23rd Annual Student Research Conference
Cottage Cheese and Ripe Bananas, this is Your Brain on Videogames: Toward Constructing an Analytical Model
Carli E. Wrisinger* and Garett L. Exline
Dr. Kristi Scholten, Faculty Mentor
Scholars have long vilified the culture industries for turning the masses into apathetic spectators. They argue that media only makes people feel informed and connected. Yet, in a postmodern age of interactive technology dichotomies of information vs. entertainment, political vs. personal, intelligence vs. emotion blur. National Public Radio reported in 2008 that while movie theaters and retail stores feel the effects of the economic downturn, videogame sales continue to rise. Our research goal concerns contemplating various theoretical frameworks already applied to the study of images, narrative, technology, and symbolic interaction. This allows us to propose a theoretical model that may aid communication scholars in a more thorough understanding of the symbolic workings of videogames. The popularity of videogames, their increasing interactivity and open-endedness, as well as the lack of communication research that examines such topics make this a worthy pursuit.
Keywords: communication, media, symbolic interaction, videogames, culture, theoretical model
Topic(s):Communication
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 27-4
Location: VH 1320
Time: 10:15