[UCI-Calit2] Reminder: Tuesday -- SURF-IT seminar on computer games and on blog readers

[Stuart Ross]

Tomorrow -- Calit2 presents a seminar featuring research on blog readers and on computer games.  The event is the first in a series by faculty mentors for “SURF-IT,” Calit2’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Information Technology.

Tuesday, July 10
Calit2 Building, Room 3008
A light lunch will be available at 11:30 a.m., prior to the seminars.

12:00 Noon: “Beyond Play – Artificial Worlds and Gaming Capital”
Peter O. Krapp, Assistant Professor, Film & Media Studies
   Undergraduate Fellow:  Nathaniel Pope, Economics

When players of computer games buy and sell game items with real money, and when real profit can be made by working in the game, then new social and cultural relationships emerge and the familiar separation of play from productivity begins to disappear. There are many game-based economies from which people draw real-money profit -- World of Warcraft, Everquest and Second Life are familiar examples. This project will use quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the response to these phenomena from game developers and players, and will trace a history of what passes for "play” and what constitutes a “game.” Can such emergent play resist classification as “work,” and must it do so to maintain subscriptions?

12:30 p.m.  “Blog Readers”
Bill Tomlinson, Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics
   Undergraduate Fellow:  Mark Sueyoshi, International Studies

Blogs have become a powerful force in the news media, a popular outlet for self-expression, and the object of an increasing amount of academic research. Most research thus far has focused on the bloggers – social network analyses between bloggers, tools to assist in blog publication, and understanding the presentation of self through a blog. But blog readers can also play a very large part in shaping the blog – through channels such as comments, email, IM, and in-person interaction.  This project is intended to understand the role of the reader in this increasingly prominent medium. The investigation will consist largely of ethnographic-based methods, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and experience sampling, as well as other methods, including automatic tracking and logging of reading patterns.

The event is open to the public.






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