Dissertation preview

What better way to begin the New Year, than with a dissertation teaser?

Here it is.

Title: Online games as a medium of cultural communication: An ethnographic study of sociotechnical transformation

• Introduction
• Methodology and Rationale
• The Rise of Korean Gaming
• Gaming: from Subculture to Mainstream
• Conclusion and Moving Forward

Abstract:

This dissertation explores the place and meaning of online games in everyday life. In South Korea, online games are a prominent part of popular culture and this medium has come under public criticism for various societal ills, such as addiction. Humanistic accounts of Information-Communication Technology (ICT) usage are still a minority body of research. All too often, the explanations for engagement with technology are reductionist to the most basic variables and the social aspects omitted in the name of science. An ethnographic approach is employed in order to understand the place of games as a communication medium.

Exactly how has it come to pass, that online games have come to occupy such a prominent place in the media ecology in South Korea, and yet not been replicated in other national contexts? First, I outline the discourse on addiction as it pertains to online games and suggest some scholarly support for the viewpoint that the rhetoric surrounding a biomedical interpretation of online game addiction may not be the most appropriate way to address problems that have been typically laid at the feet of online gaming (or any other new form of media). Second, I transition into discussing my rationale for approaching South Korea as a fieldsite, the ethnographic methodology employed, and how this examination of online games is a particularly illustrative case of the profound role played by culture, social structure, infrastructure, and policy in audience reception. Third, I delve into the foundational aspects of Korean social history and culture that I assert, set the stage for the present new media scene in South Korea. Fourth, I explore what games mean in the lives of Korean youth according to the ethnographic data I have been collecting during research stays in 2004, 2008/2009 and 2010.

Overall, this dissertation examines the contextual factors of which a medium of communication in the sociotechnical transformation of South Korea can begin to be understood within the porous boundaries of its national circumstances.

Keywords: Games; Ethnography; Korea; Addiction; Sociotechnical; Media; Anthropology; Communication; Culture; Social Structure; Infrastructure; Policy;

Call for Papers, Iowa Journal of Communication

Feel free to distribute widely:

Call for papers: Iowa Journal of Communication

Special issue: Games and Culture: Asia-Pacific perspectives

As a cultural genre, online gaming has been one of the most dynamic in the world. Within a relatively short period of time, online gaming has become a major entertainment tool for fun, but it has also become another channel for human relationships as part of people’s actual lives. The vast popularity of online games around the world has closely coincided with the widespread proliferation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which have facilitated communication and interaction at an unprecedented level. Through games as well as related activities, youth have used these technologies to nurture friendships through their engagement in online games, instant messaging, blogging, and the like, which assist them in constructing their own tightly-knit communities.

Therefore, the booming online gaming market should be seriously examined in its own socio-cultural circumstances and context vis a vis the global game industry. Primarily due to the accelerated pace of development, the academic research on online games, however, has been correspondingly sparse and limited in scope, with domestic literature tending towards either the celebratory emphasis of positive business development or the problematics of regulation and media effects oriented concerns, such as violence and addiction. While such research comprises important contributions to the emergent scholarship on online gaming, lopsided accounts tend to foreground the readily empirical observations and aggregate data to the exclusion of other possible macro factors such as globalization, intercultural communication, transnationalization of the gaming industry, and micro, more private but resonant problems in family or social life of those concerned.

As a region, the Asia-Pacific area is characterized by diverse penetration rates of gaming and broadband technologies. Two defining locations, Asia (including South Korea and China) and North America, are seen as both online gaming centers and the largest markets to which the world looks towards as examples of the future-in-the-present. Ever since Nexon, a Korean games corporation, introduced the world’s first graphic massively multiplayer online game with ‘Kingdom of the Winds’ in 1996 and two exceedingly popular online games thereafter (Lineage I and II), Korea has played a central role in the PC-based online game market and digital economy. In China, online games are also becoming social spaces, where new social relations, community networks, and a new type of life are formed.

In this special issue to be published in September 2010, we seek to exchange our scholarship on the politics of game play and its associated cultural context by focusing on the burgeoning Asia-Pacific region. Harboring global gaming production and consumption sites such as China, Korea, and the U.S., the region provides a wealth of divergent examples of the role of gaming as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Welcoming a range of presentations, from micro ethnographic studies to macro political economy analyses and beyond, this special issue will provide an interdisciplinary model for thinking through the politics of game production, representation and consumption in the region.

Suggested paper topics discuss games in terms of one of the following areas:

• History of the growth of online gaming as a global industry, discourse, and media product
• Critical interpretation of emerging local game industries in Asia and/or North-America
• Online games and globalization/regionalization
• Convergent technologies and the impact on established modes of game play
• Government regulations and types of game play
• Game fandom and free labor
• Gaming as social technology/media
• A culturally specific aesthetic to the production and consumption of certain games
• New media and experimental gaming
• Gendered consumption and production of games

Deadline for this special issue of Iowa Journal of Communication: 15^th March, 2010. Author(s) should submit all inquiries, expressions of interest and papers to Dal Yong Jin (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; djin@kaist.ac.kr; djin@gmail.com).

All submissions are peer reviewed by two scholars. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically in Word or Word Perfect format and conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and should not exceed 9,000 words in length.

March Brown Bag Lunch - Dal Yong Jin

The School of Communication's Dal Yong Jin will be giving this month's Brown Bag lunch talk this Wednesday, March 11th.
Location: Mallinson Conference Room (K8652), SFU Burnaby at 12 Noon.

Title: De-convergence: a shifting business trend in the U.S. digital media industries

Abstract: Since the early 21st century, several media companies, including Time-Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney, and Vivendi, have utilized de-convergence as a new business model. The emergence of de-convergence in the communication industry has raised a fundamental question, that being whether de-convergence will become one of the major business models in changing the ownership structure and system. This topic investigates this shifting trend and applies it in relation to digital media, including Internet, mobile, cable, and television. It analyzes why and how communication giants in Western countries, particularly the U.S. broadcasting industries, have pursued de-convergence in recent years. It first examines the background and practice of convergence between the early 1990s and 2007. Then, it maps out how media companies have pursued de-convergence through split-off and spin-off strategies as their new business model. Finally, it articulates whether the de-convergence trend has consequently contributed to the enhancement of the policy goals of competition, diversity, and promotion of democratic discourse that are embedded in antitrust laws and regulations relevant to mass media.

UDC Conference and Media Democracy Day

At Harbour Centre, the School of Communication is hosting the international conference of the Union for Democratic Communications from October 25-28th.

Tonight, we have a public lecture keynote by Professor Saskia Sassen from Columbia University. Other highly anticipated speakers are Dan Schiller, Nick Dyer-Witheford, Dorothy Kidd, and Dee Dee Halleck. It was great to meet and greet many at last night's reception. Always nice to know people you cite are nice people on top of it all.

There's also a panel on South Korean media after lunch that I'm looking forward to attending, that includes the School's Dal Yong Jin (hey, didn't we just present last week?) and UIUC's Soochul Kim who I met during the 2004 Seoul conference on Mobility and Social Change.

Later on in the day, is the Media and Democracy Fair, promoted by our own Stephen Anderson, a grad student in Communication.
From the Facebook page:
"Come to the FREE Media Democracy Fair and meet representatives from your favorite local independent media outlets. 4:30pm – 7pm Friday October 26th at the Concourse in SFU Vancouver (Harbour Centre) 515 West Hastings Street.
The Media Democracy Fair is FREE. Admission is open for everyone. Bring your friends and family to the Media Democracy Fair and stay for the discussions.
To stay in the loop join the local media democracy Announcement Mailing List
If you represent a local media group and would like table space at the MDD please email (stephenaATsfu.ca)

Film Screening:
This year MDD presents a Special Screening "A Little Bit of So Much Truth" in room 1600 at 4:30pm (515 West Hastings Street)“When the people of Oaxaca decided they'd had enough of bad government, they didn't take their story to the media...They TOOK the media.” More about this exciting film here>>

Sponsors and Supporters:
This year’s sponsors and supporters are the SFU School of Communication, SFU Faculty of Applied Sciences, The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE), Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), BC Government Employees Union,BC & Yukon Territory – Building Construction Trades, Council, BC Teachers’ Federation, Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union Local 2000, Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union Western, Region BC Federation of Labour, BC Association for Media Education (BCAME), The Tyee, CITIZENShift, Straight Goods, and Xtra West.

Special Guest:
MDD 2007 will open up a talk by Saskia Sassen, renowned author of The Global City: New Frontiers/Strategic Sites at 7:00 pm. At least 285 people are expected to attend this talk. Limited free tickets are available for the public on a first come first serve basis. (Room 1400 at SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street)

Guilt and technology

For better or worse, I've always had an over-developed sense of responsibility. I find I have to actually make concerted efforts to discipline things like 'email time' and 'unplug' to get some offline business accomplished (like reading). It is difficult however, when you feel the 'pull' of people trying to get a hold of you to get this, that, and the other done or your opinion of whatever... etc etc.
Such discipline is an attempt at long term sustainability, and ultimate interest in my sanity and productiveness. I've seen too many people in different places get overwhelmed.

Recently, I've been thinking of the broader themes of my research and possible ways to unify certain concepts I've been working on like myth, modernity, progress, and the like. On the bus ride home one night my brain just clicked into the concept of 'guilt.'

I scrawled some questions in my notebook to the effect of:
Is there something to be said for how guilt may play into people’s motivations to communicate—with home, work, or religious icons? How is guilt being negotiated and techno-mediated in various cultures? Are there historical explanations for manifestations of guilt within entire societies? Might the allure of technologies be their ability to absolve users of guilt, much as people once purchased indulgences for the sins of ancestors? How does addiction link up with guilt?

Looking at my piles of books and sources at home, I got all giddy because my neurons were firing. It was one of what I tend to call "click" moments (aka "Aha")... when it all comes into focus.

Guilt is a powerful concept, and one that I'm exploring as part of the human condition. It's gonna be a lot of work, but fun!