Sociology Master Thesis gets censored

In what seems to me a difficult PR challenge to both, DR (the Danish BBC equivalent) and Copenhagen University‘s Department of Sociology have collaborated in censoring a sociology master thesis. As reported in Information (upon which the following is based) Mille Buch-Andersen did a study of the organizational culture of DR’s symphonic orchestra.

While her supervisor apparently assured her repeatedly that the master thesis was ready for submission, an angry email from DR seems to have caused a change of heart at the department who urged/threatened Buch-Andersen to withdraw the thesis and revise it before resubmitting.
Having revised and received her degree, Buch-Andersen now says (in my translation):

Academically, I am very disappointed by the department. I am also surprised – no, I am speechless about this. It’s against everything which I thought sociology to be. And it is the direct opposite of what we are taught. We learn that it is the role of sociology to uncover power relations, abuse of power and conflicts in this regard. And that it is part of the discipline that our reports can sometimes be unpleasant reading to some.

That one has to hurt.
While both DR and the department claim “breaches of research ethics” – and while I’m sure there are still-unrevealed aspects of the case – two (in this context) powerful organizations threatening a single student who claims to be a victim of politics and academic cowardice is difficult to paint in pretty colors. One wonders if far less harm had come of letting the student simply submit the original thesis; the chosen strategy seems both exagerated and desperate, as in “what do they have to hide which is so light-sensitive?”.

Action game boosts spatial skills

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Researchers at the University of Toronto report that action game play increased players’ spatial skills, also over time. Female players get the biggest boost. Professor Ian Spence notes that

Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain when we see marked improvements in spatial skills after only 10 hours of game playing and these improvements are maintained for many months

That does seem a very considerable effect…

More in The Economist

A longing for subversion

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I have, at times, questioned the extent to which actual players tend to subvert games to rebel against the goals. Probably I have crossed the line into polemics a couple of times with (I have thought or hoped) controversial statements that players simply tend to play games the way they are intended.
The reason for my childish behavior is not any great desire on my part for orderly, predictable play. I simply dislike the kind of progressive awe that tends to accompany the idea of the “active player”. Some people seriously want this to be true.
Crawford and Rutter in a chapter of Rutter and Bryce’s Understanding Digital Games write (in an off-hand remark, but still):

Kline et al. (2003) highlight the importance of an active audience model in considering digital game players. For instance, they cite examples of how gamers will subvert the preferred readings of games such as Civilization and SimCity.

Interesting. Let’s consult our Kline et al. (2003). On page 44 they write:

“For example, there have been valuable analysis of how ‘strategy games’ such as Civilization or Sim City can be played in ways that subvert the preferred readings of game designers.”

Kline et al. footnote their statement with references to

Bleeker, J. (1995). Urban Crisis: Past, Present and Virtual. Socialist Review, 24(1-2), 189-223. [Link to draft version]

and

Stephenson, W. (1999). The Microserfs Are Revolting: Sid Meier’s Civilization II [Electronic Version]. Bad Subjects from http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1999/45/stephenson.html.

I’m willing to examine these two references in a positive light. But even so, they really, really don’t – even to my most constructive reading – describe subversive, oppositional, or even active actual readings/playings of these games. Kline et al. are right, the papers discuss how the games in question can be played subversively – some curious slippage has occurred in Crawford and Rutter’s version.

The examples used don’t work.

My players-accept-the-game-goals polemics are quickly becoming tiresome – please supply them with just a little bit of opposition…

End of level for Gonzalo Frasca

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Former Urugayan ITU resident and PhD program co-sufferer Gonzalo Frasca just (yesterday) told the world how games, play, and rhetorics are connected thus earning himself the non-refundable title of PhD.
Because of exams I could only attend the esteemed candidate’s presentation (thus missing out on the subsequent Q&A fun) but what I heard seemed both coherent and science-like. I cannot be more specific since I was concentrating on taking low-quality pictures with my clumsy phone.

Congratulations, Dr.

Anne Mette Thorhauge defends game PhD

Anne Mette Thorhauge defendes her PhD dissertationAnne Mette Thorhauge of Copenhagen University just defended her (Danish) dissertation entitled The Computer Game as Communication Form. Topic-wise, Anne Mette’s work seems quite close to my own, so I look forward to reading her text soon. I might, perhaps, disagree with her conceptualization of rules as something “established and maintained by communication”, but it could just be a definition issue and life is surely too short to argue about those.

Either way: Congratulations Anne Mette :-)