Serious Games Ritterfeld, Ute; Cody, Michael; Vorderer, Peter
2009, 20090910, 2009-09-30, 2009-09-10
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Serious Games provides a thorough exploration of the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained and transferable to the real world. "Serious games" is defined herein as any ...form of interactive computer-based game software for one or multiple players to be used on any platform and that has been developed to provide more than entertainment to players. With this volume, the editors address the gap in exisiting scholarship on gaming, providing an academic overview on the mechanisms and effects of serious games. Contributors investigate the psychological mechanisms that take place not only during gaming, but also in game selection, persistent play, and gaming impact.
The work in this collection focuses on the desirable outcomes of digital game play. The editors distinguish between three possible effects -- learning, development, and change -- covering a broad range of serious games’ potential impact. Contributions from internationally recognized scholars focus on five objectives:
Define the area of serious games
Elaborate on the underlying theories that explain suggested psychological mechanisms elicited through serious game play, addressing cognitive, affective and social processes
Summarize the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of serious games,
Introduce innovative research methods as a response to methodological challenges imposed through interactive media
Discuss the possibilities and limitations of selected applications for educational purposes.
Anchored primarily in social science research, the reader will be introduced to approaches that focus on the gaming process and the users’ experiences. Additional perspectives will be provided in the concluding chapters, written from non-social science approaches by experts in academic game design and representatives of the gaming industry. The editors acknowledge the necessity for a broader interdisciplinary study of the phenomena and work to overcome the methodological divide in games research to look ahead to a more integrated and interdisciplinary study of digital games.
This timely and singular volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students working in media entertainment and game studies in the areas of education, media, communication, and psychology.
Ute Ritterfeld , Professor for Media Psychology, received her education in the Health Sciences (Academy of Rehabilitation in Heidelberg) and in Psychology (University of Heidelberg), completed her Ph.D. in Psychology (Technical University in Berlin), and habilitated at the University of Magdeburg, Germany. She was Assistant Professor at the University of Magdeburg, Adjunct Professor at the Universities of Berlin (Humboldt) and Hannover, and Associate Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, Annenberg School for Communication. At USC, Ritterfeld directed an interdisciplinary research team devoted to the studies of digital games and hosted the inaugural academic conference on serious games. In 2007, Ritterfeld joined the faculty of Psychology and Education at the VU University Amsterdam and co-founded the Center for Advanced Media Research Amsterdam (CAMeRA@VU) where she serves as director of interdisciplinary research. Ritterfeld co-edits the Journal of Media Psychology published by Hogrefe.
Michael Cody is Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication at Michigan State University in 1978, where he focused on research methods and face to face social influence processes. He has authored or edited books in persuasion, interpersonal communication and entertainment education. He is the editor of the Journal of Communication (2009-2012).
Peter Vorderer (Ph.D., Technical University of Berlin), is Scientific Director of the Center for Advanced Media Research Amsterdam (CAMeRA) and head of the Department of Communication Science, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He specializes in media use and media effects research with a special focus on media entertainment and digital games. Together with Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, he has edited three well-recognized volumes on media entertainment and video games.
Smartphones and other mobile devices have fundamentally changed patterns of Internet use in everyday life by making online access constantly available. The present paper offers a theoretical ...explication and empirical assessment of the concept of online vigilance, referring to users' permanent cognitive orientation towards online content and communication as well as their disposition to exploit these options constantly. Based on four studies, a validated and reliable self-report measure of online vigilance was developed. In combination, the results suggest that the Online Vigilance Scale (OVS) shows a stable factor structure in various contexts and user populations and provides future work in communication, psychology, and other social sciences with a new measure of the individual cognitive orientation towards ubiquitous online communication.
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This article introduces an explication of video game players' identification with a game character or role that is based on social-psychological models of self-perception. Contrasting with ...conventional ("dyadic") notions of media user-character relationships (e.g., parasocial interaction or affective disposition theory), ("monadic") video game identification is defined as a temporal shift of players' self-perception through adoption of valued properties of the game character. Implications for media enjoyment, the measurement of identification, and media effects are discussed. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
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This handbook provides a strong collection of communication- and psychology-based theories and models on media entertainment, which can be used as a knowledge resource for any academic and applied ...purpose. Its 41 chapters offer explanations of entertainment that audiences find in any kind of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, from classic novels to VR video games, from fictional stories to mediated sports. As becomes clear in this handbook, the history of entertainment research teaches us not to forget that even if a field is converging to a seemingly dominant perspective, paradigm, and methodology, there are more views, alternative approaches, and different yet equally illuminative ways of thinking about the field. Young scholars may find here innovative ways to reconcile empirical-theoretical approaches to the experience of entertainment with such alternative views. And there are numerous entertainment-related phenomena in contemporary societies that still fit the „bread and circuses-“ perspective of the initial Frankfurt School thinking. So while the mission of the present handbook is to compile and advance current theories about media entertainment, scholars active or interested in the topic are invited to also consider the historic roots of the field and the great diversity it has featured over the past nearly 100 years. Many lessons can be learned from this history, and future innovations in entertainment theory may just as likely emerge from refining those approaches compiled in the present handbook as from building on neglected, forgotten, or marginalized streams of scholarship.
This article suggests an integrated view of media entertainment that is capable of covering more of the dimensional complexity and dynamics of entertainment experiences than existing theories do. ...Based on a description of what is meant by complexity and dynamics, the authors outline a conceptual model that is centered around enjoyment as the core of entertainment, and that addresses prerequisites of enjoyment which have to be met by the individual media user and by the given media product. The theoretical foundation is used to explain why people display strong preferences for being entertained (motivational perspective) and what kind of consequences entertaining media consumption may have (effects perspective, e.g., facilitation of learning processes).
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In order to bridge interdisciplinary differences in Presence research and to establish connections between Presence and "older" concepts of psychology and communication, a theoretical model of the ...formation of Spatial Presence is proposed. It is applicable to the exposure to different media and intended to unify the existing efforts to develop a theory of Presence. The model includes assumptions about attention allocation, mental models, and involvement, and considers the role of media factors and user characteristics as well, thus incorporating much previous work. It is argued that a commonly accepted model of Spatial Presence is the only solution to secure further progress within the international, interdisciplinary and multiple-paradigm community of Presence research.
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In contrast to the prominent individualistic view on self-disclosure, this study focuses on self-disclosure in groups of prior acquaintances that both meet offline and communicate online. It compares ...within-group self-disclosure between offline face-to-face (FtF) interactions and online communication via mobile messaging applications (MMAs). An online-survey (N = 357) was conducted to test for differences between within-group self-disclosure online and offline across four dimensions (amount, depth, breadth, valence). The results show that there is more amount, more breadth and more depth for offline within-group self-disclosure, but it is less positively valenced than online within-group self-disclosure. Interestingly, the mere frequency of communication is higher in an MMA environment. In spite of the permanent availability of the online communication sphere, group members do not permanently disclose personal information to each other online. Thus, for within-group self-disclosure, offline time seems quality time.
•We compare offline and online within-group self-disclosure among prior acquaintances.•Groups communicate more often via mobile messaging applications.•Face-to-face, there is a higher amount, more breadth, and more depth of within-group self-disclosure.•In MMAs, there is more positively valenced within-group self-disclosure.•For within-group self-disclosure, offline time is quality time.
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This article addresses whether the discipline of communication can contribute answers to the question what a “good life” could be, particularly regarding recent developments in new communication ...technologies. It starts with the assumption that much of human striving results from 3 fundamental needs that new technologies promise to satisfy as they allow us to be online and connected with others almost all the time. It posits that new ways of using electronic media do both, satisfying and challenging human needs at the same time. It suggests that communication scholars should also focus on pressing societal problems, such as understanding the competent handling of these new technologies. Ultimately, it proposes to intensify our attempts to work more interdisciplinarily and more internationally.
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Over the past 20 years, research on meta-emotion and related concepts such as meta-mood and need for affect has become fruitful and prominent across a variety of disciplines, including media ...psychology. This paper reviews the literature on meta-emotion and considers problems regarding the definition and operationalization of this construct. We propose a process model of meta-emotion and emotion regulation to integrate and extend existing work. Drawing on appraisal theories of emotion, we understand meta-emotion as a process that monitors and appraises emotions and recruits affective responses toward them, which results in a motivation to maintain and approach emotions, or to control and avoid them. This meta-emotion process plays an important role in media users' selection or rejection of specific media offerings and their invitation to experience emotion. We discuss how this framework may integrate previously unrelated findings on the role of emotions in guiding selective media use and conclude with directions for further research.
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What makes virtual violence enjoyable rather than aversive? Two 2×2 experiments tested the assumption that moral disengagement cues provided by a violent video game's narrative and game play lessen ...users' guilt and negative affect, which would otherwise undermine players' enjoyment of the game. Experiment 1 found that users' familiarity with the violent game reduced guilt and negative affect, and enhanced enjoyment, whereas opponents' nonhuman outer appearance and blameworthiness had no effect. Experiment 2 found that fighting for a just purpose, perceiving less mayhem, and framing the overall situation as “just a game” or “just an experiment” reduced guilt and negative affect, whereas the distorted portrayal of consequences did not. Effects on game enjoyment were mixed and suggest that moral disengagement cues may both foster and diminish game enjoyment.
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