Readings, Week 4

Adventures in homework.


Started when I decided to print out this week's reading to take on the plane to Seattle. I know, ecologically very unfriendly. And it gets worse. As usual, crunched for timing, multitasking I'm printing and realize  the queue isn't moving and I'm cursing and annoyed because I think Firefox has sent some bad stuff and crashed the printer (it happens quite a bit, actually. very frustrating) but it turns out the printer is out of paper and what I expect to be 8-10 pieces of paper is a 1.5" tall stack. And there's more to come. In printing the article:

Genderplay: Successes and Failures in Character Designs for Videogames

Posted April 16, 2003 by jane

I ended up printing 1.5" of the comments that accompanied her 5 page write up. A further indictment of my lack of imagination in printing the darn thing -- the article is chock full of great links worth pursuing. I am continually amused by my own habits and routines and how clearly they label me as the digital immigrant that I am. I did feel guilt, for what it's worth. I'm still more comfortable with paper. Go figure.



The article I killed a tree to print was written by Jane Pinckard in 2003  for her gender-attentive blog: Game+Girl=Advance. Apparently she got her blog's name from her frustration and fan appreciation for the "Game Boy." As a woman, Jane is a unique figure in the gamer world and according to this MTV bio and interview, she has worked (and might still) for a bunch of big deal gamer magazines (GamePro and Xbox Nation) and hi-tech publishing giants Ziff Davis and the CMP Game Group.

Women Working In Games: Game Girl Advance's Jane Pinckard Talks Lara Croft, Male vs. Female Gamers

Posted 12/11/07 8:46 am ET by Tracey John

I had a hard time figuring out what Jane is doing right now, but it she might be working on a new game. I had better luck tracking down the "man" she discusses in her article, who is also the blog's Managing Editor, Justin Hall (hasn't posted at the blog since 2006, tho). But he, too, seems to have some real significance in the gamer world from my cursory research. I'd heard of MMORPG: Massive multiplayer on-line role-play games but his team made a "passive" version using the Firefox browser. Intriguing, but retired now. Now they've got a FaceBook based game. His bio mentioned that he "created one of the early extensive home pages, “Justin’s Links from the Underground” in January 1994. In 2004, the New York Times Magazine referred to him as “the founding father of personal bloggers.”" Suffice to say, they are both digital natives.



It is amazing to be able to do this much research so quickly. Thank you, google. Granted, far from complete, but it is so satisfying to get a picture of the author, their experiences, orientation, perspective. I consider this a critical part of the media literacy required for our young people. As digital natives it could all too quickly become just a seemingly innocuous background -- the pretty set decorations or landscaping that you take for granted until you realize that they've been so cleverly constructed to lead you one way or another, make you interested in one path or another. Which is why I always research the people behind the stuff I read. Notice my new interest in embedding the links that I find. Such a small step, but I'm proud!



Jane's criteria for evaluating genderspace were awesome - and I want to see her basic definition "The way gender is prgrammed (sic), incorporated, and manipulated describes a "gender space"" included in the media literacy guidelines in some way. And as Jane herself points out, gender is only one consideration in this genre -- race is also a prominent area of concern.



Because who creates the content matters. Content is created with purpose, content is created intentionally.  There is no such thing as an innocuous background. It all has intent.



Which is why I always read comments -- someone always offers a joke or insight or snark that creates a new way to see or understand what I just read. It's a window on the temporary members of a conversation -- what they think and who they are. So many audience insights! So I find it fascinating and hilarious to read (ok, skim) that 1.5" stack of comments.


((The addition of comments to on-line news and blogs is one of my personal favorite web 2.0 innovations. I often find the comments better than the article, as if the article is just the appetizer and the comments the actual meal. Certainly this is a comment on me, my voyeurism, my love of debate, my fascination with hearing different perspectives -- my desire to understand how people frame the issue so that i can find a compelling way to sell my (product) agenda, meet my goal. So they are like mini-research projects in themselves and wouldn't it be great to find the time to quantify responses!))
 
And it seems that Jane's perspective is, despite it's geeky-gamer-thinker-innovator substance, still gets the largely male gamer community all riled up and so obviously in need of the tolerant and strategic Jane.

"Criticizing them (BG:DA and Tomb Raider) as if they're evidence of some pervasive air of exploitation in gaming is like holding up some schlocky teen comedy movie as an example of why American movies are immature. It's taking the rare (and rarely popular) exception and calling it a rule. They're fun to mock, but they're not really evidence of a serious problem."

 Translation: We're not involved in sexism. It's not a problem in our (male dominated) society.

"I was glad to find a link to an article about women in video games that isn't just ignorant vitriol, though. It's been awhile since I've seen an article like this that doesn't make outrageous complaints, like complaining about a scantily clad girl in a video game when one of the other playable characters is an impossibly muscular young man with an intense hatred of upper body clothing 

Translation: I'm equally hurt by their stereotypes/sexism. Feminists are bitchy and stupid.

"It's also nice to hear that pinup games like DOAXVB aren't a sexist male conspiracy that will send planet Earth into a vicious spiral of rape, murder, and, somehow, also racism. The world, and especially this discussion, could use more people with an "it's not my bag, but it's okay if it's yours" attitude."

Translation: I have absolutely no idea that gender = privilege. And I got nothing against you gals.

Posted by: DarkZero on April 17, 2003 01:11 PM

Sadly, DarkZero's perspective was not in the minority. Many comments qualified their defensive denials, they seem to like Jane and how she thinks, but it is not an issue for the majority and they are offended by the idea of it. I think they don't see it, don't think about it critically, just reflexively. For them genderspace is just a backdrop, scenery. I am relieved to know that Jane's voice is out there - calling attention to it by her presence and words.



Jane makes her case clearly, as do three generations of feminist scholarship on the topic. Our digital native youth know that they can create their own content at one level, but the highest levels of creative, artistic expression in this genre -- as is true in the motion picture and music industry -- are male dominated. I saw this myself at the advertising agency. Male creative teams were typically considered much stronger than the female teams, different product was expected from them -- work that was more out-there, explosive, cutting-edge, risky -- and this approach also reflected the essential value system of the agency: do what is new, edgy, ground breaking to win us awards and prestige. In trying to find Jane, I was sent to Foundation 9 Entertainment (gaming co.). Check out their staff page. Wanna guess how many women are there? Still couldn't find Jane, BTW. Spot-on humor from the comment's on Jane's article:

go play with your dolls. and make me a sandwich!

Posted by: manly mcman on April 17, 2003 01:35 PM

The concern over genderspace (who creates it?  with what agenda?) in video games -- and all media -- intersects with the question of the week:  Is, and if yes, and what role video games should/can/do play in the education of young people?  I wouldn't consider myself a gamer, but I've played enough to have a clue. I also appreciate the magic of programming and the art that is computer graphics.



Negative perceptions of this genre abound, and most of the public discussion focuses on the dark sides (our critics document them in the health journals that are popular among my professional acquaintances). It was interesting to see the article by Jane included in our readings and identifying a "dark side" that is only tangentially attended to by the adolescent health community. We are way more interested in obesity right now, thanks.


Both of the other readings offered the sunny side, both made a compelling affirmative case, both made some practical suggestions. I share the authors' orientation and have a vest interest in the success of their advocacy. Too often we true believers are stooped in a posture of defensiveness.



IMHO, the best sell job came from the posting at Henry Jenkin's blog "Confessions of an Aca-Fan." Jenkins is Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The article is written by Scot Osterweil, creative director at the Education Arcade at MIT, part of the partnership that created the learning game -- "Labyrinth" -- which this article describes. In describing the game, there is much attention paid to learning styles, adolescent development, popular culture and classroom culture. I was particularly impressed at the developers dedication to the plight of the teacher and how clearly they made ease of incorporation in the curriculum a priority. It was satisfying, given my advocacy work, to see clear references to adolescent development. I cheer their recommendations for reversing the "teacher transmission of knowledge to student direction" as a way to further engage and empower the students, change/enhance the teacher's perspective of the student, and address the teacher's own time crunch issues.


The other article, The Classroom of Popular Culture: What video games can teach us about making students want to learn, James Paul Gee in this Harvard Education Letter outlines a good case for the inclusion of games in the classroom. Gee is an linguist with professional affiliations at Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Apparently gaming is a relatively newer interest of his. The parallel between achieving mastery in a video game and education was well drawn and compelling. His reporting of how video game designers were so successful at creating and using strategies that allow the player to gain skill and enjoy themselves, and the idea that it could transfer over to the classroom was impressive to the teacher on my blog chat tonight.



I resonated with his idea  "It is ironic that young people today are often exposed to more creative and challenging learning experiences in popular culture than they are in school" and find it both frightening and thrilling.



Frightening, because those popular culture learning experiences come with a price tag (in the form commercial motivations). Are these trappings just an innocuous background to young people? How critically do they examine it?



Frightening because even those wonderful gamer geeks have a hard time seeing sexism or racism in their community.


Thrilling because today, more than even before, young people can actively engage in creating that popular culture and it's content. And that can change everything.

Readings, Week 3

For this week's assignment we read an article: Transforming Social Spaces: Female Identity and the Mall which was presented by Miranda Brady at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, held in NYC this May. It can be read in very small chunks here:  http://tinyurl.com/ycrrb2g

While I share the author's disdain for malls, capitalism and a culture defined by consumerism, this article really ticked me off.

First of all, as a woman, I resent being cast as enabler of the ugly, unenlightened status quo because I am the natural target of shopping mall developers and retail marketers. Second, as an unabashedly proud bargain shopper who visits a mall monthly and shops weekly, I am infuriated that my life, pastimes, income use and contributions to our economy (hehe!) are so roundly disdained:

"So, one must naturally ask what kind of ideological sensibilities Americans of all socio-economic-status are acquiring when they are spending significant amounts of time in a space that has been designed with private, capitalistic interests for the sole purpose of promoting consumption." (p. 2)

"Apparently the the exchange values offered at the mall are acceptable to at least some segments of the population." (p. 4)

Feeling insulted and affronted, I must confront the very real possibility that part of my annoyance is due my own awareness of the  inevitable and undeniable dark side of this "guilty" pleasure. For the sake of transparency, I must now acknowledge other guilty pleasures -- eating meat, watching violent TV and movies, playing video games, buying water out of plastic bottles ... the list could go on endlessly.

I must also react to this article from my status as former advertising/marketing executive. Here too, I am tempted to become defensive and work hard to rebut the author's premise. Ultimately, even with my many hats, I can not. Capitalism as the single driving force for our society disgusts me. But I've got to ask, is it the worst possible defining attribute? What about comparing it to other culturally defining attributes -- like a highly rigid religion, a facist government or an unyielding caste system? I would love to see students attempt to tease out the positives and negatives in this debate.

One of the major challenges I have to the argument of this article is that it ignores the fact that the consumer's perspective, needs, desires, wants are a core part of marketing and consumerism. A feedback loop is required for success. I imagine very little citizen feedback to a facist regime. I have seen very little change in the Catholic Church to address modern times and values. But today's marketers are spending themselves silly to understand and address consumer's needs. And when these needs are "pro-social" the marketers must respond -- as evidenced by the "greening" of consumer packaged goods and the re-branding of oil companies.

I challenge the author's assertion that consumers "have neither a say in creating the ideologies communicated to them, nor do they always have the time to gain access to opposing ideologies." (p. 2) I would argue that it is only by being attentive to me that the marketers can develop ideologies that are salient to and effective with me.  As a consumer, I have power. I speak with my choices and credit card. They know me, they know what I buy and when I buy it. I might be just another entry in their data analysis, but they are slaves to that analysis. So they suck up to me and respond to my usage patters and desires. They reward my good behavior just as I reward theirs. For example, my "bargain" orientation has not gone unnoticed by the major department store chains. They know very well that they are competing against my favorite discount stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx. What a surprise then that Macy's has a sale nearly every other weekend. 

By empowering our young people to understand capitalism, how marketers function and their own "power" as consumers, we are offering them career insights, critical thinking and analytical skills, and the ability to harness and apply their power. I would ask them if they could -- by using their consumer power -- change the status quo. It would be a great activity to explore boycotts and buycotts, even plan one as an activity.

The challenge to this "consumer power" concept is that money and volume dictates the level to which one can influence the marketers. My middle-class, white collar demographic is profiled as "mainstream" and because my market segment is so very lucrative, so tied to mainstream media and shopping patterns, I am the default target audience. My preferences and beliefs dominate advertisers' messages and retailers displays -- and as the author points out -- therefore become hegemonic. So my continued participation is sustaining the status quo, making it easier for marketers to ignore potentially less lucrative market segments -- like communities of color in urban centers.

Yet even this point can be debated. Marketers are coming to terms with the fact that "broadcasting" is dying -- and "narrow-casting" or highly segmented markets are the norm. It's not enough to target a big generic demographic anymore. Web 2.0 has a lot to do with this change -- and while I'm not involved enough anymore to know how the trends are driving strategy -- it bet we are a lot closer to 1:1 marketing that the good ole days of "mass" marketing.

Further, it is expensive to reach that mainstream demographic. And it is fairly well saturated. So new efforts are and will continue to target new and different market segments -- like communities of color in the urban core. But through what process will they start making inroads? There are certain products that marketers know must first be adopted by urban african american youth in order to trend successfully into white, middle-class youth. But a whole mall? Or product line?  They'd need data, though, to identify lucrative strategies. I was curious about the International Council of Shopping Centers (a reference on page 2) so I visited their site to see if I could get data. No luck, but I did download the agenda from their last meeting to see what hot topics were discussed by mall retailers.  I found an interesting session:

2:40 – 3:10 pm B - Measuring Urban Retail Demand
Retail real estate research is benchmarked to key data metrics
which include population, income, and spending potential. When
urban, or inner city, areas are under consideration,
traditional sources, such as the Census Bureau and demographics
vendors, are often unable to fully measure population and income/
spending potential. This session will consider ways to improve
urban real estate research with additional methodologies to better
measure the true opportunity associated with urban trade areas.

Moderator:
KAREN SOLHEIM
Owner, Principal
Solheim Research
Santa Monica, CA

Speakers:
GLEN BOYER
Vice President of Real Estate Market Research
Ross Stores
Pleasanton, CA

JOHN TALMAGE
President & CEO
Social Compact
Washington, DC

First off, Ross Stores are another discount clothing retailer -- west coast. Ross Dress for Less. Another personal favorite!

Second, what the heck is "Social Compact" -- sounded very non-profit-like. So I investigated --

http://www.socialcompact.org/
Social Compact is a non-profit organization that breaks down barriers to public investment in underserved urban areas. Since its founding in 1990, the organization has become a powerful force for change in overlooked urban markets by delivering the reliable, representative, and up-to-the-minute information about a community’s economic health needed to make critically important investments possible and partnering with investors, municipalities, and community leaders to leverage this valuable information in the decision-making process.

I didn't go to this description right way. I went to their data and I was convinced they were a commercial entity fronting as non profit. Digging around though showed that they as much as they were tapped into the commercial interests, they had a larger, socially conscious orientation. A quote from their President (John Talmage) shows why I was confused:

"All communities are markets. And we must recognize them as such. If we don't recognize them as a market, then we've robbed them of the dignity of that community of in the economic system that we all participate in."
 (video on http://socialcompact.org/index.php/site/profile/category/landing/)

Would the author of this week's article  have a hard time embracing the idea that all communities are markets -- and that dignity equates to "participating in the economic system?"  I am fascinated by Social Compact's approach -- they seem to believe that these communities are not being targeted because the data isn't making the case and that the problem is that the data is bad -- inadequate. So they partner with local communities, their governments and economic development arms as well as private investors. Because everybody benefits.

That's the answer!  Malls in poor urban neighborhoods? Class -- let's discuss.

Readings, Week 1

For this week's assignment we were to read the first three chapters of "Tooning In: Essays on Popular Culture and Education" by Cameron White and Trenia Walker.

Not surprisingly, these folks are speaking my language, albeit from an educational system perspective. They are wading around the same areas that I am, exploring similar concepts with different labels. It was no surprise to see them discuss the broadening of educational goals, recommend media literacy, complain about NCLB and so on. It felt like old home week and another indicator that there are factions, splinters within the educational field that do "get" adolescents from a developmental and social justice perspective.

Social Efficacy
They justify the inclusion of popular culture by acknowledging young people's need for "social efficacy" and that this skill/need is rightly a responsibility of the educational system. Social efficacy is a concept I've seen over and over again in the health, mental health and out-of-school time segments under other names. Twenty dollar language, but it might have more traction that social and emotional learning or, our stand by -- healthy/positive youth development. 

Given where our country seems to be today, I have low expectations for the sort of social overthrow the writers advocate for, despite my own passionate desire for it be a reality. They accuse the "standardization and accountability movements" (p. 2) -- railing against the machine that ultimately funds their system and perpetuated by our own institution (and others). I love the radical perspective: that we hold up and prize our democratic society which addresses the needs of young people with a "school praxis (which) has virtually turned our schools into prisons... Kids are in school to be molded into appropriate acting citizens."

Aren't we lucky, I ask myself when confronted with this depressing truth, that the human spirit – especially when it is young – rises above? OBEY CONFORM BUY But not all of them do! They make their own truth, style, story, meaning. It thrills me to imagine the possibility created by strategies like the ones recommended here.

I agree, "neutrality is an impossibility" (p. 11). And at times it feels like participating in the youth serving community at all means treading carefully through and working hard to sustain neutral ground. To upset the status quo means risking your funding, job, livelihood and what little impact you are actually having. The whole "should we reject the abstinence funding" dilemma faced by public health departments is a perfect example. The lesson -- maybe you need to compromise your principles if it means getting resources when there are none. How long will we let that be our best practice? And on the national level? Is health care reform that doesn't make it possible for all citizens to get health care really reform?

Media impacts on social relations
I think it is important to see that the peeking through all the ugly stuff associated with dominant "mass commercial culture" (standardization, commoditization, consumerism) are some positives. First, I agree that social relations being formed through the "sphere of consumption" isn't exactly the best possible situation, but isn't it great that otherwise lonely or isolated people can "find each other" through a TV show or fashion or product? As long as it has some pro-social characteristic, I'm hard pressed to condemn it.

I also believe that web 2.0 is essentially changing these "mass media" dynamics. Mass media's death bed is a long ways off, but already it's function is changing dramatically. Web 2.0 has been an amazing accelerator for creation and especially creation through appropriation. Andy Warhol must be partying in his grave to see today's young people mash up and remix and get famous in not 15 minutes, but 5. We are shifting further and further from the receiver model and the idea that consumers and predominantly passive. I believe these next generations are and will be active with their consumption and media patterns. They don't wait for their TV show to come on at 8, they go find it, prerecord it, download, stream it. That said, big budgets will continue to shape the landscape's general features and  agenda. I continue to look for ways that new media will address this problem. For example, what's the relationship between the dramatic increase of news and political blogging, the downward spiral of newspapers and investigative journalism and the polarized but popular TV news programming?

Youth Status
Gisela Konopka (my work organization's figurehead and namesake www.konopka.umn.edu) would have loved the discussions about young people's status. She believed, as these writers note, that there is merit and importance to children as children and teenagers as teenagers – that they are not simply the value associated with what they will someday contribute. That youth is not "primarily a preparation and training for adulthood" (p. 32). I believe that this is particularly radical thinking in the education field -- and our culture in general. One of my coworkers talks about how young people have, as a basic need, the need to play. "How should we evaluate effective playtime?" He says, mocking the youth-serving community's thirst for evaluation and proven practices.

Learn
I'm very interested in the discussion about "meaning" in this reading. "We are at a point in which information no longer produces meaning, in fact it is the opposite that occurs" (p. 19 quoting Baudrillard) in relation to socialization and the "implosion of meaning." The claim that "once society gave meaning to images; now images give meaning to society." (p19) is evocative, but seems too simplistic because it is one way. Isn't meaning tied to both the information and the associations that viewer brings? Must read Baudrillard at some point.