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Jagoda, Patrick. "Gaming the Humanities: Digital Humanities, New Media, and Practice-Based Research." Differences 25, no. 1 (2014): 189–215.

Related topics:

Sports and Competition

Link to citation page: https://www.worldcat.org/title/gaming-the-humanities/oclc/5575766780&referer=brief_results

Link to full text: http://differences.dukejournals.org/content/25/1/189.full.pdf html

The article begins with Jagoda discussing the too-rigid dichotomy between the disciplines of digital humanities and new media studies (189). Jagoda suggests that a third genre, comparative media studies, may begins to encourage transdisciplinary conversations (190). This discipline emphasizes practice-based research—in other words, scholars build not just texts but also "images, interactions, cross-media corpora, software, and platforms" (190). Jagoda's thesis contends that this new type of digital game "demand[s] new ways of perceiving and working" which may help to ford the disciplinary conflict (191). Jagoda is working with a University of Chicago doctor and health researcher Melissa Gilliam at the "Game Changer Chicago Design Lab" to foreground the questions of the "role of social justice in digitally oriented research, the value of design as a research method, the benefits of large team collaborations, and the possibility of generative intersections between the humanities and the sciences" (189).

Jagoda begins his argument by stating the widespread impact of gaming, particularly in the growth of video, computer, and mobile games (192). He then explains how the prevalence of gaming has pervaded other realms through a new incentivization strategy called "gamification" (193). Some examples of gamification are banks alloting points for staying loyal, or fitness groups allotting points for doing undesirable workouts (193). Interestingly, even primary-level education institutions, such as ChicagoQuest schools, are adopting game-based learning (194). Jagoda points out that digital games present a conflict with the humanities' "fundamental exploration of meaning making, aesthetic value, and historical knowledge" by complying with "digital economy, corporate values, and presentism" (195). Jagoda cautions against succumbing to the "early twenty-first-century techno-utopianism that often accompanies digital game cultures" (196).

The article then moves away from gamification to introduce gaming literacy, a concept first proposed by Eric Zimmerman. This notion departs from both traditional literacy and media literacy; instead, "learning to play, analyze, and design games helps people make sense of processes that constitute complex systems" (196). In order to create and play these games, users must "draw from myriad forms, such as visual artworks, theatrical performances, and literary text" (197). In order to test the 'literacy' required for playing digital humanities games, Jagoda goes on to use his own collaborative work called The Source, created at the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab.

Jagoda describes the complex interface of The Source without supplying many specifics. He then finishes the article by situating The Source within the "contemporary situation of the digital humanities" (202). He focuses on four key facets: "1) the relationship between the digital humanities and social justice; 2) the affordances of collaboration of transmedia design as a research method in the humanities; 3) the importance of collaboration as a key organizational technique for the humanities; and 4) the relationship between the humanities and sciences in a digital moment" (202). Jagoda and his team noted when creating the game that "a critical feature that makes games particularly suited for learning is their formally social and interpersonal character" (204).

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