Social Exclusion, Power, and Video Game Play
New Research in Digital Media and Technology
Edited by David G. Embrick, Talmadge J. Wright, Andras Lukacs
Publication date:
01 March 2012Length of book:
282 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739138601
While many books and articles are emerging on the new area of game studies and the application of computer games to learning, therapeutic, military, and entertainment environments, few have attempted to contextualize the importance of virtual play within a broader social, cultural, and political environment that raises the question of the significance of work, play, power, and inequalities in the modern world. Studies tend to concentrate on the content of virtual games, but few have questioned how power is produced or reproduced by publishers, gamers, or even social media; how social exclusion (based on race, class, or gender) in the virtual environment is reproduced from the real world; and how actors are able to use new media to transcend their fears, anxieties, prejudices, and assumptions. The articles presented by the contributors in this volume represent cutting-edge research in the area of critical game play with the hope of drawing attention to the need for more studies that are both sociological and critical.
As an increasingly popular pastime, video gaming is big business. Well-founded claims of gaming's economic and social importance still begin the many academic books appearing now on the subject--including the book under review--suggesting that video gaming's legitimacy as a research topic is still a source of anxiety. Most work in this burgeoning field is devoted to games as objects--their genres, aesthetics, and technologies. In contrast, this collection of essays investigates the gamers--their motivations, habits, and interactions. Embrick, Wright, and Lukacs (all, Loyola Univ., Chicago) are, respectively, sociologists (Embrick and Wright) and an informatics specialist. They organize the 12 main essays, most by young scholars, into sections that look at "social-psychological implications," "social inequalities" (e.g., gender), and "game fans." Though they have different disciplinary backgrounds, the contributors share a focus on players' social construction--as group actors in World of Warcraft, as individual consciousnesses, as concerned consumers. The power and social exclusion discussed in the text takes place in the worlds of gaming. Thinking about the relation of those ludic politics to the more painful ones of the real world is left largely to the reader. Summing Up: Recommended.