Experiences and fun facts from videogame practice & research
22 March 2021
In academia, citations are no joke. Either you have them in order, or you fail. At least, that’s one of the most perpetuating myths about citing sources in academia. There are tons of myths like this one, which makes it unnecessarily difficult for students to chill about the way they cite, and just do it. With some handy tools and basic rules, citations are not as terrifying as it sometimes look, and can be done by anyone.
Originating from a wrongly transcribed name of a 9th century mathematician, algorithms and interpretations of the concept hidden behind this term have been a part of human history for centuries. The present day meaning perceives algorithms as “a set of mathematical procedures whose purpose is to expose some truth or tendency about the world” [Striphas, 2015]. There is also another, more archaic meaning assigned to algorithms as “coding systems that might reveal, but that are equally if not more likely to conceal” [ibid.]. Algorithms are basically recipes followed by human or non-human entities to accomplish an intended goal.
For untrained eyes reading academic articles might be a daunting task. As I witness daily with students, it can alienate even the most curious people from learning something new.
22 January 2021
As many people did during the ongoing pandemic, I also returned to video games. However, my rediscovered passion (I dropped out of it when I was a teenager) comes with a bit of a plot twist. Playing video games and being an information science researcher interested in researching algorithms, user experience, and pop culture writ-large, inspired me to start documenting my thoughts and ideas about video games here on this blog.
13 November 2020
Dr. Adrienne Shaw is a communication and game studies scholar at Temple University. She is well-known in the research community for her work on queer theory and LGBTQ representation in video games and pop culture. Shaw is interested in what people who are seen as on the edges of a gaming community (members identifying as LGBTQ, women, people of colors, etc.) think about representation and identification in video games and how their media use looks like.
06 November 2020
Ang is a cultural studies scholar and her study on pleasure as a constituent of the popularity of American soap opera Dallas from the 80s has been highly influential in the field of audience studies. Her questions answered in this book focus on why people watched Dallas and what are the determining factors of the enjoyment, the pleasure, of watching it.