Did you ever wonder what you looked like while you were having an amazing time? Well, if you were at the Dragnet Issue Four launch, you’re in luck. Here are all of the photos from that night, enjoy!!
STATE INTERVENTION, VIDEOGAMES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE: A CRITICAL POLITICAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
This thesis illustrates, using political economy, the ways in which governments increasingly play a large role in developing, or encouraging the development of, videogames, and how these games then circulate and interact as political texts in the public sphere. This is achieved in four parts: two on history and theory, and two case studies. The theoretical chapters have two main foci: the first is by finding value in videogames as meaningful cultural artifacts that play a role in the ongoing maintenance of the state and civil society. This is achieved through a literature review and discussion of the contemporary theoretical parameters of the public sphere, which draws heavily on the work of Habermas (1991), Warner (2002) and Drache (2008). In the second chapter this discussion is located inside the field of game studies, drawing heavily on the work of Bogost (2007), whose theoretical frameworks about the persuasive potential of videogames is investigated through their unique status as computational objects. The two second chapters each conduct a political economy through commodification, spatialization and structuration (Mosco, 2009) on the development of videogames who have a direct link with state intervention: The United States Army recruitment videogame America’s Army (which was funded entirely by the Pentagon) and the Toronto developed iOS videogame Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, which was the recipient of a small-scale cultural industry grant from the provincially owned Ontario Media Development Corporation.
So you can read this now, if you so desire. I do not wish to know about typos of any sort. Please keep those to yourself. Otherwise, discuss away! I would love to hear your thoughts, so please shoot me an electronic mail at daniel[dot]joseph[at]ryerson[dot]ca
Anyways, this is an MA thesis so it has to have a considerable amount of literature review and whatnot, but the most interesting stuff, at least to most scholars of political economy or videogames, will most likely be the investigation of America’s Army as a historical moment that marks a distinct reterritorialization of the medium of videogames by the state after the videogame industry’s youth in the heady days of neo-liberalism. [deep breath]
The second case study (which consists of a long interview with Superbrothers’ Craig Adams) should be of interest to those who make or study indie videogames, as well as the Canadian videogame industry as a whole. It is an early foray into the political economy of these small scale developers and their intimate relations with the state, which is an ongoing concern of mine especially in relation to Toronto’s young videogame development community.
If you are interested in citizenship and the public sphere, I suppose there is a whole bunch of that stuff in there too. Ya know. Democracy.
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Where at the Academy of the Impossible we talk about Minecraft, style, practice, play and why this is so cool.
Please Revise...: 2011: The Birth of e-Populism
If you run in circles anything like mine, you may have noticed that you spent a surprising amount of time discussing the concept of openness in 2011.
Perhaps it was in the context of participation in a theorized open government, the incremental mainstreaming of open coding practices on…
I’m thrilled that today, the sites which serve as the locus for the popular culture of the internet have all rallied against the destructive SOPA bill. No matter where you turn, sites and communities like tumblr, 4chan, Reddit — even the mostly humourous Daily What — are intervening and encouraging users to take action against the bill.
I think this could have serious, positive implications for my research. It demonstrates that the spaces of popular cultural production on the internet, and the users who participate in both the production and consumption of that culture, have a “politics” concerning the internet. It shows that all the jokes, memes, lolcats, rage comics and L33T speak that circulates on these sites can take on political and symbolic meaning and motivate users to act.
I dunno… I’m stoked.
TVO is light years ahead of any other news outlet in Canada in terms of its coverage of the techno-cultural-political nexus. They picked up Search Engine after the Mothercorp axed it, and The Agenda consistently gets guests who actually know what they’re talking about.
So, in case you missed it the other night, here’s The Agenda’s discussion about Anonymous and hacktivism.
Of particular note is Joseph Menn’s GIGANTIC glass of water.
Attack of the Hacktivists (by AgendaStevePaikin)
Behind the scenes of #OccupyWallStreet | The protests on Wall Street are growing larger, despite police using pepper spray and making arrests.
Grinding. All up on dem internets.
Repetition, according to Hegel, plays a crucial role in history: when something happens just once, it may be dismissed as an accident, something that might have been avoided if the situation had been handled differently; but when the same event repeats itself, it is a sign that a deeper historical process is unfolding. When Napoleon lost at Leipzig in 1813, it looked like bad luck; when he lost again at Waterloo, it was clear that his time was over. The same holds for the continuing financial crisis. In September 2008, it was presented by some as an anomaly that could be corrected through better regulations etc; now that signs of a repeated financial meltdown are gathering it is clear that we are dealing with a structural phenomenon.
We are told again and again that we are living through a debt crisis, and that we all have to share the burden and tighten our belts. All, that is, except the (very) rich. The idea of taxing them more is taboo: if we did, the argument runs, the rich would have no incentive to invest, fewer jobs would be created and we would all suffer. The only way to save ourselves from hard times is for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer. What should the poor do? What can they do?
Shoplifters of the World Unite - Slavoj Žižek on the meaning of the riots (via rumagin)
This is an interesting article. Points to chew on in my unresolved quest to figure our what model of organization makes the most sense. I’m pretty well over the informal affinity group type of bullshit organizing anarchists tend to advocate and I’m frustrated by how unambituous most leftist projects are, but I’m still wary of Zizek’s enthusiasm for party building. It’s a bind… But somehow we need to get over the 20th century’s failures and traumas and find ways to be a real force again.
(via jenniferanne)
