video games, film, and literacy

VIDEO GAMES, FILM, AND LITERACY

Nick Rose and Nick Miller aka The Nicks

Intertextu-huh?

Intertextuality “a model where literary structure does not simply exist

but is generated in relation to another structure. What allows a dynamic dimension to structuralism is his conception of the ‘literary word’ as an intersection of textual surfaces rather than a point (a fixed meaning), as a dialogue among several writings: that of the writer, the addressee (or the character) and the contemporary or earlier cultural context” (Kristeva 35-36, alluding to Bakhtin)

In other words, “text” is any site within our culture where we exercise relational processes and practices of interpretation (Elias)

James Paul Gee

Professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University

What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003) and follow-ups

Combines situated learning principles with… <GASP>… video games?

Gee’s Areas

Learning is not an individual act but a social one as well (7).

Situated cognition – Learning “embedded in (situated within) a material, social, and cultural world” (9)

New Literacy Studies Connectionism – recognizing

patterns

Gee: Why Use Video Games?

Some learning has little contextualized meaning (ex. upper level math courses)

Embodied experience (activity vs. passivity)

Active learning (back to intertextuality)

Identity*

Gee’s Terminology (handout)

Projective identity- an intersection of the virtual and real-world identities of a player; “seeing the virtual character as one’s own project in the making, a creature [imbued] with a certain trajectory through time defined by… aspirations for what [the player wants] that character to be and become (within the limitations of [his/her] capacities…and within the resources the game designer has given me” (50)

Gee: The Proactive Approach

Question of approaching this kind of material- HOW?

Using situated meanings and the design grammar of the game to understand and produce appropriate meanings and actions (33)

The player is an “active problem solver” encouraged to recognize his/her mistakes not as drawbacks but as “opportunities for reflection and learning” (36)

Tong and Tan: Game Narratives

Based on Steven Heath’s theory of narrative space in film (1981)

Player as director (game = movie): “The presentation of cinematic space is a process of selective framings and editing that produce ‘gaps’ or jumps in the continuity of the flow of images” (referring to Heath’s theory of narrative space)- the player controlling the camera allows for a similar kind of control

Krzywinska: Video Games and Film

Games emphasize the act of doing, what Espen Aarseth calls “ergodic” action, a type of “nontrivial effort [that] is required to allow the reader to traverse the text” (Krzywinska 207).

Games adhere to a binary structure, a rhythm of activity and inactivity that “ties into and consolidates formally a theme often found in horror in which supernatural forces act on, and regularly threaten, the sphere of human agency” (207)

Relating to Renee Hobbs

Media literacy remote

Five Critical Questions

Close Readings

Game Genres

Strategy (SimCity, The Sims –sociology, economics)

Fighting (Mortal Kombat, BlazBlue – backstories, characterization)

FPS (First-person shooters) Half-Life; Aliens: Colonial Marines- adaptation, tie-ins

TPS (Third-person shooters) Gears of War, Dead Space- full cinematic experiences

Platformers (Banjo-Kazooie, Beyond Good and Evil)- from side-scrollers to fully realized 3D bringing symbolism, some archetypes

Games and Film: Games AS Film

Video games have become nearly (if not entirely) synonymous with film in their production, mechanics, and consumption in our culture.

Games and Film: Cutscenes

Gears of War 2 (Epic, 2008) Scene: Maria's Death

The Walking Dead: Lee's Fate

Twisted Metal: Black - Darkside- Prologue

Twisted Metal: Black- Middle Twisted Metal: Black – Ending Mass Effect 2: Mordin's Loyalty Missi

on

Works Cited

Elias, Amy. “Critical Theory and Cultural Studies.” English Studies:

An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana,

IL: NCTE, 2006. 223-275. Print.

Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About

Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.

Hobbs, Renee. Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and

Classroom. California: Corwin, 2011. Print.

Kristeva, Julie. “Word, Dialogue, and Novel.” Trans. Seán Hand and

León S. Roudiez. The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi. Oxford: Basil

Blackwell, 1986. 34-61. Print.

Krzywinska, Tanya. “Hands-On Horror.” ScreenPlay:

Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces. Eds. Geoff King and Tanya

Krzywinska. New York: Wallflower Press, 2002. 206-224. Print.

Works Cited (cont.)

Tong, Wee Liang and Marcus Cheng Chye Tan. “Vision and Virtuality: The Construction of Narrative Space in Film and Computer Games.” ScreenPlay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces. Eds. Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska. New York: Wallflower Press, 2002. 98-109.