(Dis)conneting literacy practices: A critical comparison of Online Gaming and Classroom.
Submitted by:
Elisavet Kiourti
Abstract:
In contemporary capitalistic society, the proliferation of widely affordable and accessible Internet connectivity has transformed, in many ways, how video games are played. Millions of players globally connect to violent multiplayer first-person shooter games (e.g Call of Duty, Counter Strike: Global Offensive) and/or massively multiplayer online role playing games (e.g League of Legends, World of Warcraft) in their everyday lives. Yet, like other human-made products videogames are often associated with the narrative of moral panic (Cohen, 1980) e.g. delinquent behaviour of the players (Von Radowitz, 2015), and decrease in students’ reading (Bradshaw & Nichols, 2004). Gaming contexts though, are far more complex and more demanding environments than publicly assumed. In gaming environments players participate in a variety of digital literacy practices (Gee, 2007; Steinkuhler, 2997) in which they linguistically and performatively interact with the game itself, their co-players and their opponents (Ensslin, 2012; Wright et al., 2002). Within this context, the current study describes an ethnographic research investigating the literacy practices of four young gamers in the context of Cyprus. Drawing on the framework of Autonomous and Ideological Models of Literacy (Street, 2005) and Unified Discourse (Gee, 2014) the current ethnographic research has a twofold aim. First, it seeks to investigate how players are engaged in gaming literacy practices, and second to explore the stance of the players in classroom literacy practices. The analysis shows that classroom as literacy field shares specific features that disengage students from literacy practices, while video games function as spaces engaging players with a multiple literacy practices and self-driven learning.
Bio: Elisavet Kiourti is special scientist at the University of Cyprus. She holds a Bsc in Greek Literature (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) and an MA in Computational Linguistics (University of Essex). Currently she is a Phd Candidate on Video Games, Language and Literacy. Her research areas include digital and gaming literacies, non formal education, language and identity. Her main publications include: Kiourti E., (in press), «SHUT THE FUCK UP re! Plant the Bomb Fast”: Reconstructing language and identity in First Person Shooter Games, in Approaches to Videogame Discourse, A. Ensslin & I. Balteiro, Bloomsbury Publishing: New York. ; Kyriazis M., Kiourti E., (2018), Engaging with online environments can improve health in ageing, Frontiers Journal. ; Κyriazis M., Kiourti E., (in press), Interactions with technology as a cognitive anti-ageing hormetic stimulus: A multidisciplinary approach, Springer Pumblishing.
Elisavet Kiourti, University of Cyprus, ekiour01@ucy.ac.cy