overview | structure | concepts | applications | supplementals
Part III: Rhetoric and Interpretation
Anders Fagerjord, in "Rhetorical
Convergence: Studying Web Media," discusses how we should address the complex
texts that are Web pages. He cites how the field of media studies have theories
based on popular media but they have not yet developed a theory for Web media
(294). Fagerjord claims that "existing media theories can serve only as
inspiration" for understanding Web media. He examines "the term 'convergence'
so as to suggest how it might be conceptualized in the analysis and understanding
of Web media" (295).
Chapter 12, entitled "Computer Games and the Ludic Structure of Interpretation,"
argues for moving the computer game "beyond the gamer's discourse and into
the scholarly field of hermeneutic interpretation" (352). Eva
Liestøl attempts
to address questions of whether these games have meaning and if we can "read"
them as we do literature, painting, and film (327).
In "Net Level: Women's Digital Activism through Gaming," Mary Flanagan
discusses the ways in which the "current technology gap reinforce the divides
of class hierarchy, gender imbalance, and ethnic discrimination" (359).
She examines noncommercial computer games created by women to "understand
the motivations, themes, and impact of feminist gaming practices in culture
and in cyberfeminism" (360).
Gunnar Liestøl
in Chapter 14, "'Gameplay': From Synthesis to Analysis (and Vice Versa):
Topics of Conceptualization and Construction in Digital Media," discusses
how the computer has become a vehicle for the exchange of meaning (289). He
calls for a "synthetic-analytic approach" to digital media research,
which is a "more intimate and dynamic relationship between how digital
media texts are both constructed and interpreted" (410).
In Chapter 15, Espen Aarseth
examines three phenomena in digital media: interactivity, hypertext, and virtuality
and questions whether these terms are "purely analytical and technical"
(416). He dismisses the first two, but claims that virtuality "can be saved
for a very important descriptive task: to help us understand how computer technology
is indeed and already offering something new to human discourse" (436).
See the summary for part 1, 2, 3, and 4.
