Module 3.1: Inform me! News media

This week's iLecture was by Mignon Shadlow who claims investigative journalism has had very positive results, e.g. defining moments like the end of apartheid, the Berlin Wall and the Australian Royal Commission into aboriginal deaths. She also reminded us of the Watergate scandal in 1972 where President Nixon resigned after conversations recorded on tape were leaked to the press. He was, and still is, the only American president to have resigned. In summary there was a break and enter at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Complex which led to an arrest. President Nixon covered up the break in and he was implicated in a slush fund which paid for the break in. Several Nixon administration officials were arrested.  Here is a factual account from the Washington Times.

The Harper reader, which was written in 2003, is a little outdated now. Harper speaks of journalism having 'defining moments'. For print journalism it may have been the Watergate investigation. The defining moment in radio news may have been the crash of the Hindenburg and for television news - the assassination of John F Kennedy (Harper, 2003). Has there been one for online journalism yet? Probably not because online journalism is only relatively new.

The differences between print and online journalism are outlined below:
Print -

• Value intensity - if the story is of great magnitude it is likely to pass through the gatekeeper
• Unexpectedness - unexpected stories provide interesting material
• Sociocultural values
• Continuity - if it has passed through the gatekeeper before, it is likely to pass through again
• Cultural proximity - based on the number of people of ethnic background living in the area - will depend on the number of ethnic stories.

Online -

• Time span - events that coincide with the frame of publication
• Clarity or lack of ambiguity - doubtful stories may not be published
• Consonance - events congruent with an expectation
• Composition - some items are chosen simply because they contrast with other stories.

At present there are protestors in Wall Street, New York City protesting about the greed and wealth of banking industry heads. People are losing their homes and jobs while these money-hungry executives reap in bonuses of millions of dollars. These protests are not being aired on traditional media so protestors are reliant on citizen journalism. There are several channels on YouTube (see above video) showing videos of protestors. Another recent case of citizen journalism is the death of Steve Jobs, Apple founder. His death has had the biggest online reaction of any event in history. When news of his death broke there were 6000 tweets per second (Stevenson, 2011).


Discussion 1:
How do you get your news - what sources do you use? How do these differ to how your parents and grandparents got their news, or how your children might get their news now?

I get my news from various media types. As I am logged into Facebook every day, I get some headlines but mostly technology news that way. However I still like to watch the 6pm news when sitting down to dinner. My family did that when I was a kid and I guess it is a tradition I haven't grown out of. If I am driving I will have the radio on and listen for the hourly news to get local updates for my area.

My parents still watch the television news, listen to talkback radio and read the daily and Sunday newspapers. My parents don't get news from the internet at all.

My grandparents are no longer with us, but they always watched the 11am news, 6pm news and ABC news daily. I also remember my dear old Grandad waiting patiently for the paper boy to delivery the Daily Telegraph. They didn't own a computer before they died so never access online media at all.

My kids aren't interested in news, however my teenage daughter does like to watch A Current Affair with us after the news, but as for headlines - they have no interest.

Discussion 2:
Do you think online news is more or less credible than traditional news? Why or why not?

In my opinion traditional media controls what we see and hear and is very one-sided. I'm all for citizen journalism. Just look at the Occupy Wall Street protests going on at present. I read somewhere (if I find the reference I will post it as I can't find it right now) that traditional media is very right wing and mainly covers liberal conservative issues.  Just because it's on TV or in the paper, doesn't necessarily mean it is true. Consumers need to be more open these days and read more online content to get both sides of every story.

Online media champions left wing ideals of change, and this position is understandable. The online world has never been part of the nexus of governance by symbiosis that typified the right. It derives no benefits from it, and sees no reason why any part of it cannot be challenged. (Lee, 2011).

References:

Harper, C. (2003). Journalism in a Digital Age. In H. J. D. Thorbum (Ed.), Democracy and new media (pp. 271-280).

Lee, H (2011). Future Media: Revolving door of the centre.  Retrieved from http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/09/future-media-revolving-door-of-the-centre/

Stevenson, S. (Producer). (2011). 3.1 Inform Me [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSv7rjfStPs

Module 2.5: All The World's a Game

Image courtesy of TORLEY via Flickr.

Creative Commons Licence.

This week's iLecture was given by David Savat. He discussed how the military use game simulators for training. He stated World of Warcraft (WOW) is more than just a game. It's a commercial product consumed worldwide. It's bigger than the film industry. (Savat, 2011). I was surprised by this. I was sure the film industry was more profitable than gaming! He explained that MMORPG's are a construct. Rules enable actions and relations and govern behaviour. There are open designs like Second Life and Project Entropia, where you can create content for the game and you own the rights to it. There are also and closed designs like WOW and Everquest where you can't change much not alter the game world. He also coined the term 'gold farmer's as those people who trade virtual goods for real money.

I watched a TV show called Taboo: Fantasies on National Geographic channel this week which showed a Second Life gamer who makes enough money from the game not to have to go out to work. His avatar name is 'Stroker' and he sells virtual sex beds in the game Second Life. He sells them for Linden dollars which equates to US dollars. He lives in a huge home in Florida near the beach, has a wife and kids and plays this 'game' every day. He has built up a reputation in Second Life for a commodity which players want - and are happy to pay big bucks for. This video shows a snippet of his wares and discusses a law suit where Stroker is suing another avatar for creating copies of the sex bed.

David also explained the term 'grief-play' where players are getting killed in real life for actions within a game. A grief player engages in playing to disrupt or distress other players’ gaming experiences, and derives enjoyment from such behaviour (Lin & Chuen-Tsai, 2005).

The reader by Coleman & Dyer-Witheford explained the terms commons and commodities. Commons are referred to as those items which players use, but not own. Commodities are exchanged for profit. What I didn't realise was how big the gaming industry is It is estimated that, in 2005, World of Warcraft alone was bringing Blizzard, its developer, over $700 million a year, while worldwide MMOG revenues were over $1.5 billion. This seems no commons, but a game commodity par excellence (Coleman & Dyer-Witherford, 2007).

Discussion:
How is user production in games different from other forms of media consumption? Or isn't it?We can't alter other media content, we can only complain about it, comment on it or ignore it. Within some games we can alter it. As David Savat explains in his iLecture: there are open designs like Second Life and Project Entropia where you can create content. That content belongs to you. There are also closed design games like World of Warcraft and Everquest where you cannot change much in the game world.

As there is no commonly agreed definition of User Generated Content (UGC) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has proposed three main characteristics:

• Publication requirement - UGC has to be published in some context (e.g. on a website or on a social networking site)
• Creative effort - A “certain amount of creative effort [has to be] put into creating the work”. It is particularly important that “users add their own value to the work”
• Creation outside of professional routines and practice - typically UGC is created without the “expectation of remuneration” (Clever et al. n.d.)

Check out this video about an avatar from Second Life suing another avatar for stealing one of his. It's an interesting story.

References:
Clever, N., Kirchner, A., Schray, D., and Schulte. (n.d). User Generated Content. Retrieved from http://www.wi.uni-muenster.de/wi/studieren/io/ws08-09/essay/IEessay%20user-generated%20content.pdf


Coleman, S., & Dyer-Witheford, N. (2007). Playing on the Digital Commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture. Media Culture Society, 29(934). doi: 10.1177/0163443707081700

Lin, H., & Chuen-Tsai, S. (2005). The 'White eyed player culture' : Grief Play and Construction of Deviance in MMORP's Retrieved from http://www.digra.org/dl/db/06278.21161.pdf

Woods, S (2011). Topic 2.4: Play with me [iLecture]. from http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/lectopia.lasso?ut=3453

Module 2.4: Play With Me

Image courtesy of TheAmy Tucker via Flickr.

Creative Commons Licence

This week's topic is about a topic which interests me as a game player...it's about gaming and I've decided I want to be a Ludologist.

Ludologist: a person who plays and researches games for a living...hell yeah!

Let me start by agreeing with Sam Stevenson that gaming theory is interesting and important. It's a valid form of entertainment (Stevenson, 2011). Not everyone agrees. Huizinga said in the 1950's that play is voluntary, is not serious, is separate from the real, is unproductive and promotes social groupings. I agree that it promotes social grouping - well some games do. Obviously solitary ones do not. But I do not agree that gaming is unproductive and it CAN be very serious at times, depending on the game of course.

Jenkins' reader The War Between Effects and Meaning: Rethinking the video game debate, stresses that we need to understand the difference between the effects of game playing and the meaning. He declares the effects are seen as emerging more or less spontaneously and that meanings emerge through an active process of interpretation and reflect our conscious engagement. (Jenkins, 2009). He believes that games can be powerful learning tools - look at the military. They use simulated games to train soldiers. Michael Macedonia who is the chief scientist and technical director of the U.S. Army Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) declares that for more than two decades the U.S. military has demon- strated interest in commercial games, beginning with the in- troduction of Mech War to the Army War College by James Dunnigan in the late 1970s. (Macedonia, 2001).

There is an argument that violent games create violent behaviour, however Jenkins disagrees. Research has shown that players who fight one another to death in a game, do actually grow closer as friends off screen. Many anti-gamers only look at the surface of the game and don't look beneath at the emotional meanings, stories and images.

Since the Columbine High School massacre of 1999, game developers have had to have a good look at the level of violence in games and have changed them so they are more challenging - not just about killing, but rewarding for positive behaviour and moral changes. Here is an article about Columbine 10 years on.  Some one had the nerve to develop a game after the massacre aptly named Columbine Game. That is one I am NOT interested in.

The Thornham reader "Claiming a stake in the video game" is a study on gamers. She claims there are clear paradoxes in the way games are simultaneously set up as escapism, fantasy and play by theorists and the industry alike but are claimed by adult gamers as serious, rational and logical pastimes. Adults feel they need to justify their game playing as more than just pleasure or escapism. It's interesting to note that while she was studying the gamers, the gamers declared that the initial purchase of a game console was due to peer pressure and that it was a status symbol to own one. One gamer simply wanted to 'fit in' and to have the power of owning something desirable, which other kids want or admire. An important thing to note here is that the pleasure of gaming is less about the games themselves and more to do with the presence of friends in a social environment.

Discussion 1:
What is your history of gaming? How has your experience changed due to technological convergence (or hasn't it)? How do you rationalize your participation in games?

I am an avid game player and have been most of my life. As a kid I would play scrabble, monopoly, elastics, hopscotch, skipping, jacks and other outside games with my friends and cousins. Most weekends my parents would take me to my grandparents house for a weekly family catch-up with other relatives. There we would all play boggle, scrabble, yahtzee and cards. It was the highlight of my week. It was all about catching up, chatting and sharing. I loved those times.

Sometime in the 80's I was given my first hand-held electronic game - the original Donkey Kong. I clocked it within days! I played this regularly until my brother was given a Nintendo 64 and he and I conquered Super Mario together. Then I married and moved out and didn't play games for years. During the 90's we acquired a 2nd hand computer and it had Leisure Suit Larry installed on it. (Thanks for reminding me about that game, Sam!) Shortly after this we bought a Sega Megadrive (which very soon became obsolete because Playstation took over) and played games on that console semi-regularly. However by this time I was working full-time so game-play couldn't take up much of my time.

Fast forward 10 years and we bought a PS2 and I conquered Lara Croft Tomb Raider's 1, 2 & 3. Goodness knows how I found the time, but my husband does remember calling me to bed in the wee hours of most mornings. lol How I managed to get to work on time is a mystery.

When that machine died, my kids were babies - so again no game-play for a couple of years until 2 years ago! 2 years ago we bought an XBox for our son. Then an XBox 360, then I upgraded my old computer to a fast and powerful laptop with broadband access. Things have never been the same since. We now have smart phones, a Wii, the 2 XBoxes and 2 iPod Touch's. Every day I will play apps on my iPod Touch. It is my favourite toy.

Games define me as much as music and food. I love child-like, colourful games with levels where you collect things. I'm not into killing people any more. I will play games during study breaks, while waiting in queues, waiting in the car for the kids, and to wind down at the end of the day. Over all the game devices in our house, I prefer my iPod touch. I rarely play games off-line any more. If it's a rainy day and the kids are bored, we will sometimes play board games. The only game-playing off-line that I do love is jigsaw puzzles and most school holidays I will get out a 500 or 2000 piece and spend days doing it.

The way I rationalise game play is I play purely for relaxation. I'm not competitive and would often give up if I am waiting on an opponent to make a move! So I no longer play games which require opponents. I think my kids are the same - they play for relaxation and I will only let them play once their chores and homework is done.

Discussion 2:

What are some of the criticisms that can be made about gaming? Do you agree with them?

One criticism that comes to mind is that game play takes time away from family responsibilities. I have to disagree. Firstly I always ensure my kids have done their chores and homework before they play. For myself - I only play to unwind either in between studying, while dinner is cooking, at the end of a busy day. However often I play with the kids. For example my son and I both have iPod Touch's. When he downloaded Angry Birds last year he was having so much fun playing it that I downloaded it on mine. From then on every evening after dinner, we would sit together competing with each other on our iPod's.

Nowadays it's Plants Vs Zombies. We compete by racing each other through the levels and by collecting achievements. We play together, talk together, refine our strategies and cheer when we win a new achievement. The game-playing isn't face to face, but we are next to each other on the couch enjoying quality time together.

Same with my teenage daughter. We both play The Sims and we get our characters to interact in the game like we do in real life. We both have Android phones and we will often challenge each other in games like Angry Birds or Doodle Jump while relaxing on the weekend.

Remediation assessment:
For our remediation assessment I have decided to remediate a movie scene into a comic. I have chosen one of my favourite movies from the 80's 'Back To The Future' starring Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd. I chose a scene near the beginning of the film where Marty (played by Michael J Fox) is summonsed by Doc (played by Christopher Lloyd) to attend the local shopping mall carpark for a surprise. When Marty and Doc's dog, Einstein, arrive they are greeted by Doc and a huge transporter truck. Doc unveils a car which has a very special purpose. I chose this scene because it explains the crux of the movie and that is...well I don't want to spoil it! You'll have to watch it.

References:
Jenkins, H. (2006). The War between effects and meanng: Rethinking the video game debate D. Buckingham & R Willett (Eds., Digital Generations: Children, Young People, and New Media (pp. 19-31).

Macedonia, M. (2001). Games, Simulation and Military Education. The Army Science Board Summer Study, 2001. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffpiu018.pdf

Thornham, H. (2009). Claiming a stake in the videogame: What grownups say to rationalise and normalise gaming. Convergence: The international journal of research into new media technologies, 15(141). Retrieved from doi: 10.1177/135485650810158