Digital Playgrounds

The Hidden Politics of Children's Online Play Spaces, Virtual Worlds, and Connected Games

Häftad, Engelska, 2021

422 kr

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Beskrivning

Digital Playgrounds explores the key developments, trends, debates, and controversies that have shaped children’s commercial digital play spaces over the past two decades. It argues that children’s online playgrounds, virtual worlds, and connected games are much more than mere sources of fun and diversion – they serve as the sites of complex negotiations of power between children, parents, developers, politicians, and other actors with a stake in determining what, how, and where children’s play unfolds.Through an innovative, transdisciplinary framework combining science and technology studies, critical communication studies, and children’s cultural studies, Digital Playgrounds focuses on the contents and contexts of actual technological artefacts as a necessary entry point for understanding the meanings and politics of children’s digital play. The discussion draws on several research studies on a wide range of digital playgrounds designed and marketed to children aged six to twelve years, revealing how various problematic tendencies prevent most digital play spaces from effectively supporting children’s culture, rights, and – ironically – play.Digital Playgrounds lays the groundwork for a critical reconsideration of how existing approaches might be used in the development of new regulation, as well as best practices for the industries involved in making children’s digital play spaces. In so doing, it argues that children’s online play spaces be reimagined as a crucial new form of public sphere in which children’s rights and digital citizenship must be prioritized.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2021-07-22
Mått:152 x 229 x 19 mm
Vikt:520 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:372
Förlag:University of Toronto Press
ISBN:9781442615564
Utmärkelser:Short-listed for Best Book Award of the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association 2022 (United States)

Utforska kategorier

Informationsteknik: allmänt inom Data och IT
Datorspel / onlinespel inom Data och IT

Mer om författaren

Sara M. Grimes is an associate professor in the Faculty of Information and director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto.

Recensioner i media

"In framing the implications of her inquiry around questions of children’s rights, Grimes’ work models the attention that these topics warrant and highlights the urgent stakes of children’s online play. This book charts a history and a theoretical framework that establishes a new and higher bar for children’s media research. It is a foundational text in contemporary children’s media studies and will remain so for the foreseeable future."- Meredith A. Bak, Rutgers University-Camden (Media Industries Journal)

Innehållsförteckning

IntroductionDigitizing Playgrounds and Technologizing PlayWhat This Book Is AboutWhy Looking Back Helps Us Move ForwardBuilding a Children’s Technology Studies FrameworkChapter Overview1. The Importance of Digital PlayConflicting Views of Children’s PlayConflicting Views of Mediated PlayLicensed Toys and Media SupersystemsDigital Game Controversies and DichotomiesDangerous Games and Risky GamersGames for "Good" GirlsBad Game(r)s, Good Game(r)sMoving ForwardLooking at "Stuff" and StructuresResituating Children’s PlayConclusion2. Small Worlds and Walled GardensA Brief History of Children’s Digital PlaygroundsOnline Games: Portals, Arcades, and Environments, 2003–2005NeopetsThe Virtual World Boom, 2005–2008Design Trends and DisparitiesBeyond the Computer ScreenWeb-Enabled ConsolesConnected Games Go MobileToys-to-Life and Cross-Platform GamesConclusion3. Commercializing Play(grounds)Revisiting Supersystems and StructuresTexts and ContextsAffordances and Design LimitationsCommercializing GameplayThe Velvet RopeCross-Promotion and BrandingImmersive Third-Party AdvertisingBrand AmbassadorsWhen Stories, Designs, and Commercial Priorities AlignConclusion4. From Rules of Play to CensorshipThe Primacy of Rules in Digital GamesDesign(ed) RulesWritten Rules, Rulebooks, and Codes of ConductWho Follows the Rules Anyway?Why Breaking Rules Is ImportantNegotiating Encoded RulesChildren Bending, but Not Breaking, the RulesIce Goths and BarbieBoysFlash Mobs and CopycatsPlaying in the Margins of ManoeuvreConclusion5. Safety First, Privacy LaterChildren’s Data and PrivacyThe COPPA Rule RevisedReframing Privacy Protections as Safety MechanismsPrivacy Policies"Safety" by DesignSafety as a Key Selling PointFreedom of Expression as a Collateral Cost of SafetySecret Spaces and "Unsafe" PlacesUnsafe and Risky PlayConclusion6. Playing as Making and CreatingPlaying and Making Digital GamesChildren’s Literacy, Agency, and Cultural RightsTerms of Service, Terms of PlayWho Owns Children’s Content in Digital Playgrounds?New Creative Opportunities, Same Old TermsUser Rights in MinecraftFandom and Fair Use as Consumer PracticeConclusion7. The Politics of Children’s Digital PlayWhere We Are, and How We Got HereThe (Four) Problems with Digital PlaygroundsPrivacy, Secrets, and SelfhoodCensorship and Freedom of ExpressionOwnership, Authorship, and CopyrightCommercial Content and ControlThe Digital Playground as Public SphereBibliography