Book•
Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism
01 Jan 2006-
TL;DR: In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames and argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.
Abstract: In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that can be used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be applied beyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium -- from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art -- can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis with examples from all these fields. The marriage of literary theory and information technology, he argues, will help humanists take technology more seriously and hep technologists better understand software and videogames as cultural artifacts. This approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and allows scholars from other fields who are interested in studying videogames to avoid the esoteric isolation of "game studies." The richness of Bogost's comparative approach can be seen in his discussions of works by such philosophers and theorists as Plato, Badiou, Zizek, and McLuhan, and in his analysis of numerous videogames including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto 3, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.
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Book•
11 Apr 2016
TL;DR: A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review as mentioned in this paper, while a published version is the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
Abstract: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication
17 citations
Cites background from "Unit Operations: An Approach to Vid..."
...Most importantly, Bogost (2006) bridged game studies with ideas related to actornetwork theory in his approach towards video-game criticism....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight three salient characteristics of military videogames: they are open to contestation and reconfiguration, making games a site of conflict in themselves, and they grant insight into violent actors' goals and self-conceptions.
Abstract: Military videogames play an important role in violent actors’ communication strategies, and while scholars have attempted to theorize their significance, too much attention is devoted to characterizing games as ideological distortions that must be unmasked to reveal a more authentic view of war. I offer an alternative perspective on these videogames and their political importance. Relying on a conception of ideology as an inescapable constitutive part of politics, rather than ideology as a form of deception, I highlight three salient characteristics of military videogames. First, regardless of what strategic interests they are designed to advance, videogames’ meanings are open to contestation and reconfiguration, making games a site of conflict in themselves. Second, videogames grant insight into violent actors’ goals and self-conceptions. Third, because videogames are designed as closed systems built from mutually reinforcing ontological and epistemological assumptions, they introduce opportunities for n...
17 citations
Cites background from "Unit Operations: An Approach to Vid..."
...They are closed systems operating based on rules that set out the range of possible experiences that players may have (Bogost, 2006; Juul, 2005), with every experience of the game world confirming the embedded assumptions about how the real world operates....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on social geography, affect studies, and postcolonial media studies to analyse value creation in the Indian mobile phone market, specifically in the deployment of an Indian form of workaround called 'jugaad' and identify this market as a collection of human-technical assemblages that are marketed through a rhetoric of frugal innovation.
Abstract: Previous studies have identified affect as constitutive of and woven into everyday life. Less work has focused on how affect is designed and produced through consumer services and goods to modulate human–technical assemblages for commercial and economic ends. In this paper, I draw on social geography, affect studies, and postcolonial media studies to analyse value creation in the Indian mobile phone market, specifically in the deployment of an Indian form of workaround called ‘jugaad’. Following nonrepresentational analyses of digital practices, I identify this market as a collection of human–technical assemblages that are marketed through a rhetoric of frugal innovation or jugaad. Moving through examples from fieldnotes, case studies, and reports, the analysis of the affective atmospheres of Indian mobile phone marketing communications appraises televised Bharti Airtel adverts. Findings of this analysis suggest affect has spatial, temporal, and economic dimensions, as well as being embedded in everyday e...
16 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose an alternative way of studying video games: as thought experiments akin to the narrative thought experiments that are frequently used in philosophy, incorporating insights from the narratological and ludological perspectives in game studies.
Abstract: This essay proposes an alternative way of studying video games: as thought experiments akin to the narrative thought experiments that are frequently used in philosophy. This perspective incorporates insights from the narratological and ludological perspectives in game studies and highlights the philosophical significance of games. Video game thought experiments are similar to narrative thought experiments in many respects and can perform the same functions. They also have distinctive advantages over narrative thought experiments, as they situate counterfactuals in more complex, developed contexts and present them to players who are participants in game worlds, rather than simply observers.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this article, textual analysis, methodology, and representations (of bodies, identities and social groups) in digital games are discussed using a combination of game studies literature, film theory, and literary theory.
Abstract: This article is about textual analysis, methodology, and representations (of bodies, identities and social groups) in digital games. The issues under consideration include textual analysis as procedure, the role of fragmentation in textual analysis, game ontology and the remit of textual analysis, and the role of the player-as-analyst in relation to subjectivity and embodied interpretation. These issues are discussed using a combination of game studies literature, film theory, and literary theory–and with reference to Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011).
16 citations
Cites background from "Unit Operations: An Approach to Vid..."
...…developed ontological and phenomenological accounts (Sageng, Fossheim, & Larsen, 2012), debated the permeability of the “magic circle” (Zimmerman, 2012), or raised questions about the relationships between subjectivity, rules, and proceduralist meaning (Bogost, 2008, p. 99; Treanor & Mateas, 2013)....
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References
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TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another, and the impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored.
Abstract: Analysis of social networks is suggested as a tool for linking micro and macro levels of sociological theory. The procedure is illustrated by elaboration of the macro implications of one aspect of small-scale interaction: the strength of dyadic ties. It is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another. The impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored. Stress is laid on the cohesive power of weak ties. Most network models deal, implicitly, with strong ties, thus confining their applicability to small, well-defined groups. Emphasis on weak ties lends itself to discussion of relations between groups and to analysis of segments of social structure not easily defined in terms of primary groups.
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TL;DR: The discipline and practice of qualitative research have been extensively studied in the literature as discussed by the authors, including the work of Denzin and Denzin, and their history in sociology and anthropology, as well as the role of women in qualitative research.
Abstract: Introduction - Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln The Discipline and Practice of Qualitative Research PART ONE: LOCATING THE FIELD Qualitative Methods - Arthur J Vidich and Stanford M Lyman Their History in Sociology and Anthropology Reconstructing the Relationships between Universities and Society through Action Research - Davydd J Greenwood and Morten Levin For Whom? Qualitative Research, Representations and Social Responsibilities - Michelle Fine et al Ethics and Politics in Qualitative Research - Clifford G Christians PART TWO: PARADIGMS AND PERSPECTIVES IN TRANSITION Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions and Emerging Confluences - Yvonna S Lincoln and Egon G Guba Three Epistemological Stances for Qualitative Inquiry - Thomas A Schwandt Interpretivism, Hermeneutics and Social Constructionism Feminisms and Qualitative Research at and into the Millennium - Virginia L Olesen Racialized Discourses and Ethnic Epistemologies - Gloria Ladson-Billings Rethinking Critical Theory and Qualitative Research - Joe L Kincheloe and Peter McLaren Cultural Studies - John Frow and Meaghan Morris Sexualities, Queer Theory and Qualitative Research - Joshua Gamson PART THREE: STRATEGIES OF INQUIRY The Choreography of Qualitative Research Design - Valerie J Janesick Minuets, Improvisations and Crystallization An Untold Story? Doing Funded Qualitative Research - Julianne Cheek Performance Ethnography - Michal M McCall A Brief History and Some Advice Case Studies - Robert E Stake Ethnography and Ethnographic Representation - Barbara Tedlock Analyzing Interpretive Practice - Jaber F Gubrium and James A Holstein Grounded Theory - Kathy Charmaz Objectivist and Constructivist Methods Undaunted Courage - William G Tierney Life History and the Postmodern Challenge Testimonio, Subalternity and Narrative Authority - John Beverley Participatory Action Research - Stephen Kemmis and Robin McTaggart Clinical Research - William L Miller and Benjamin F Crabtree PART FOUR: METHODS OF COLLECTING AND ANALYZING EMPIRICAL MATERIALS The Interview - Andrea Fontana and James H Frey From Structured Questions to Negotiated Text Rethinking Observation - Michael V Angrosino and Kimberly A Mays de Perez From Method to Context The Interpretation of Documents and Material Culture - Ian Hodder Re-Imagining Visual Methods - Douglas Harper Galileo to Neuromancer Auto-Ethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity - Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P Bochner Researcher as Subject Data Management and Analysis Methods - Gery W Ryan and H Russell Bernard Software and Qualitative Research - Eben A Weitzman Analyzing Talk and Text - David Silverman Focus Groups in Feminist Research - Esther Madriz Applied Ethnography - Erve Chambers PART FIVE: THE ART AND PRACTICES OF INTERPRETATION, EVALUATION AND REPRESENTATION The Problem of Criteria in the Age of Relativism - John K Smith and Deborah K Deemer The Practices and Politics of Interpretation - Norman K Denzin Writing - Laurel Richardson A Method of Inquiry Anthropological Poetics - Ivan Brady Understanding Social Programs through Evaluation - Jennifer C Greene Influencing the Policy Process with Qualitative Research - Ray C Rist PART SIX: THE FUTURE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Qualitative Inquiry - Mary M Gergen and Kenneth J Gergen Tensions and Transformations The Seventh Moment - Yvonna S Lincoln and Norman K Denzin Out of the Past
26,318 citations
Book•
[...]
01 Jan 1927
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an interpretation of Dasein in terms of temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being.
Abstract: Translators' Preface. Author's Preface to the Seventh German Edition. Introduction. Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being. 1. The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being. 2. The Twofold Task of Working out the Question of Being. Method and Design of our Investigation. Part I:. The Interpretation of Dasein in Terms of Temporality, and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon for the Question of Being. 3. Preparatory Fundamental Analysis of Dasein. Exposition of the Task of a Preparatory Analysis of Dasein. Being-in-the-World in General as the Basic State of Dasein. The Worldhood of the World. Being-in-the-World as Being-with and Being-One's-Self. The 'they'. Being-in as Such. Care as the Being of Dasein. 4. Dasein and Temporality. Dasein's Possibility of Being-a-Whole, and Being-Towards-Death. Dasein's Attestation of an Authentic Potentiality-for-Being, and Resoluteness. Dasein's Authentic Potentiality-for-Being-a-Whole, and Temporality as the Ontological Meaning of Care. Temporality and Everydayness. Temporality and Historicality. Temporality and Within-Time-Ness as the Source of the Ordinary Conception of Time. Author's Notes. Glossary of German Terms. Index.
16,708 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a very different view of the arts of practice in a very diverse culture, focusing on the use of ordinary language and making do in the art of practice.
Abstract: Preface General Introduction PART I: A VERY ORDINARY CULTURE I. A Common Place: Ordinary Language II. Popular Cultures: Ordinary Language III. Making Do: Uses and Tactics PART II: THEORIES OF THE ART OF PRACTICE IV. Foucault and Bourdieu V. The Arts of Theory VI. Story Time PART III: SPATIAL PRACTICES VII. Walking in the City VIII. Railway Navigation and Incarceration IX. Spatial Stories PART IV: Uses of Language X. The Scriptural Economy XI. Quotations of Voices XII. Reading as Poaching PART V: WAYS OF BELIEVING XIII. Believing and Making People Believe XIV. The Unnamable Indeterminate Notes
10,978 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: In this article, the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and how the flow of information is controlled in the Western world are discussed.
Abstract: Many definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world.
10,912 citations