Technical Communication | Games | Experience Design

My biggest preoccupation during the first half of this semester has been preparing for my qualifying exams. I take them in the middle of October (the weekend before I go to Meaningful Play), and have been devoted to ironing out the questions I will answer. Coming up with the five questions below has been at times difficult, and other times relatively simple. But, after writing these out, I feel really conident in the next step — my dissertation process. My biggest fear has been getting to this point and not having a clear idea of where I wanted to go as I moved forward. Between my drive, my wife’s encouragement and support, and Liza’s tutelage, I feel far better about this whole process than I could have ever expected coming in.

These questions still have to be approved by Liza and the PhD Advisory Council at ODU. But I think this is a fairly good distillation of the final questions — and a pretty good picture of what my brain looks like now. Liza and the Council will pick three of these for me to answer.

Interaction Design and English Studies

Thanks to the epistemic instabilities traced by postmodern theorists like Derrida and Foucault, English Studies has for decades found itself at the intersection of whether or not there is a way to overcome the semiotic slippages that seem inherent in language, communication, and representation. Explain how this slippage is not an obstacle, but an opportunity in Hart-Davidson’s (2001) argument that the persistence, iterability, and inexhaustible adaptability of language mirrors the work performed by technical communicators as they transition to designing systems rather than documenting them. Connect your discussion to Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s (2005) synthesis of articulation and symbolic analytic work.

Primary Area of Specialization (Technical Communication)

In actor-network theory, Latour (1999) argues that “Action is simply not a property of humans;” instead, action is a property emerging from an assembly of actors within a network (p. 182). Assembling the network imposes an instance of “translation,” which Latour defines as a “displacement, drift, invention, mediation, the creation of a link that did not exist before and that to some degree modifies the original [network]” (p. 178). How can this concept from actor-network theory be integrated with Cooper and Reiman’s (2003) distinction between concept, representation, and implementation in the design of an interactive system? Be sure to include a discussion of Norman’s (2004) narrative model used in designing interactions between people and objects.

Secondary Area of Specialization (Game Design and Cultural Studies)

With digital technologies, the lines between authors and readers, between creators and consumers, are blurred because intellectual property is always situated within a “kludge” of information, people, and groups (Jenkins, 2006). In other words, there are no longer clear lines between consumers and producers in information economies. With respect to computer games, this means Cultural Studies scholars often concern themselves with the “precarious labour” (Kuchlich, 2005), or “co-creation” (Banks & Deuze, 2009; Postigo, 2007 & 2008), that occurs as players assume creative roles in the design and development processes of games. What are the ramifications of the “moral economies” (Green & Jenkins, 2009) that arise from co-creative networks, and what are the implications for game design?

Methodology: Networks | Agency | Participation

In Network (2008), Clay Spinuzzi highlights agency as one of the key differences between activity theory (AT) and actor network theory (ANT): “Since actor-networks assume symmetry between humans and nonhumans, they deemphasize human cognition, volition, and ingenuity (Latour, 1996b)… In contrast… Activity theory’s account is asymmetrical. Cables don’t have interests – they are tools meant to mediate human communication or objects to be transformed through sedulous human labor” (p. 44). This points to a question of whether or not agency is a quality imbued in a particular subject, rather than a dynamic process supported by relationships in a network. If we adopt the latter assumption, what implications does this have for finding linkages between AT and ANT methodologies? Discussing the theories of Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006) and Latour (1999), explain what the implications might be for researching participatory cultures and the ways agency might be both enabled and constrained.

Contributing to the Field

The creative and symbolic-analytic work that occurs in participatory cultures points to significant overlap among the concerns of technical communicators, interaction and experience designers, and Cultural Studies scholars. In an age of “distributed work” (Spinuzzi, 2007), there’s a need to account for the political economies that develop within, around, and from the collaborative practices that often characterize participatory cultures. How does the study of agency in technical communication link theories of interaction design with the questions concerning “moral economies” (Green & Jenkins, 2009) currently occupying many Cultural Studies scholars?

To my #cmp10 peeps:

4n9314 “I <3 Henry Jenkins” Harrison
Christy “Groceries have no meaning for me” Gilroy
Kelly “I’m really a bad ass in Jimmy Choos” Murphy
Sam “I get my own soundtrack at conferences” Evans
Shaw “I’m covering a murder trial this week” Day
Chris “G $ Zombie Killah” English
Laura “I’m sooo much cooler & nerdier than my kids” Bucholz
Liza “Oh God, what have I done?” Potts

I want to say thanks to all of you. Every Tuesday night for the last four months, I have eagerly looked forward to our class. I knew, at some point in each class, several things would happen:

1. I would smile and/or laugh at a pop culture reference that reminded me of something awesome. Or, I would find appreciation for a whole new piece of nerdery, something I hadn’t known before. Hello, Firefly!
2. I would learn something completely new — a new angle on something I had long taken for granted.
3. One of you would blow my brain apart, challenging me to put it back together in a way I could never have thought of on my own.

Moving to Norfolk was a big transition with a lot of challenges for me. But, every Tuesday night, all of you made it a little less difficult. To see this class come to an end is fulfilling in the sense that it points to new steps and ideas to be pursued. But it’s also sad. All of you challenged me and motivated me to learn more and to do more. And I don’t want to see that end.

Have a good summer and keep in touch. And, again, thanks to all of you for the best class I’ve ever had with any group of people.

And congrats to Shawn, and good luck in whatever you decide to do.

–Dave “….” Jones

Mark Poster (b. 1941)

Mark Poster is an emeritus faculty member at the University of California, Irvine. You can find his faculty page here, although he is not listed in his department’s current faculty listing.

Wikipedia has the only extensive bibliography of his I could find. His last major publication appears to be his book, What’s Wrong With the Internet (2001).

His faculty homepage trumpets an award from Lycos (seriously…).

Interestingly, his output seems to have tailed off right about the time the internet started to turn much more participatory in nature.

“Postmodern Virtualities”

Poster constructs an analysis of the then-still-emerging internet in the mid 1990s as a vehicle for exploring the dynamic nature of subjective identities and relationships that inhere to postmodern culture. He quickly narrates the development of mass media as a (mostly) one-to-many system of information distribution falling under the hegemonic control of those with the financial resources to manufacture the necessary equipment and distribution infrastructure. The “bidirectional communication systems” constituted by the internet asked for a reassessment of media consumption and production as relatively cheap means of production/distribution could be more widely disseminated to the average consumer. Read more

Below is the paper proposal I’ve written up for CMP10. At the end you’ll find a YouTube video of a LBP level I’m discussing.

This paper argues for the synthesis of media studies with theories from professional writing to establish richer frameworks for the critical evaluation of participatory cultures and the mediascapes that materialize around them. As media production, distribution, and consumption are increasingly remediated through readily available consumer technologies like computers and mobile phones, a number of theories have been adapted or put forward to establish frameworks for critical and cultural analysis of media content. The most important observation to emerge from this scholarship is that such content is no longer simply an object of study, but a site of practice for the audience in convergent media systems (Jenkins, 2006 & 2009; Booth, 2008). The technologies available to consumers and the material work or play they support unmask the audience’s reception of media content by fostering audience activities with that content. Meaning is recast not only as interpretation, but as motives and goals enacted by the audience. The distribution supported by the participatory web places the products of the audience’s work or play into their own dynamic streams of activity, as well.

By fusing methodologies from professional writing and information design — deconstructed information architectures (Johnson-Eilola, 2006); activity theory (Engestrom, 2000; Spinuzzi, 2003) — with media convergence (Jenkins, 2006), we can map a method for analyzing convergent media experiences as emerging from activities that persistently repurpose and rehistoricize media content through computer supported collaborative work (CSCW). In doing so, we can bolster critical media studies scholarship by understanding the underlying capabilities and limitations that support convergence within the audience’s work.

I demonstrate the value of this hybrid method by tracing the audience work and play surrounding the level creation tools of Media Molecule’s Little Big Planet (2008). Specifically, I will focus on the licensing of Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986 & 1987) as downloadable content offered by Media Molecule for players to use for their own creative projects. Content provided on the company’s website will be analyzed in conjunction with video of player-created game levels that make use of this content by recreating and adapting events from Moore’s original story and its film adaptation (2009). This will be bolstered by an activity theory analysis of Little Big Planet‘s level and character creation tools to understand the design (and hence narrative) capabilities afforded to the player. Examining both the visual and narrative themes of the game design as well as the graphic novel, in conjunction with the work analysis necessary to create player-generated levels, will unveil new insights into the concept of audience practice as meaningful cultural engagement.

In recognition of the growing call for audience empowerment in media experiences, the final section of the paper will take up the common professional writing strategy of offering design solutions so as to better foster participatory engagement in media systems by looking at Little Big Planet and its community as an example of the successes of such systems.

DALLAS W SMYTHE (1907-1992)

Smythe was a Canadian-born scholar who worked as an economist in a number of government agencies in the United States in the early 2oth century. He was vocal about his socio-political stances, which often left him at odds with authorities, including difficulties getting published when he turned to teaching at the University of Illinois during the 1950s. See his Wikipedia page for more, or see this encyclopedia entry.

The International Association for Media and Communication Research gives an award named in honor of Smythe for quality scholarship dedicated to exploring the relationship between media and political economy.

Dependency Road: Communications, Capitalism, Consciousness, and Canada (1981) is Smythe’s most widely known and excerpted work. He has a number of journal articles credited to him. An essay collection is also dedicated to him, and is, ironically enough, extremely expensive.

“On the Audience Commodity and Its Work”

Our excerpt, taken from Smythe’s 1981 book, seeks to recast critical Marxist theories about mass media, grounding them in a more “objective and realistic” theoretical framework (p. 231). In his estimation, previous efforts were, at best, incomplete because they did not consider “real life processes” (p. 231) that determined the relationship between media, advertisers, and audiences. He develops the concept of “audience power,” which he defines as an audience’s ability to “buy goods and spend their income accordingly” (p. 243) so as to perpetuate capitalism and therefore reify state-held power (p. 233). To accomplish this, Smythe argues that free- or leisure-time is really only an illusion that hides actual work and the commodification of virtually the entire life of any given individual who lives in a capitalistic society. By focusing conscious attention on the spectacle contained within media, “the real situation is mystified out of existence” (p. 241). Instead of viewing advertising as a necessity for creating and broadcasting media, Smythe views “non-advertising” content as a trojan horse really designed to sneak advertising into the homes, lives, and thought processes of audiences — what he terms a “free lunch” (p. 242-3). The effect, as he puts it, is to “reaffirm the status quo and retard change” (p. 243).

Questions and Connections

Several questions stick out to me:

• Is his approach any more realistically grounded than those he dismisses?
• How does his theory compare to other cultural materialist theories of media?
• How does the participatory internet alter or affirm his notion that industrialization destroys creativity (p. 233)?

Smythe is a determinist, but not in the same way as McLuhan. Whereas McLuhan sees all (or at least most) human agency as irrelevant in the face of technological form, Smythe sees technological form as an extension of market capitalist ideology, and as the site of a “social process” through which the relationship between people and commodities is formed. Instead of being the actor with the most agency, technology becomes the conduit through which agency is controlled. He’s similar to Williams in this point, yet the audience is just as unable to affect this process as they are in McLuhan’s scheme. The use of the “free lunch” is distracting enough to hide the areas in need of critical examination.

Thus, I find him oddly reminiscent of Gramsci, in spite of his insistence that he’s more “objectively” and “realistically” grounded than Gramsci and others. Really, he seems primarily intent on providing empirical evidence of media as a hegemonic process. Yet, he does seem just as guilty in over-generalizing his theories, particularly with respect to print journalism pre-WWI.

Thoughts?