. Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in "social knowledge construction" rather than social banter. Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument.
PDF
