Media Ecologies

In this chapter, we frame the media ecologies that contextualize the youth practices we describe in later chapters. By drawing from case studies that are delimited by locality, institutions, networked sites, and interest groups (see appendices), we have been able to map the contours of the varied social, technical, and cultural contexts that structure youth media engagement. This chapter introduces three genres of participation with new media that have emerged as overarching descriptive frameworks for understanding how youth new media practices are defi ned in relation and in opposition to one another. The genres of participation—hanging out, messing around, and geeking out—refl ect and are intertwined with young people’s practices, learning, and identity formation within these varied and dynamic media ecologies

Toward an Ecology of Gaming

In her introduction to the Ecology of Games, Salen argues for the need for an increasingly complex and informed awareness of the meaning, significance, and practicalities of games in young people's lives. The language of the media is replete with references to the devil (and heavy metal) when it comes to the ill-found virtues of videogames, while a growing movement in K-12 education casts them as a Holy Grail in the uphill battle to keep kids learning. Her essay explores the different ways the volume's contributors add shades of grey to this often black-and-white mix, pointing toward a more sophisticated understanding of the myriad ways in which gaming could and should matter to those considering the future of learning

Who Is the Note-Worthy Fan? Featuring Players in the Official Facebook Communication of Mainstream Video Games

Video game fans participate in the official promotion of video games, either voluntarily, or unwillingly when their fanworks are appropriated and used by video game publishers. The article provides a quantitative overview of the presence of fans in the official social media profiles of four selected mainstream games (Dragon Age: Inquistion, Evolve, Mortal Kombat X and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt) during a one-year period from August 2014 to July 2015. Combining the traditional method of content analysis and Facebook data-mining, we explore the frequency with which fans appear in social media (including questions of various forms of fanworks and gender) and what user activity is generated by posts featuring fans and fan creations. Results show that fans or their fanworks are featured in 8–24% of all posts depending on a game and in the most common categories of painting and cosplay they generate a comparable level of user engagement as traditional promotional posts

Web 2.0 technologies for learning: the current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions: supplementary materials

These supplementary materials accompany the report ‘Web 2.0 technologies for learning: the current landscape – opportunities, challenges and tensions’, which is the first report from research commissioned by Becta into Web 2.0 technologies for learning at Key Stages 3 and 4. This report describes findings from the commissioned literature review of the then current landscape concerning learner use of Web 2.0 technologies and the implications for teachers, schools, local authorities and policy makers

Are digital natives a myth or reality?: Students’ use of technologies for learning

This paper outlines the findings of a study investigating the extent and nature of use of digital technologies by undergraduate students in Social Work and Engineering, in two British universities. The study involved a questionnaire survey of students (n=160) followed by in-depth interviews with students (n=8) and lecturers and support staff (n=8) in both institutions. Firstly, the findings suggest that students use a limited range of technologies for both learning and socialisation. For learning, mainly established ICTs are used- institutional VLE, Google and Wikipedia and mobile phones. Students make limited, recreational use of social technologies such as media sharing tools and social networking sites. Secondly, the findings point to a low level of use of and familiarity with collaborative knowledge creation tools, virtual worlds, personal web publishing, and other emergent social technologies. Thirdly, the study did not find evidence to support the claims regarding students adopting radically different patterns of knowledge creation and sharing suggested by some previous studies. The study shows that students’ attitudes to learning appear to be influenced by the approaches adopted by their lecturers. Far from demanding lecturers change their practice, students appear to conform to fairly traditional pedagogies, albeit with minor uses of technology tools that deliver content. Despite both groups clearly using a rather limited range of technologies for learning, the results point to some age differences, with younger, engineering students making somewhat more active, albeit limited, use of tools than the older ones. The outcomes suggest that although the calls for radical transformations in educational approaches may be legitimate it would be misleading to ground the arguments for such change solely in students’ shifting expectations and patterns of learning and technology use

Media Communication, Consumption and Use: The Changing Role of the Designer

Consumers are changing the way in which they create, experience and consume media. User Generated Content (UGC) marks a shift in the way in which ordinary people are now able to contribute to the creation of media. They have become active citizens in what is now a two way conversation. The advent of UGC has created new challenges for communication designers who now need to take on the role of a facilitator in this process. The challenge for communication design is not only to identify appropriate methods for communication, but to understand how best to facilitate connections between users such that they create structures that they can inhabit. This paper explores the changing role of design in UGC rich media communication and presents a Decision Making Framework (DMF) that engages designers in the consideration of the user in the development process. In-depth interviews with leading industry proponents ensure currency of the insights gained. Keywords: Design Process, User Generated Content, Communication Design, Fraimwork</p