Sunday, January 27, 2008
CC3: I Want Both Pills
I wonder where the members of these knowledge communities find time to immerse themselves in a make believe world. I think it makes more sense for the people who participate to be children because they have the most free time. Jenkins asserts that "transmedia storytelling is perhaps at its most elaborate, so far, in children's media franchises" (128). Well I feel that this makes more sense, at least until critics start analyzing too much. Education professors David Buckingham and Julian Sefton-Green that children may watch cartoons as a way of gathering knowledge that they use later when playing video or card games. I don't agree at all. I think children play games and watch television according to how much they feel like participating at any given time and may access the same brand or group of characters through different sources because they like the characters or the scenario. I don't mean to say that kids don't learn as they play but most kids don't watch cartoons in the hopes that something they see will help them at a later time (unless something from the company has told them to tune in to a particular episode to get a code that can be used to unlock something in the video game). I thought back to when I was younger and had video games and video tapes with the same content (Little Mermaid) but I didn't assume they were connected--only that they had the same characters that I liked. But this could very well be completely different from the way kids now play, although I have done my fair share of babysitting and I don't think they gathered knowledge from one source to use in another. So I guess my question is how many people are really involved in these knowledge communities and uses multiple sources to live in a pretend world? I don't know any of these people.. do you?
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2 comments:
Yes, I do know people who participate in knowledge communities (HASTAC link on my blog). Some of them are very academic and some are student communities at universities. Others are silly knowledge communities like groups on Facebook. In Wikinomics, you'll read about some commercially important ones.
On your point about children--they may not deliberately seek out television shows to watch because know they'll learn something (though many parents reinforce this idea with certain television shows), but many do learn skills they will use later (e.g., letter sounds, narrative structure). Dr. L
for me, an internet "knowledge community" extends from the limitations of a physical interactive group (friends, for instance) to peak the acute interests of all its members. my (obvious) interest is in film history and theory, however, it's difficult to find anyone in my immediate social circle who shares this interest with the same intensity. online communities could potentially fill this need, offering quick feedback and suggestions for future viewing, although finding the right group does pose a challenge. as for "living in a pretend world," i know a few people who are into online gaming. they'll spend fourteen hours a day (sometimes) playing. if you want to see something strange, look at the discourse surrounding "world of warcraft", a pretend world that goes beyond the boundaries of the game (treasure earned can be exchanged for actual currency which has inspired the emergence of online user "sweatshops," where employed "players" repeat the same action and build coin/items to be traded by an employer). insanity.
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