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him why that particular car was his favorite, he told me that it is because of one of
the songs that plays on the car’s radio. I was surprised when I heard the song-- the
oldie tune “I Love a Rainy Night,” and dually surprised when Gabriel and Ernesto
began to sing along (and knew all the words) as they drove through San Andreas to
find another vehicle to steal.
Just as I view Gabriel’s use of cheat codes was a social, embedded practice of
literacy, I consider his appropriation of this game feature to be a demonstration of
literacy. In terms of skills, he needed to have great familiarity with the game map in
order to find the car quickly and easily. His choice of the car (which was not the
flashiest nor the fastest option in the game) demonstrates his understanding of the
game as a text that he can manipulate to optimize the pleasure he derives from it.
Whereas a “straightforward reading” of the game would encourage players to
complete missions quickly and to regard certain interactive features (like the songs
played on the car radios) as bonus content and not a driving force within the game,
Gabriel’s negotiated reading foregrounded the music and led him to play the game in
a less mission-focused (and less violent) way.
As I mentioned earlier, Gabriel did not view cheat codes as subversive play
because they were embedded parts of his experience of gameplay. However, I do
believe that he understood that his choice of the car based on the music was a way of
challenging the way the game mechanics encourage players to play as well as the
way his group of friends play the game. The number of codes scrawled on the paper
Gabriel had acquired from his neighbors indicated to me that codes are an essential
Object Description
| Title | Kids as cultural producers: consumption, literacy, and participation |
| Author | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Author email | rherr@usc.edu; bhs@hri.uci.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-25 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-17 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Banet-Weiser, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gross, Larry Seiter, Ellen |
| Abstract | This dissertation looks closely at the practice of digital media production within a group of special education students and their teachers. Using ethnographic methods of extended participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, along with textual analysis of students' media projects, this work examines the types of learning that emerge from making media at school and the ways in which that learning relates to media and technology use in everyday life. Over the course of one school year (2005-2006), the students who are the focus of this dissertation undertook eight different multimedia production projects, ranging from designing PowerPoint presentations to digital video production and stop-motion animation. Through media production, the students found opportunities to practice traditional and digital literacy skills as well as to explore issues of identity and self-expression.; This dissertation provides empirical support for recommendations made by several media literacy scholars to include media production as part of critical media literacy curricula and contributes a unique case study -- one situated in special education -- to a growing body of work on digital literacy. Three interdisciplinary themes--consumption, literacy, and participation -- are used to organize the description and analysis of the students' media production activities. These themes connect the specific production that took place in the classroom to larger discourses about youth, media, technology, education, and access, working to complicate existing constructions of young people as either helpless victims of manipulative media or naturally savvy media and technology users. Instead, this research emphasizes that the relationships kids have with media and technology are complex, dynamic, intrinsically linked to their identities as consumers and participants in society. Media literacy is thus theorized as a tool for understanding and controlling consumption, participation, and the construction of young people as both current and future citizens. |
| Keyword | media literacy; media production; special education; middle school; digital media |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Coverage date | 2005/2006 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1674 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Stephenson-2393 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Stephenson-2393.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 92 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 87 him why that particular car was his favorite, he told me that it is because of one of the songs that plays on the car’s radio. I was surprised when I heard the song-- the oldie tune “I Love a Rainy Night,” and dually surprised when Gabriel and Ernesto began to sing along (and knew all the words) as they drove through San Andreas to find another vehicle to steal. Just as I view Gabriel’s use of cheat codes was a social, embedded practice of literacy, I consider his appropriation of this game feature to be a demonstration of literacy. In terms of skills, he needed to have great familiarity with the game map in order to find the car quickly and easily. His choice of the car (which was not the flashiest nor the fastest option in the game) demonstrates his understanding of the game as a text that he can manipulate to optimize the pleasure he derives from it. Whereas a “straightforward reading” of the game would encourage players to complete missions quickly and to regard certain interactive features (like the songs played on the car radios) as bonus content and not a driving force within the game, Gabriel’s negotiated reading foregrounded the music and led him to play the game in a less mission-focused (and less violent) way. As I mentioned earlier, Gabriel did not view cheat codes as subversive play because they were embedded parts of his experience of gameplay. However, I do believe that he understood that his choice of the car based on the music was a way of challenging the way the game mechanics encourage players to play as well as the way his group of friends play the game. The number of codes scrawled on the paper Gabriel had acquired from his neighbors indicated to me that codes are an essential |
