Proceedings of DiGRA 2014: <Verb that ends in ‘ing’> the <noun> of Game <plural noun>.

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Teaching Digital Games to Improve Media Literacy

Lindsay Grace American University

4400 Massachusetts Avenue

Washington, DC, USA

Grace@American.edu

ABSTRACT Games are not merely entertainment, they are a lens through which we can understand

our values. Play and structured play as games are practice spaces as understood by

biology, psychology and sociology (Brown 2009, Sutton-Smith, 1979). The fundamental

question to ask is always – what are we practicing? Games are based on constructed

conflict, but their prescribed resolution is one of the most instructive elements in play.

Beyond the lure of digital simulation, computer based play offers the ability to practice

those lesson repeatedly and without rest. Computer based play also allows game

designers to transcend the limits of physical space and even logic. Why then are games so

often bound by the same rules and play styles?

Perhaps it is because we have been teaching players not to examine play, but to consume

it. With a decidedly consumer driven history, games have been late to the critical

examination party. The notion of game literacy is still foreign to many. Yet, as games

permeate our society, politics and daily lives the necessity for critical reflection grows.

The practice of teaching games has developed toward this critical reflection. Graduates

of game curriculums, even the most job-focused training programs, learn to move from

consumers to critics. As consumers they move from buying what’s on the box, to reading

the ingredients to finally understanding how everything works together.

Industries don’t move by political might, their products just move underground (e.g. vices

and taboo). Industries do move by consumer demand – and they move quickly. Issues

with video game content and the merits of game design are not best addressed by steering

slow moving political machines, but instead by changing consumer demand. Creating

content labels, whether outlining the amount of salt in a packaged food or the ESA rating

on a game, informs the consumer, but it doesn’t change their behavior. An awareness of

organic food and alternative options, changes consumer demands and drives the rest of

the industry toward it.

Teaching media literacy with video games affords two benefits. It provides students the

ability to read the label – letting them understand what they are practicing and how it not

only effects them but the world in which they participate. It also affords the ability to be

critical. There was a time when readers couldn’t tell propaganda from fact nor viewers

discern an infomercial from a news show. Understanding such differences is not only

essential to the success of our society, it helps the world develop toward positive ends.

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The trick, if you can call it that, to teaching students media literacy is to help them

become critical consumers. Instead of combating their natural instinct to play and make

play, it is better to point it in a positive direction. Critical design and critical gameplay,

are examples of applying media literacy in ways that help game consumers mature.

Players may still consume some of the old game content, but their hunger for something

more begins with understanding its existence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Stuart L. Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates

the soul. Avery Trade, 2010.

Sutton-Smith, Brian. Play and learning. Vol. 3. Halsted Press, 1979.