Video games

• Simulacra: copy of a copy of a copy
• Types of post modernism

  • intertextuality: a reference (in any form) to another media text
  • implosion/Bricolage: using samples to create a new product
  • simulacra: a copy of a copy of a copy, usually based on something that isnt real
  • hybrid genres: mixing of styles
  • hyper-reality (aka simulation): when the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred
  • parody: a comedic take on an existing media text, person, thing
  • pastiche: a cover of an existing media text
• postmodernists believe that nothing is unique anywhere. everything is a copy of something else, everything’s already been done
• types of narrative in video games

  • linear- the player has some choice and options within each ‘chapter‘ or sequence, but these are arranged in a linear way, like a string of beads
  • branching- the player can choose different courses of action that will result in different outcomes
  • multi-stranded- many players interact in one ‘world‘ building a complex multi-stranded set of narratives
  • amusement park model- the player can choose some or all of various units/sub-plots to create a story
  • building blocks/sandbox- no traditional narrative structure
• games industry

  • one of the success stories of the past 2-3 decades
  • gaming has provided itself to be popular and profitable
  • more adept as responding to modern media and often at centre of debates about certain games’ influence on audience attitudes and behaviours and images and content of some games are often criticised
  • gamers are active audiences
• Hesmondhalgh

  • each cultural industries have their own dynamics
  • ]industries internet and interconnect with each other in complex ways
  • inequalities in the availability of types of texts
  • not about finding the largest audience, about ensuring that the texts find the right audience and then finding the best ways of circulating texts to those audiences
  • ownerships and organisation of cultural industries is now much broader- largest cultural companies now operate across a range of cultural industries
  • digitalisation
• post colonialism- suggests issue of race and the legacy of colonialism have a strong influence on the media and representations
• orientalism- suggests the east and the orient are represented as provoking both fear and fascination within western culture
• diaspora identity- the result of forced or voluntary migration. people belong to a culture that isnt the dominant culture of their country of residence
• Edward Said- 1995

  • introduced the concept of orientalism
  • western culture is constructed against an assumed other and that is embedded European culture
  • the orient holds both fear and fascination
• Alvarado- 1987

  • four types of representation of black people: the humorous, the exotic, the pitied, the dangerous