Language and Literacy in Online Games and Esports more

Sat, Apr 30, 12:00-Tue, May 31, 23:55 Asia/Seoul

Video games have emerged as the leading entertainment media among youth, garnering more daily attention and time on task from middle schoolers and teens than homework. Due to their time demands, games are often positioned in competition with literacy and learning rather than part of it, but what if games were instead a hook to get kids reading in situated, interest-driven ways? In this presentation, I review more than a decade of empirical work on the relationship between video games play and literacy. From fan fiction writing to reading textbooks as a way to “cheat” the system, games recruit print text in multiple ways as a natural everyday part of digital play. Here, I review the quantity and quality of reading in relation to games, how writing is positioned online as another form of gameplay, and the role that interpersonal communication plays in successful esports competitions.