Learning history through videogames...and the result would be???

Just going to post a short one today since I'm presenting tomorrow.
I decided to post something that I won't be talking about tomorrow so I won't be repeating myself.
The question I had from reading Stahl's article was the role videogames could play in teaching history,
Learning through videogames is not a new concept. Cultural critics such as Steven Berlin Johnson has already said that videogames help players to learn how to strategize or to make quick decisions. In fact, there are many studies out there that argue on the positive effects videogames have on learning. What I find interesting though, is that the content of learning through videogames is mostly focused on learning skills (rather it is social, financial, or political) rather than classroom knowledge. This sounds right because learning through videogame is mostly done through roleplaying...experimenting with new identities. However, after reading Stahl's article, I began to question whether it would be possible to learning classroom materials through videogames. Out of every subject, history (and maybe political science to some extent) seems to be the best candidate to become the classroom material that videogames can teach. After all, a lot of videogames that Stahl talks about are based on historical events (WWII, Vietnam War, Persian War, etc.). So for instance, a player playing Delta Force: Black Hawk Down would learn at least a historical fact that event occurred in Mogadishu, Somalia. But then the question is even though the player may be learning historical facts, will s/he be learning the historical truth (the historical context)? Especially in the era of what Stahl calls "gametime," when the temporal space between real world events and the release of videogames on those events is closing down? Isn't history an interpretation of an event, a result that comes from a long period of reflection? If there is no reflection, the historical content (not the facts but the rhetorics) in the videogames would just be echoes of the dominant rhetoric of the current event. Learning history through videogames would be great since players would get to learn the historical facts. The part I'm worried about is whether they'll learn the historical truth...especially in the era of BUSH and his cronies.

Lessig Talk

I'm posting this in anticipation of our reading of Lessig: while I've got the link, I thought I'd get it on the blog. I'll repost during Lessig week. And here's a more recent one that nutshells his Free Culture argument.

Matter matters, part III

It turns out that owning the networks provides an almost unlimited capacity for centralized forms of surveillance. Not a big surprise by now, but if the "electronic agora vs. digital panopticon" question proposed by Rheingold has morphed into "Facebook vs. ATT surveillance" perhaps that question has already been answered.

Where did all the GOOD capitalists go?!

Sorry -- slightly off topic (file under the exploitation of "immaterial labor," the production of affect -- or propaganda), but this article cracked me up. Regnery is one of the most pernicious publishing companies in terms of turning out intellectually bankrupt books for the consumption of a propaganda-oriented audience. It publishes the shrillest shills for laissez-faire capitalism. So their own half-wit rhetoric puts them in a tough position when they discover they're being exploited:

"It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance...Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”

Why indeed?

Investigation opportunity...

...if you are interested! This is my hook for getting a little free labor from my classmates. I am currently interviewing (via email) one of the developers of the Facebook "Zombie" application (which has now diversified to include werewolves, vampires, and slayers). I am curious to know how he...you know...makes money. To get you interested, I'll post a little bit of our preliminary interview. If you have any questions you think I should ask - please send them my way!

Q: "I see that you are hiring people to work for you. How do you afford to pay people?"
A: "Right now I'm doing a little bit of advertising on the pages - I'll never charge to play the game because while users will pay to play some games, I think these are too simple and I'd rather it be free!"

What do we do now?

Whoops -- almost forgot the theme song:

I thought we were going to talk about Dean today...so here's my late contribution to that. (I'll post on De Landa separately.)

I've been mentally wrestling with Dean on the ideology front since last class. This is when the rubber is supposed to hit the road, right? We've pulled back the curtain to find the non-wizard, and...well...what? Apparently nothing. No revolution. Nothing. His wizard status remains intact. (Thanks to Niko for telling me about Zizek's analysis of Oz, et al, when I was talking through this on Friday). So what do we do now?

Over the weekend, I managed to stumble across a review for a book titled OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture. Here is an excerpt:

Harold argues that in order to successfully preserve/produce authentic public culture, what we need is more “control” over cultural output, rather than less.

In her celebration of the open source movement (best exemplified here by Lawrence Lessig’s Creative Commons project, which advocates an expansion of copy “rights”), it seems that Harold is arguing for a structural shift in the way culture is produced, based on the assumption that a change in structure would result in “better” content. The implication is that saboteurs and pranksters would be better off putting their efforts toward fostering a structure that encourages creative production, rather than just attacking the output of the current system. It’s unclear, however, how the introduction of new copyrights (i.e., intensified regulation of cultural production) results in the positive production of better cultural output. Although it might be argued that the open content logic instantiates an ethos of collective creativity by “creating the conditions for invention” and “offering opportunities for circulation,” it’s difficult to see how an intensification of regulation necessarily encourages diversity or innovation in cultural production.

If nothing else, it's an interesting argument. For me, it conjured Saul Alinsky (60s grassroots organizer). To paraphrase from his Rules for Radicals: "Fine, Oppressors, create all the rules you want, but you have to follow them too." It might be worth a closer to look to see how Harold presents this regulation-as-resistance argument herself.

Writers on Strike!

I'm sure many are following the WGA strike, but I found it quite interesting and relevant to new media because here I thought that the age of the mass worker was over.

The WGA is striking namely over their stake in new media. If you read the WGA's announcements to is members: "The Companies insisted on the following:

• No jurisdiction for most of new media writing.
• No economic proposal for the part of new media writing where they do propose to give coverage.
• Internet downloads at the DVD rate.
• No residual for streaming video of theatrical product.
• A "promotional" proposal that allows them to reuse even complete movies or TV shows on any platform with no residual. This proposal alone destroys residuals.
• A "window” of free reuse on the Internet that makes a mockery of any residual."

The WGA commented on the economics of new media production, sloughing off human labor seems to be the best way to gain profit: "Digital has no hard media costs, no boxes, no marginal extra shipping and handling. The only substantial economic issue for Internet reuse is the residual payment to directors, actors, and writers."

Perhaps it's most interesting to read those criticizing the strike and the disparity within the union ranks, with comments such as those from the Guardian's David Thomson, "Writing - like all creative work - is its own reward."

Read the Times article, Screenwriters on Strike over Stake in New Media
The WGA contract bulletin and latest news