Purpose: The Thai video game domain has witnessed substantial growth in recent years. However, many games enjoyed by Thai players are in foreign languages, with only a handful of titles translated/localized into the Thai locale. Some Thai video game enthusiasts have taken on the role of unofficial translators/localizers, contributing to a…

In 2007, the authors' ethnographic research study of 11 adolescent gamers began in a response to social concern regarding adolescent (dis)engagement in school literacy practices. Since then, the authors' ongoing research has revealed the importance of understanding and knowing more about individual gamers' ways of knowing, and also about the…

This article examines the response of minority gamers as they adopt new innovations in Xbox Live. Using diffusion of innovation theory, specific attention is given to gamers' rate of adoption of the new Xbox Live environment, which was a recent update to the Xbox Live interface. By employing virtual ethnography, observations, and interviews reveal…

Some educational researchers claim that videogames can energize learning in both traditional and non-traditional contexts; cultivate skills more useful to a changing economy; and present information in ways more appealing to students. The notion of "serious games" dates back as early as the 1950s, but so far has failed to make a significant…

Geosemiotics (Scollon and Scollon, 2003) frames this analysis of play, multimodal collaboration, and peer mediation as players navigate barriers to online connectivity in a children's social network and gaming site. A geosemiotic perspective enables examination of children's web play as "discourses in place": fluidly converging and…

This paper describes the use of quantities in video games by young people as part of a broader effort to understand thinking and learning across naturally occurring contexts of activity. Our approach to investigating the use of quantities in game play is ethnographic; we have followed eight children over a six-month period as they play their own…

Karen Orr Vered demonstrates how children's media play contributes to their acquisition of media literacy. Theorizing after-school care as intermediary space, a large-scale ethnographic study informs this theory-rich and practical discussion of children's media use beyond home and classroom.

Based on work in media studies, new literacy studies, applied linguistics, the arts and empirical research on the experiences of urban youths' informal media arts practices, we articulate a new vision for media education in the digital age that encompasses new genres, convergence, media mixes and participation. We first outline the history of how…

Drawing on the work of researchers in several disciplines, this article describes and discusses methods which can be used for analysing joint activity during computer-based, side-by-side, collaborative activity in educational settings. It is argued that the choice of methods in any particular study should take into account the range of…

The study of video game effects has been marked by two very different approaches. The first approach is represented by social scientists, who, with some exceptions, seek to understand the effects of games on users. The second approach is favored by humanists, who seek to understand the meaning and context of games. To date, these two groups have…