No, I won’t be returning to my old stomping grounds in Philly this semester, but I’m there in spirit: Over at Technically Philly, Brian James Kirk offers a Q&A with me about my dissertation research. Thanks to Brian for making me sound significantly more coherent than I remember being on our phone call.

Later this month, however, I will be in St. Louis at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference. I’ll be presenting a paper that originated as a loosely-connected series of posts here about “The Multiple Appeals of Gaming.” Let me know if you expect to be at the conference and feel like discussing geeky things, as I have a tendency to do that when given the chance.

My dissertation occasionally presents me with some odd dilemmas resulting in strange turns of phrase. This is largely an artifact of working with an in-text citation style (APA), which blends a somewhat scientistic air with sometimes quite … let’s say, colorful names and language. No matter how many times I read this sentence, for instance, it looks strange to me, though there’s nothing objectively wrong with it:

Sexist, racist, and homophobic sentiments may be amplified by the somewhat anonymous and depersonalized format of internet venues – an “online disinhibition effect” (Suler, 2004) in psychological terms, though well known to geeks under such terms as “the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” (Kruhulik & Holkins, 2004).

The phrase is indeed well known, and I offer an endnote to expound upon that a bit. But it still looks like a weird sentence. (And yes, the lowercase “I” in “internet” is intentional.)

My dilemma today is how to cite an article by Iroquois Pliskin. Citing people by handle/screen name is usually no big deal for me. Because I’m quoting heavily from comments on blogs and publicly viewable forums, I already have plenty of citations like “(CmdrTaco, 2007).” This gets trickier when citing someone using a screen name that takes the form of a pen name. If I’m to treat this like a screen name, I’d cite it as “(Iroquois Pliskin, 2009).” On the other hand, this has a first and last name, so should it be “(Pliskin, 2009)”? “Mark Twain” was just a pen name for Samuel Clemens, but I think you’d still cite him as “(Twain, 1876).” And I haven’t even addressed how I decided to cite the Penny Arcade strip noted in the quote above as “(Krahulik and Holkins, 2004)” rather than “(Gabe and Tycho, 2004)”; citing when you have a screen name and a real name associated with a work presents its own challenges as well.

I’m not going to let something so silly hold me up right now, so I’m just going with citing as a screen name for consistency with the other online sources I’m using in cases when no real name is given on the work itself. Perhaps I’ll revise after defending if need be.

I’ve recently received word that Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture, an open-access journal, will be publishing a paper of mine in a 2009 issue. The paper, “Arcadian rhythms: Gaming and interaction in social space,” is a revised and updated version of the paper I described in my post on ICA 2007. The paper describes a participant-observation study spanning several months, which saw me visiting a few different arcades to get a sense of how people play and socialize around games in a semi-public space.

Part of what fascinated me about this subject was how many journalists and even some other academics described video arcades as havens of racial harmony and class equality—a development, I think, partially resulting from the fact that arcades are much more socially stratified around gaming skills and interests than any more normally recognized index of cultural belonging. The distinction between “hardcore” and “casual” players made by many in the gaming press may be an incomplete and problematic construction of who plays games, but arcade-goers appear to make similar sorts of divisions between themselves, both in terms of social organization and formal differences in the games they choose to play. (Some of this now reads like a retrospective of how the Wii has been capable of reaching new gaming audiences, but this research was first conducted before the Wii’s control scheme was even announced. Ah well—so goes the pace of academic research and publication.)

The first version I wrote of this (even before presenting it at a conference) was actually quite a bit longer because a good portion was devoted to discussion of the much-lamented “death of arcades,” which ultimately seemed better addressed in some other paper. I focused on this direction because I’m more interested in connections between gameplay and culture than in developments in the industry, but we’re probably overdue to see a paper comparing and contrasting the American and Japanese arcade scenes. In fact, it was somewhat challenging to find enough sites for this paper, as some of those I planned to visit had closed not long before I started the research. Two more of my four sites have been effectively closed since submitting the paper for publication.

“Arcadian rhythms” goes online in the fall of 2009, but please feel free to email me now (jason @ this domain) if you’d like a copy to look at in advance.

I have a new open-access, peer-reviewed article up at the International Journal of Communication, titled “Seeking Truth in Video Game Ratings: Content Considerations for Media Regulation.” This study presents a detailed look at the processes and reform proposals for video game content rating and regulation in the U.S. It’s a follow-up to a paper I presented at the National Communication Association 2007 conference, which I described here some months ago.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just got back from Montreal, where I was attending the International Communication Association 2008 conference. Due to cost and scheduling issues, I wasn’t able stay for as long as I might have liked, but even in the couple days I was there, I got to see some thought-provoking presentations and meet some interesting people. Here are a few things I wanted to make note of before I forget. Find out more information about these panels in the ICA conference program (PDF link).

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week blogging was a little light as I attended the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association 2008 conference (PDF schedule here). The word “geek” came up way more than I expected, considering that I was presenting on my games research and wasn’t even bringing up geeks there myself.

I thought I’d share some thoughts on a few of the panels and presentations I saw, including the panel I chaired in the Digital Games division. It’s not representative of everything I saw, and sadly, I had to miss several things I wanted to catch, but that’s the way things are at a big conference with lots of interesting stuff going on.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just read David Anderegg’s new book, Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them. It’s a very quick read—I got through it in two sittings, taking notes—but rather interesting and engaging. I noted in an earlier comment here that it seemed to lack academic references, but in fact these are at the end, with no superscript numbers in the text to indicate which claims have corresponding endnotes. As a result, it reads much more like a journalistic account than an academic book (though the author certainly employs his own observational data and theoretical background). Basically, this book is meant to convince parents to help eradicate the nerd/geek stereotype among middle schoolers, and to give some helpful tips to parents of beleaguered nerds and geeks in the meantime.

Dr. Anderegg analyzes a variety of statistics and cultural objects in attempting to come up with a comprehensive account of what behaviors get kids labeled as geeks and nerds (sometimes reaching conclusions very similar to those of my own dissertation!). This includes discussion of things like nerds’ interest in “magic” and fantasy fiction, but focuses most of all on why kids might feel like they can’t (or shouldn’t) be good at science and math. His strongest arguments, I think, are those that draw upon his direct experience and knowledge as a child psychologist. His discussion of the connection (or lack thereof) between geek stereotypes and Asperger syndrome is the most compelling I’ve read, and all the quotes from conversations with kids and parents really help give a sense of how non-nerds go out of their way not to be seen as nerds.

With the exception of a brief note in the conclusion about a 17-year-old who considers herself a member of a “Geek Club,” the book mostly considers “nerd identity” as synonymous with “the nerd stereotype”—something negative that we need to do away with. This means, perhaps unsurprisingly, that there isn’t really much consideration of geek/nerd identity and culture as something celebrated among adults; it’s something kids mostly grow out of, the author suggests, before they go on to make tons of money. In some ways, though, this was just a necessary limitation in scope, and I’m hoping to help fill in the gaps in this area myself.

If you happen to read this book yourself, I’d be very curious of your take on it. Please feel free to leave comments on this post or shoot me an email at jason at geekstudies dot org.

Here’s another (very loosely) themed post, collecting a bunch of links that give a sense of what it means to be a geek in the 21st century. (Also, I’m out of town for a few days, so please pardon me if it takes me a bit to get back to your email.)

Read the rest of this entry »

I got a message yesterday from Nick Bowman, a doctoral student at Michigan State University I met this past year at the International Communication Association conference. He says:

Myself and a colleague, Daniel Schultheiss, are working on gathering gamer data on on-line video game players. At this point, Daniel has a wealth of information on German game players, but he is/we are hoping to expand this subject pool to include gamers from other parts of the world. If you could help perhaps spread the word about our survey, it would be a great help to both of us.

If you could consider forwarding the survey link to your students and colleagues – or anyone else interested in on-line gaming – this would be very helpful to us. The survey link is http://www.unipark.de/uc/entertainment_online/, and currently there are German and English language versions. The survey should take less than 10 minutes. Subjects who choose to complete the survey are entered into a raffle to win free audio-book downloads (he has something in the neighborhood of 55,000 free downloads he can give away), and all identities will be kept private.

If you have any further questions, please contact me at bowmann5 at msu dot edu.

I bolded the parts I thought might be particularly relevant. Please feel free to take the survey yourself or to pass it along to others. Thanks!

Thanks to a link from Emily, I now know what I have long hoped and suspected: My city is well on its way to being the new geek mecca. The link that confirms this is Geekadelphia, a blog that is all things geeky and Philly rolled into one.

Read the rest of this entry »