Browsing by Subject "New media"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    A refusal to play along: videogaming and ludic thought.
    (2010-02) Grey, Sarah Cameron Loyd
    In this dissertation, I analyze the videogame as a way of approaching emerging forms of selfhood, as well as new models of technological innovation, economic activity, and artistic production, utilizing writings by theorists of visual culture, in particular Theodor W. Adorno. By evaluating the media phenomenon of the videogame, I assess the new ludic individual and elucidate the problems and possibilities that accompany her. I propose that games be played critically, not simply as expressions of culture or as products for consumption, but as objects through which we can think. In this way, games function much like artworks, as pieces of visual culture that allow us to explore different avenues of reflection. Games can be catalysts for deliberation on a variety of topics, from aesthetics to constructions of selfhood. Individuals often play the role of the gamer even without knowing it, due to the unavoidability of games on phones, computers, TV, etc. The individual as a gamer is active, but entrapped; she has choices, but they are from a menu; she has a purpose (or a quest), but its outcome is predetermined. My project is to scrutinize this tendency in order to explain how technologies have shaped us and, more importantly, how we can reclaim play for our benefit.
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    The Tension Between Professional Control and Open Participation: Journalism and Its Boundaries
    (Taylor and Francis, 2012) Lewis, Seth C.
    Amid growing difficulties for professionals generally, media workers in particular are negotiating the increasingly contested boundary space between producer and user in the digital environment. This article, based on a review of the academic literature, explores that larger tension transforming the creative industries by extrapolating from the case of journalism—namely, the ongoing tension between professional control and open participation in the news process. Firstly, the sociology of professions, with its emphasis on boundary maintenance, is used to examine journalism as boundary work, profession, and ideology—each contributing to the formation of journalism’s professional logic of control over content. Secondly, by considering the affordances and cultures of digital technologies, the article articulates open participation and its ideology. Thirdly, and against this backdrop of ideological incompatibility, a review of empirical literature finds that journalists have struggled to reconcile this key tension, caught in the professional impulse toward one-way publishing control even as media become a multi-way network. Yet, emerging research also suggests the possibility of a hybrid logic of adaptability and openness—an ethic of participation—emerging to resolve this tension going forward. The article concludes by pointing to innovations in analytical frameworks and research methods that may shed new light on the producer–user tension in journalism.
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    Women`s and men`s intercollegiate basketball media coverage on ESPN.com: a mixed methods analysis of a complete season.
    (2009-08) Maxwell, Heather Dawn
    The purpose of this study was to benchmark quantitative and qualitative media coverage of women`s and men`s collegiate basketball on the Internet, while simultaneously supporting or rejecting the theory of hegemonic masculinity in the contemporary media channel. Ultimately, the researcher studied whether patterns of under-representation and marginalization of female athletes observed in traditional media exist in new media, specifically the Internet. Feature photographs and headline articles on the women`s and men`s college basketball home pages within ESPN.com were collected during the 2006-07 NCAA intercollegiate basketball season. A triangulation mixed methods design was used, as quantitative content analysis was used to quantify the number of new feature photographs and headline articles and analyze the foci of the feature photographs (e.g., coach, player, etc.) and how this person(s) is portrayed (i.e., in/out of uniform, on/off the court, in action/posed, etc.) and qualitative content analysis was employed to describe prevalent themes in the feature photographs and headline articles. In conclusion, the findings neither completely challenge nor reinforce hegemony. The equal photograph impressions regardless of the sex of the athlete, more overall article impressions on the women`s basketball home page, women`s and men`s basketball players equally likely to be presented in uniform and on the court, women`s basketball players more likely to be shown in action, and more women`s basketball photographs portraying True Athleticism compared favorably to men`s basketball and challenges male hegemony in sport. However, male hegemony in sport was reinforced by the findings that men`s basketball received more new feature photographs and headline articles, more game reporting articles, and more articlesfocused on such topics as "Coach is King," "Athlete Health," and "Rule Breakers" compared to women`s basketball. In addition, articles on women's basketball disproportionately focused on tangential topics represented by the article themes, Syndicated Lists and Professional Leagues, were over-represented in women`s basketball articles.