John Seely Brown, co-author of The Social Life of Information and previously the Chief Genius at Xerox PARC, raises some provocative ideas about MMOGs & narratives in his recent interview at the Smithsonian Institute entitled "Storytelling: Passport to Success in the 21st Century." In it, he describes ingame play as the construction of a new kind of "nonlinear, multi-authored narrative".
Henry Jenkins, Guru of All Things Comparative Media Studies, recently posted excerpts from this interview on his blog on Tech Review.
I, on the other hand, posted it here. With comments... of course. ~.o
Now, this notion of MMOGaming in all its beyond/ingame glory as 'transmedia storytelling' is hardly new (see Jenkins' work on fandom or the last slide of my MUD-Dev debacle 11.5 MB). In my more recent work 167.5 MB (no not kidding), however, I've been trying to point out the less subtle but seemingly equally contentious point that MMOGaming is, in fact, a whole constellation of literacy practices. It's not replacing literacy practices; it IS a literacy practice.
Why all the fuss? Well, first and generally, there's an ongoing public scare that Johnny can't read - the purported literacy crisis we often hear about. Second and specifically, many have claimed that videogaming is the cause of it.
"The collapse of literacy and the rise of the age of violence" - Barry Sanders, A is for Ox"These students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud..."
- Researchers: Video games hurt brain development, CNET News.com"Video games have emerged as the fourth most dominant medium, displacing print media and vying with other major electronic media in the lives of both young adult and teenage males."
- J. Mandese, Video Games Emerge As 'No. 4' Medium, Media Daily News
Well, I can't speak for videogaming in general. But I can speak for MMOGs. And I take these kinds of claims to task. MMOGaming is a thoroughly literate activity, even if we reduce 'literacy' to nothing more than reading and writing (a rather antiquated view of what it means to be literate in a late-modern, shape-shifting kind of portfolio people populated world. I mean, what about reading images? Soundbytes? File structures? Am I really very literate if I don't know what your 'bah' comment after my article meant? Or :_( ? Or if I think a 'blog' is something I stealthily pick from my nose?).
Back to topic: If you look at what kids actually do when they game, it turns out to be *gasp* suspiciously similar to some of the more traditional writing practices educators normally have to threaten students to get them to do. So, the question isn't 'Are kids literate?' or 'Are (MMO)Games displacing print media?' but rather 'How are kids literate?' and 'How do (MMO)Gamers engage in print media?'
The real difference I'm finding between the writing we count (e.g. 5 paragraph essays) and the writing we don't (e.g. n gAm typed TLK) is less genre convention or intellectual sophistication and more the issue of whether/how the author is invested in it.
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