Transcultural literacies of gaming

Abstract

One of the fastest-growing export industries in the global marketplace, computer and video games are now rivaling movie box office sales in the United States (Frauenfelder, 2001; “Video games," 2004), causing concerns that games may be taking over the television audience. Reporting on a recent study, CNN (“Is TV losing out," 2004) speculated that “increased video game play could be among the many factors leading to the decline in TV viewership by younger men." Educators and cultural critics have recently started to study this phenomenon in terms of its economic shift and the cultural literacy it affords. The intricate relationship between gaming and literacy learning, and the way each shapes and is shaped by the other in today’s increasingly electronically mediated world, is also receiving some attention. While researchers such as Anderson and Bushman (2001), Anderson and Dill (2000), and Fleming and Rickwood (2001) found that video games, among others, contributed to aggression and violence, scholars such as James Gee (2003), Cynthia Selfe (2004), and Durkin and Barber (2002) have looked at the complex ways in which video/computer games are embedded in certain principles of learning in today’s information society.