A Year in Review 3: Journal Articles

In addition to the many books I had to read, I think I should include academic journal articles and other bits from the academic world. Apologies for no pictures in this post. Academia is a boring, pictureless world of grey graphs and grey lines in multiple shades...of grey.

It is sort of amazing how much knowledge I have consumed in the past year. It's little wonder I felt overwhelmed, tired, depressed, and withdrawn at the end of it.

Reading these sorts of things is extremely necessary (or so I have been socialized to think) to cut through the personal biases, generalizations, and other noise that comes with culture. You cannot completely cut through these things, but it sometimes helps to try. Each article represents a unique moment in time, or catalogs an event over a period of years.

The power of academia isn't in what it is learning but in what it catalogs, what it explains. As with all knowledge, acceptance of things like this should come with reservations. Everything academia publishes is only correct for so long and even then "correct" is suspect.

Useful is probably closer to what journal articles end up being. Caveats aside, here are a group of articles that have stuck with me since I read them.

Aoyama, Yuko, Hiro Izushi. 2002. “Hardware Gimmick or Cultural Innovation? Technological, Cultural, and Social Foundations of the Japanese Video Game Industry.” Research Policy

ABSTRACT:

This paper examines the role of creative resources in the emergence of the Japanese video game industry. We argue that creative resources nurtured by popular cartoons and animation sector, combined with technological knowledge accumulated in the consumer electronics industry, facilitated the emergence of successful video game industry in Japan. First we trace the development of the industry from its origin to the rise of platform developers and software publishers. Then, knowledge and creative foundations that influenced the developmental trajectory of this industry are analyzed, with links to consumer electronics and in regards to cartoons and animation industry.

Video games are unique in that they are cultural objects infused with technological symbolism. At times, we laud video games for their ability to make us feel. Other times, we are amazed by the sheer amount of power a video game contains. Throughout their history, many different cultures have contributed to what eventually became video game culture. This particular article is useful insomuch that it traces the problems and benefits of how culturally close a hardware manufacturer is to a software producer. Given the recent Xbox 360, I wonder and hope for an update to this article.

Becker, Howard. 1967. Whose Side Are We On?. Social Problems

INTRODUCTION:

To have values or not to have values: the question is always with us. When sociologists undertake to study problems that have relevance to the world we live in, they find themselves caught in a crossfire. Some urge them to not take sides, to be neutral and do research that is technically correct and value free. Others tell them their work is shallow and useless if it does not express a deep commitment to a value position.

This dilemma, which seems so painful to so many, actually does not exist, for one of its horns is imaginary. For it to exist, one would have to assume, as some apparently do, that it is indeed possible to do research that is uncontaminated by personal and political sympathies. I propose to argue that it is not possible and, therefore, that the question is not whether we should take sides, since we inevitably will, but rather whose side are we on.

This particular article comes up every year and is central to my current thoughts on minority vs majority groups. Take, for example, video games. Most game studies folks take great care to design studies that incorporate independent games. They do this because, it seems, it is easier to gain access and, for whatever reason, minority groups "need" to be studied. What this ends u p doing, as Becker points out, is simply adding to the general malaise against the larger group. Without the larger group, the minority group gains access to more things but at a certain point that group will be abandoned for the next minority group. In order to combat this, more research needs to be done on the majority groups. In video game terms, this means that more work should be done with larger companies. The data these companies would provide would offer quite an amazing amount of useful data.

Consalvo, Mia. 2006. “Console Video Games and Global Corporations: Creating a Hybrid Culture.” New Media Society

ABSTRACT:

This article argues that the contemporary console video game industry is a hybrid encompassing a mixture of Japanese and American businesses and (more importantly) cultures to a degree unseen in other media industries, especially in regard to US popular culture. The particularities of the video game industry and culture can be recognized in the transnational corporations that contribute to its formation and development; in the global audience for its products; and in the complex mixing of format, style and content within games. As an exemplar of this process, the Japanese game publisher Square Enix is the focus of this case study, as it has been successful in contributing to global culture as well as to the digital games industry through its glocal methods. That achievement by a non-Western corporation is indicative of the hybridization of the digital games industry, and it is examined here as one indicator of the complexities and challenges, as well as future potentials, of global media culture.

I have been excited by any work that makes an effort to separate games that come from different cultures into different types. This particular piece is a foundational one for my thesis. In many ways, I want to present video games as something that is created by culture. I want to add to this sentiment that video games.

Connell, R.W. and James W. Messerschmidt. 2005. "Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept." Gender and Society.

ABSTRACT: The concept of hegemonic masculinity has influenced gender studies across many academic fields but has also attracted serious criticism. The authors trace the origin of the concept in a convergence of ideas in the early 1980s and map the ways it was applied when research on men and masculinities expanded. Evaluating the principal criticisms, the authors defend the underlying concept of masculinity, which in most research use is neither reified nor essentialist. However, the criticism of trait models of gender and rigid typologies is sound. The treatment of the subject in research on hegemonic masculinity can be improved with the aid of recent psychological models, although limits to discursive flexibility must be recognized. The concept of hegemonic masculinity does not equate to a model of social reproduction; we need to recognize social struggles in which subordinated masculinities influence dominant forms. Finally, the authors review what has been confirmed from early formulations (the idea of multiple masculinities, the concept of hegemony, and the emphasis on change) and what needs to be discarded (onedimensional treatment of hierarchy and trait conceptions of gender). The authors suggest reformulation of the concept in four areas: a more complex model of gender hierarchy, emphasizing the agency of women; explicit recognition of the geography of masculinities, emphasizing the interplay among local, regional, and global levels; a more specific treatment of embodiment in contexts of privilege and power; and a stronger emphasis on the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity, recognizing internal contradictions and the possibilities of movement toward gender democracy.

This article created a lot of really useful knowledge for me. Anyone tired of discussions about hegemony, feminism, and various other tedious (because of social barriers to discussion, not because of the topic) material should read this article.

Connel and Messerschmidt remove a ton of barriers in the discussion of gender by re-establishing gender studies as both male and female, not just inequality between the two because males, like females, do not actually meet the expectation of the hegemony. In the end, the most basic thing to take from this article is that we are not being complicated enough when it comes to studying gender.

Jones, John E. 2005. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Case No. 04cv2688

INTRODUCTION:
On October 18, 2004, the Defendant Dover Area School Board of Directors passed by a 6-3 vote the following resolution:

Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design. Note: Origins of Life is not taught. On November 19, 2004, the Defendant Dover Area School District announced by press release that, commencing in January 2005, teachers would be required to read the following statement to students in the ninth grade biology class at Dover High School:

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.

This judgement has been frequently handed to me over the years but 2010 is the first time I have actually read it. Because I live in Texas, school books, school subjects, and other various things around school have been extremely important. The loss of things like Benjamin Franklin, various Mexican War issues, the trail of tears and other tragic moments for white americans will lead to a generation of kids striving to be more white than they are already covertly pushed into.

This particular judgement is striking because of the extremely careful wording the judge used. In almost all ways, this judge shut this argument down. It is a solid piece of writing and the careful writing is indicative of the growing problems that have been created through the intensifying frequency of "innovation". I really recommend this as a "must read."

Latour, Bruno. 2010. An attempt at writing a “Compositionist Manifesto” New Literary History

A prologue in form of avatar:

If I had an agent, I am sure he would advise me to sue James Cameron over his latest blockbuster since AVATAR should really be called PANDORA’S HOPE! Yes, Pandora is the name of the mythical humanoid whose box holds all the ills ohumanity, but it is also the name of the heavenly body that humans from planet Earth (all members of the typically American military-industrial complex) are exploiting to death without any worry for the fate of its local inhabitants, the Navis, and of their ecosystem, a superorganism and a goddess called Eywa. I am under the impression that this film is the first popular description of what happens when modernist humans meet Gaia. And it’s not pretty.

The REVENGE OF GAIA, to use one of James Lovelock’s titles, results in a terrifying replay of Dunkirk 1940 or Saigon 1973: a retreat and a defeat. This time, the Cowboys lose to the Indians: they have to flee from their Frontier and withdraw back home abandoning all their riches behind them. In trying to pry open the mysterious planet Pandora in search of a mineral —known as unobtanium, no less!—, the Earthlings, just like in the classical myth, let loose all the ills of humanity: not only do they ravage the planet, destroy the great tree of life, kill the quasi Amazonian Indians who had lived in edenic harmony with her, they also become infected by their own macho ideology. Outward destruction breeds inward destruction. And again, like in the classical myth, hope is left at the bottom of Pandora’s box —I mean planet—because it lies deep in the forest, thoroughly hidden in the complex web of connections that the Navis nurture with their own Gaia, a biological and cultural network which only a small team of naturalists and anthropologists begin to explore. It is left to Jack, an outcast, a marine with neither legs nor academic credentials to finally “get it”, yet at a price: the betrayal of his fellow mercenaries, a rather conventional love affair with a native and a magnificent transmigration of his original crippled body into his avatar thereby inverting the relationship between the original and the copy and giving a whole new dimension to what it means to “go native”…).

I take this film is to be the first script that doesn't take ultimate catastrophe and destruction for granted —as so many have before— but opts for a much more interesting outcome: a new search for hope on condition that what it means to have a body, a mind, and a world is completely redefined. The lesson of the film, in my reading of it, is that modernized and modernizing humans are not physically, psychologically, scientifically and emotionally equipped to survive on their Planet. Like in Michel Tournier’s inverted story of Robinson Crusoe, they have to relearn from beginning to end what it is to live on their island —and just like in Tournier’s fable, Crusoe ultimately decides to stay in the now civilized and civilizing jungle instead of going back home to what for him has become just another wilderness. But what fifty years ago in Tournier’s romance was a fully individual experience, has become today in Cameron’s film a collective adventure: there is no sustainable life for Earth bound species on their planet island.

So, while studying modernization and the theories that go along with it, I ended up reading a ton of Bruno Latour. At this point, the fans of Latour seem more like rabid Star Wars fans than they do philisophs or professionals so it's hard to cut through that sort of stuff to get at what he is talking about.

This article, if you can stomach reading Latour, is interesting because of what it signifies. At some point, as masculinity came under fire, and with it, modernization theory, feminism gained power. Along with it, things like living in harmony, being at peace, and other "female" designated behaviors began to permeate popular culture. This movie, Avatar, symbolizes a general switch away from trying to conquer nature to giving up the frontier and heading back home. That living within nature is probably more of a benefit for the planet...and us...than it would be living through science as nature.

Messner. 2005. The Male Consumer as Loser: Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Events. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
INTRODUCTION:

The historical development of modern men’s sport has been closely intertwined with the consumption of alcohol and with the financial promotion and sponsorship provided by beer and liquor producers and distributors, as well as pubs and bars (Collins and Vamplew 2002). The beer and liquor industry plays a key economic role in commercialized college and professional sports (Zimbalist 1999; Sperber 2000). Liquor industry advertisements heavily influence the images of masculinity promoted in sports broadcasts and magazines (Wenner 1991). Alcohol consumption is also often a key aspect of the more dangerous and violent dynamics at the heart of male sport cultures (Curry 2000; Sabo, Gray, and Moore 2000). By itself, alcohol does not “cause” men’s violence against women or against other men; however, it is commonly one of a cluster of factors that facilitate violence (Koss and Gaines 1993; Leichliter et al. 1998). In short, beer and liquor are central players in “a high holy trinity of alcohol, sports, and hegemonic masculinity” (Wenner 1998).

This article examines beer and liquor advertisements in two “mega sports media events” consumed by large numbers of boys and men—the 2002 and 2003 Super Bowls and the 2002 and 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues. Our goal is to illuminate tropes of masculinity that prevail in those ads. We see these ads as establishing a pedagogy of youthful masculinity that does not passively teach male consumers about the qualities of their products so much as it encourages consumers to think of their products as essential to creating a stylish and desirable lifestyle. These ads do more than just dupe consumers into product loyalty; they also work with consumers to construct a consumption-basedmasculine identity relevant to contemporary social conditions. Drawing on insights from feminist cultural studies (Walters 1999), we argue that these gendered tropes watched by tens of millions of boys and men offer a window through which we can broaden our understanding of contemporary continuities, shifts, and strains in the social construction of masculinities.

This article came up a few different times this year and I think the spirit it captures might actually be more accurately portrayed through the movie Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. This article traces the impact of feminism on males through beer advertising for major sporting events, particularly, the Super Bowl.

Feminism has had a huge impact on men, maybe moreso than it has had on women. It is rare to see articles like this and while this particular article has a lot of methodological issues, it is useful. Between this and the Connell/Messerschmidt article, a person could make some interesting arguments.

Wajcman, Judy. 2007. “From Women and Technology to Gendered Technoscience.” Information, Communication and Society

ABSTRACT:

This paper situates current discussions of women's position in ICTs in the wider context of feminist debates on gender and technology. While a common trend among early feminist theorists was a profound pessimism about the inherent masculinity of technology, this was replaced during the 1990s by an unwarranted optimism about the liberating potential of technoscience for women. This article gives an account of both technophobia and technophilia, arguing that recent approaches drawing on the social studies of technology provide a more subtle analysis. Avoiding both technological determinism and gender essentialism, technofeminist approaches emphasize that the gender-technology relationship is fluid and flexible, and that feminist politics and not technology per se is the key to gender equality.

I think that this abstract speaks for itself. This article and the next are a comprehensive examination of feminist thought about technology.

Wajcman, Judy. 2010. “Feminist Theories of Technology.” Cambridge Journal of Economics

ABSTRACT:
Feminist theories of technology have come a long way over the last quarter of a century. The expanding engagement at the intersection of feminist scholarship and science and technology studies (STS) has enriched both fields immeasurably, and I will largely focus my reflections on the literature associated with these sites. I begin by highlighting the continuities as well as the differences between contemporary and earlier feminist debates on technology. Current approaches focus on the mutual shaping of gender and technology, in which technology is conceptualised as both a source and consequence of gender relations. In avoiding both technological determinism and gender essentialism, such theories emphasise that the gender-technology relationship is fluid and situated. These deliberations highlight how processes of technical change can influence gender power relations. A feminist politics of technology is thus key to achieving gender equality.

I got into technology studies because I was writing a paper on Science Literacy and STEM education tactics. The article linked above is a great overview of two things. 1). A history of feminist thought with regard to technology and 2). Why that history went the way it did. If you have ever wanted to link feminist thought to technology, this piece is really great.

Williams, Dimitri, Nicole Martins, Mia Consalvo, and James D. Ivory. “The Virtual Census: Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Video Games.” New Media Society

ABSTRACT:
A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions about their representations of gender, race and age in comparison to the US population. The sample included 150 games from a year across nine platforms, with the results weighted according to game sales. This innovation enabled the results to be analyzed in proportion to the games that were actually played by the public, and thus allowed the first statements able to be generalized about the content of popular video games. The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly. Overall, the results are similar to those found in television research. The implications for identity, cognitive models, cultivation and game research are discussed.

This article does a good job at pointing out the, systematically, the over-representation of white males in video games. The authors take their findings and place it within the literature on television research. This step makes this piece extremely useful for any research projects that involve digital groups in a wide-range of disciplines. The section "Why game representations matter" is very exhaustive.

The end

I think that this is a pretty nice review for the things I found interesting last year. My selection process is mostly 3 from each type of semester (Spring, Summer, Fall) and a floater. I have to wonder what will happen once i'm out of school.

Resolutions?

I spent a lot of 2010 in the midst of a great deal of stress that was unavoidable. Most everything in my life suffered. 2011 will be a year of re-establishing that which I lost in 2010 and putting forth a lot of effort to get into a PhD program. I've been writing a research philosophy lately. I might actually be on my way to creating a 5 year research plan. 2011 will be a year to remember!