Tag Archives: dtcv

@CailinJohnson

The gamer culture is very interesting and very complex. Stereotypes about gamers include, that they are antisocial, lazy, and couch potatoes to name a few. However, in a video describing how video gamers could change the world’s problems the previous stereotypes of gamers will no longer be valid. Just as “hackers program because programming challenges are of intrinsic interest to them” gamers game because it interests them.  (Hacker Work Ethic p. 150-151) Videos games provide a completely new world that has its own characters, communities, methods of communication and relationships. Gamers use this as an opportunity to escape from the world that is their reality however the problems that they are solving in their games can be used to solve current world problems. (Gamer video) Also described in the video is that gamers could fix all kinds of world problems such as the economy and war situations.  If gamers could take the skills that they use in their games and apply it to the real world the stereotype surrounding the gamer would change. They would no longer be considered couch potatoes, lazy and antisocial they would be considered intelligent, outgoing, and politically or economically active. However this will be challenging. Gamers are socially awkward and that is why they enjoy being in a game world hiding behind their avatars than out in the real world solving real world problems. They would need to change the way they operate socially to change their stereotypes but if they could they would change the way gamers are thought of entirely.

@CailinJohnso

Media use changes the user in many ways especially with the use of Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook and Twitter people can make themselves look like anyone that they want to, making you think that they are someone that they are not. With Facebook especially you can take pictures and post statuses that are completely unlike who you are in person. Video games and virtual realities add another level to being able to be whatever you want to be with the creation of avatars. “.. a second life where they could look like and act like whatever they chose by using a digital avatar.” (Coleman p. 12) In video games you can create an avatar to look like whatever you chose which could be as far away from the real you as possible. Media such as Facebook and Twitter also change the user by giving them something to hide behind. Users will say things on Facebook and Twitter that they would never say face to face with someone. It gives them a feeling like they don’t have to be responsible for the things that they say or do. Facebook and Twitter also allow for “…real time interactions…” (Coleman p. 13) This makes people feel like the conversations that they are interacting in are reality when they are actually happening in a virtual world, or on a media such as Facebook. We can be anywhere and have a conversation with someone that it possibly thousands of miles away but do to instant interactions such as text we feel like it is as real as a face to face conversation.

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@CailinJohnson

New media allows an old, well known story to be told in a completely different way. In the case of the original text Red Riding Hood you are reading words on a page and letting your imagination interpret the story. However by turning Red Riding Hood into an electronic literature piece it changes the way the story is interpreted. The electronic piece shows animation and sound with very little text showing a story instead of letting a reader read the story and interpret it themselves. Now instead of being able to imagine what the wolf or red riding hood looks like you are being shown. Also instead of being able to determine the mood of the story the music that is being played sets the mood for you. “Media, by altering the environment, evoke us in unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act-the way we perceive the world.” (McLuhan p. 41)  Media is changing the way we understand and interpret things such as Red Riding Hood. “The metaphoric associations put into play by the device’s physical form include traffic between machine and biological organism, companion animal and parent, printed marks and oral production, static book and dynamic text-to-speech generation, artificial intelligence and human cognition, reading text without understanding it and (for young children listening to the Reading Eye Dog), understanding what is said without being able to read it.” (Hayle’s p. 94) Old stories are being told in ways that they never would have been able to without the aid of electronic media.