Gaming Communities: Audience Discourses and Production Cultures

3 units

In this course, we will investigate the role that paratextual fields such as criticism, marketing, and fandom play in shaping media culture, with video games and game cultures as our focus. We will study how people talk about games: where do they talk about them? How do they recognize each other as participating in the same cultural activity (or create boundaries and distinctions between groups)? How does this discourse become more than just “talk” and affect other audiences and creators? Historical examples focusing on game audiences, game creators, and streaming and online culture will be supplemented with theories of media discourse to let students develop their own research projects. Through reading key books in game studies and game journalism, students will also learn the methods and goals of humanities research and how it can make a difference in the communities they study. Students in this course do not need previous experience with video games, but only a willingness to explore both online and offline “sites of discourse.” This course has no prerequisites. Required weekly screenings.