Touch points and tacit practices
how videogame designers help literacy studies
pp. 423-440
in: Paul Smeyers, David Bridges, Nicholas C. Burbules, Morwenna Griffiths (eds), International handbook of interpretation in educational research, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
This chapter explores what video game designers can offer literacy studies. Drawing on data from a 3 year interview-based study of professionals working in creative and business sectors and their thoughts on meaning making, Rowsell presents interpretative frameworks that researchers can use within their research to think about immersive and game-based texts. Two videogame designers offer thick description about the process of framing and layering storied worlds in videogames. Contemporary learning theories are increasingly arguing for understanding virtual environments as a way forward for literacy pedagogy and policy and videogames and gamification specifically have been targeted as models for future pedagogy. Presenting interview data with two video game designers, Rowsell profiles what new media and digital technologies producers do and think when they plan and produce videogames. Within the handbook, the chapter will contribute to a more nuanced appreciation of new media and how it can productively rework traditional understandings of literacy within contemporary, multimodal contexts.