Flows of Literacy across Corporate and User-Produced Virtual Worlds

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (12) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Rebecca W. Black ◽  
Jonathan Alexander ◽  
Ksenia A. Korobkova
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Literacy Events ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
Literate Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
Sociocultural Research

Background/Context Sociocultural research on young people's literate practices with digital media has generally focused on literacy events and practices that are grounded in distinct online locations, such as affinity spaces, specific websites, particular videogames, or virtual worlds. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Contemporary media landscapes have become networked to such an extent that a transmedial approach is needed to understand the social, cultural, and literate contexts that young people inhabit. Research Design In this article, we use qualitative and literary analyses of products and artifacts from the Hunger Games media franchise to explore young people's literacy practices as embedded in corporate and fan-produced transmedia ecologies. Conclusions/Recommendations Our analysis looks beyond spatial and structural boundaries to understand how flows of corporate and user-produced artifacts can shape, constrain, and expand young people's literate repertoires.

scholarly journals Hope and equilibrium in the dystopian world of The Hunger Games

2021 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 227-244
Author(s):  
María Sandra Peña-Cervel ◽  
Andreea Rosca
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
Accurate Picture ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
The Status ◽  
Selection Of

This paper provides evidence of the fruitfulness of combining analytical categories from Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis for the analysis of complex literary characterizations. It does so through a detailed study of the “tributes”, i.e. the randomly selected children who have to fight to death in a nationally televised show, in The Hunger Games. The study proves the effectiveness of such categories to provide an analytically accurate picture of the dystopian world depicted in the novel, which is revealed to include a paradoxical element of hope. The type of dehumanization that characterizes the dystopian society of Panem is portrayed through an internally consistent set of ontological metaphors which project negative aspects of lower forms of existence onto people. This selection of metaphors promotes a biased perspective on the poor inhabitants of Panem, while legitimizing the social inequalities the wealthy Capitol works hard to immortalize. However, Katniss undergoes a metamorphosis through her discovery of her own identity, which hints at an emerging female empowerment. This transformation, together with her identification with the Mockingjay, a supernatural being that voices her beliefs and emotions, contributes to disrupting the status quo imposed by the almighty Gamemakers and to purveying a message of optimism.

Composing Texts and Identities in an Alternative High School English Class

2014 ◽  
pp. 479-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Hines ◽  
Michael L. Kersulov ◽  
Leslie Rowland ◽  
Rebecca Rupert
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Alternative High School ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
High School English ◽  
Theater Of The Oppressed ◽  
Children's Book ◽  
English Class ◽  
The Social

This chapter is drawn from a qualitative case study of one alternative high school English class, tracing students' engagement and resistance with digital media and school-based literacy practices, exploring how each student's use of literacy and digital media led to the formation of particular identities in the social sphere of the classroom. In this chapter the authors focus on two students, Callie--loud and socially dominant-- and Nina, quiet, reserved, outside the social circle. The authors trace the students' respective discursive practices in two composition units-- a multimodal children's book unit and a Theater of the Oppressed unit. The chapter argues that both young women have strong literacy skills and are strategic in using them, thereby creating particular identities as they produced texts.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: Using Digital and Social Media for Brand Storytelling

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mohanbir Sawhney ◽  
Pallavi Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Marketing Tactics ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
Traditional Marketing ◽  
Marketing Team

After the successful release of the first Hunger Games film in 2012, the film's distributor, Lionsgate, was preparing to release the next movie in the series, Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Fan expectations had grown after the success of the first film, and Lionsgate faced the challenge of keeping moviegoers interested and engaged in another Hunger Games movie. In an era marked by the rising popularity of digital and social media, Lionsgate knew that attracting fans to a sequel meant pushing the boundaries of traditional marketing tactics. Digital brand storytelling is about using digital media in a holistic way to tell a brand story and build excitement for an audience. Brand storytelling seeks to make a connection with the audience by giving them an emotional experience that resonates with them. While Lionsgate was aware that traditional marketing would need to be blended with a digital campaign to bring in moviegoers, it also needed to strike a careful balance between the two and choose the appropriate platforms to tell a cohesive story. Should Lionsgate launch a brand storytelling campaign to appeal to fans? Lionsgate's comparatively small marketing team gathered to brainstorm about how to execute such a campaign and position the film for another big success.

scholarly journals Mechanism of Power

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Mohamad Haj Mohamad
Keyword(s):  
Effective Means ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
Divide And Rule ◽  
Definition Of

This paper attempts an examination of the concept of the mechanism of power in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy The Hunger Games. The author conducts an analytical approach to the way power is practiced, the measure that helps establish a clandestine of power relations affecting people’s life, mentality of thinking, politics and even economy.The introduction delves to present a definition of power and its concept and how it gets activated and why. Power, according to Collins is the backbone and even the elixir of life upon which the very survival of the authoritarian state headed by President Snow depends. The paper goes on to explicate the need for keeping power in place to secure the government’s grip on power. Mechanism of power as shown in the novel works on so many levels. Divide and rule marks the first and most necessary and effective means as a divisive policy aiming at preventing any potential unity among people who might employ this unity to rise up against the totalitarian government. Media and sport and economic factors are used effectively to ensure government’s control on man’s mind, body and soul and intimidate them whenever needed. Collins presents power and its mechanism as the sole relation between people and government in the novel. Absence of democratic rule in Panem, or, American states, leaves power as the only means to describe the social bond between man and state, a bond that is unilaterally respected and practiced.

scholarly journals MULTILITERACIES AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY FANFIC LITERACY PRACTICES

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 353-385
Author(s):  
Patrícia de Souza Martins
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Literacy Events ◽  
Affinity Spaces ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Literary Canons ◽  
New London

ABSTRACT Using the lens of Street (1984; [1995]2014; 2003; 2010; 2012), this article firstly aims at discussing the contemporary literacy practices young readers and writers of fanfics engage in when inserted in the affinity spaces of fan literature. This discussion is based on the concept of ideological literacy proposed by the author and dialogues with the concept of multiliteracies, outlined by the New London Group (CAZDEN; COPE et al, 1996) and expanded by several authors such as Cope; Kalantzis (2000), Gee (2000), Rojo (2012) and Kleiman; Sito (2016), among others. These contemporary literacy practices, understood, therefore, as the social use of language, were studied from an ethnographic perspective (HEATH; STREET, 2008). Data was generated from the field observation on two fanfic self-publishing platforms and from literacy events occurring in rounds of conversation, within the scope of the Junior Scientific Initiation Project. (PICJr-049), promoted by a traditional federal institution of basic education in Rio de Janeiro. The social models of literacy used by participants in literacy events (HEATH, 1982; STREET, 2012) signals that designs are (re)shaped according to the interactional context of these participants. This article also proposes a reflection on the language ideologies underlying the discourse of the students participating in the PICJr-049. This analysis is oriented by Volóchinov’s concept of ideology ([1929]2017) and the notion of language ideology, as discussed in the studies by Woolard (1998) and Kroskrity (2004). In the analysis, it was observed that the students reinforce language ideologies anchored in the legitimation of the educated norm of the Portuguese language and in the privilege of literary canons in school literacy practices.

scholarly journals The Desensitization to Violence and the Perpetuation of Oppression and Slavery in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilog

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
Bryce Longenberger
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
Hunger Games ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hunger Games ◽  
History Of

This paper analyzes slavery in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy by contextualizing her works within the history of Roman gladiator fighting and by examining the social structures of oppression within the society that Collins creates. The essay explores how the trilogy highlights the ways that people can perpetuate systems of slavery within a society when they become desensitized to violence and both benefit from and are entertained by the exploitation of others. 75

The Social Furniture of Virtual Worlds

Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (55) ◽  
pp. 345-369
Author(s):  
Peter Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Large Class ◽  
Data Structures ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Virtual Objects ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
The Social

AbstractDavid Chalmers argues that virtual objects exist in the form of data structures that have causal powers. I argue that there is a large class of virtual objects that are social objects and that do not depend upon data structures for their existence. I also argue that data structures are themselves fundamentally social objects. Thus, virtual objects are fundamentally social objects.

The Science and Art of Interviewing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Gerson ◽  
Sarah Damaske
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interview Guide ◽  
Hidden Patterns ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Depth Interviews

Qualitative interviewing is one of the most widely used methods in social research, but it is arguably the least well understood. To address that gap, this book offers a theoretically rigorous, empirically rich, and user-friendly set of strategies for conceiving and conducting interview-based research. Much more than a how-to manual, the book shows why depth interviewing is an indispensable method for discovering and explaining the social world—shedding light on the hidden patterns and dynamics that take place within institutions, social contexts, relationships, and individual experiences. It offers a step-by-step guide through every stage in the research process, from initially formulating a question to developing arguments and presenting the results. To do this, the book shows how to develop a research question, decide on and find an appropriate sample, construct an interview guide, conduct probing and theoretically focused interviews, and systematically analyze the complex material that depth interviews provide—all in the service of finding and presenting important new empirical discoveries and theoretical insights. The book also lays out the ever-present but rarely discussed challenges that interviewers routinely encounter and then presents grounded, thoughtful ways to respond to them. By addressing the most heated debates about the scientific status of qualitative methods, the book demonstrates how depth interviewing makes unique and essential contributions to the research enterprise. With an emphasis on the integral relationship between carefully crafted research and theory building, the book offers a compelling vision for what the “interviewing imagination” can and should be.

“Tradition,” Vernacularism, and Learning to Be a Folk Musician With Social Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 442-466
Author(s):  
Simon Keegan-Phipps ◽  
Lucy Wright
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping

This chapter considers the role of social media (broadly conceived) in the learning experiences of folk musicians in the Anglophone West. The chapter draws on the findings of the Digital Folk project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and begins by summarizing and problematizing the nature of learning as a concept in the folk music context. It briefly explicates the instructive, appropriative, and locative impacts of digital media for folk music learning before exploring in detail two case studies of folk-oriented social media: (1) the phenomenon of abc notation as a transmissive media and (2) the Mudcat Café website as an example of the folk-oriented discussion forum. These case studies are shown to exemplify and illuminate the constructs of traditional transmission and vernacularism as significant influences on the social shaping and deployment of folk-related media technologies. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the need to understand the musical learning process as a culturally performative act and to recognize online learning mechanisms as sites for the (re)negotiation of musical, cultural, local, and personal identities.

scholarly journals Has the Credibility of the Social Sciences Been Credibly Destroyed? Reanalyzing the “Many Analysts, One Data Set” Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110244
Author(s):  
Katrin Auspurg ◽  
Josef Brüderl
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of

In 2018, Silberzahn, Uhlmann, Nosek, and colleagues published an article in which 29 teams analyzed the same research question with the same data: Are soccer referees more likely to give red cards to players with dark skin tone than light skin tone? The results obtained by the teams differed extensively. Many concluded from this widely noted exercise that the social sciences are not rigorous enough to provide definitive answers. In this article, we investigate why results diverged so much. We argue that the main reason was an unclear research question: Teams differed in their interpretation of the research question and therefore used diverse research designs and model specifications. We show by reanalyzing the data that with a clear research question, a precise definition of the parameter of interest, and theory-guided causal reasoning, results vary only within a narrow range. The broad conclusion of our reanalysis is that social science research needs to be more precise in its “estimands” to become credible.

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