The Twitter games

Media education, popular culture and multiscreen viewing in virtual concourses

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20508312
AutoresAlfonso Gutiérrez-Martín (0000-0002-2288-9459, Universidad de Valladolid, autor de correspondencia), Alba Torrego González (0000-0002-4083-8727, Universidad de Valladolid), Alba Torrego-González (Universidad de Valladolid)
Año2018
Volumen21
Número3
Páginas434-447
Fecha de publicación2018-03-04
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInformation Communication & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1369-118X • E-ISSN: 1468-4462
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369118x.2017.1284881
OpenAlexW2583187277
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas56

Interactive media and virtual environments give rise to transmedia and multiscreen viewing in a new popular and participatory culture. This in turn requires a new type of critical, reflective media education. This article reviews expert opinions on the educational potential of The Hunger Games (THG) and the use of Twitter during the viewing of films by young audiences. The study has the twofold goal of analysing whether the tweets include the topics of ideology and values mentioned in the selected articles and whether the conversations help build knowledge of the subjects that, according to the experts, are discussed in the literary trilogy. The method, based on discourse analysis, is twofold as well, comprising, on one hand, the discussion of 61 selected academic papers on THG and, on the other, 6000 tweets posted by youngsters while watching the films in the trilogy shown on TV. The tweets were analysed using the ‘coding and counting’ technique in computer-mediated discourse analysis. The results show a great chasm between academic or educational perspectives and what youngsters see in the films. Twitter interactions show that the virtual environments where these interactions take place are mere virtual concourses rather than affinity or learning spaces. This draws attention to the need for a new type of media education which not only includes the popular culture in formal education environments, but also uses the virtual concourses where youngsters gather around media products to transform mere coexistence into convergence of interests based on the meaning of these products

Citizen journalism · Ideology · Media studies · Multimedia · Participatory culture · Political science · Sociology · Trilogy · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Literacy, Media, and Education · Psychology · Artificial Intelligence