Paper/Project Proposal and Guidelines

(Overview)

We are investigating the significant development of video/computer games and their increasing importance to media culture today. We are particularly concerned with how game historians, theorists, designers, and gamers themselves initiate new critical frameworks for and participatory approaches to understanding the power and allure of video games and global gaming culture. We have been especially interested in unpacking the myriad utopic and dystopic rhetorics about video games’ and their potential simultaneously to benefit and harm young people, the primary market audience for the burgeoning games industry. We are also concerned with issues such as medium specificity, or what exactly are the unique features and characteristics of video games versus other media (i.e. film, television, and print media, for instance).

Are moral panics claiming that video games create a special danger for youths because of their interactivity in the construction and execution of gameplay overreactions? Are claims about video games leading to useful computer skills overstatements? This dystopic/utopic binary opposition often governs most public debate about video games in society and culture at large. What exactly do we mean by interactivity when we talk about video games? What are the consequences of ubiquitous gaming and pervasive connectivity? How have video games transformed our visual and aesthetic experiences of stories, narratives, interpersonal relationships, and social network structures?

In view of the foregoing ideas and questions, you should develop a final course project that addresses any one of the weekly themes we have covered over the course of the quarter. You may explore some compelling but related topic not considered in the course as well, pending approval by the professor. In selecting your project topic from the themes covered in class, you are expected to demonstrate an understanding of and familiarity with the key issues from the course reader and textbook, as well as from the visual texts (films, TV shows, websites,games, etc) explored in the class.

Paper/ Project Description

Your project should consist of: 1) Selecting any one, or two of the themes covered in this seminar as points of reference for your paper or multimedia project (again, you are not limited by the topics discussed in class, but they should factor significantly in your project). 2) Then, explore your topic in terms that effectively problematized our accepted views of a good games/bad games binary opposition. A key goal of this paper is to develop your particular thinking about computer games in ways that suggest your agreement or rejection of games discourse in popular culture today.

The final project can be either: A) a traditional term paper between 9-12 double-spaced, typewritten and numbered pages; B) a multimedia project, i.e, blog, webpage, powerpoint presentation, DVD or video document; or 3) a combination of A and B. You should use either the Modern Language Association or Chicago Style of documentation for your reference citations. Consult these Style handbooks for format and style rules.

Proposal Guidelines:

Write a fully formed thesis statement that will focus and guide your topic/project. And be sure to indicate which themes and visual texts you will incorporate.

Provide a preliminary Works Cited / References page indicating the major literary and media texts that will form the historical, critical and analytical support for your thesis/project.

Your proposal should be between 2-3 pages length.