Configuring the Child Player

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5338089
AutoresSara M Grime, Sara M Grimes (0000-0002-6849-3740, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen40
Número1
Páginas126-148
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243914550253
OpenAlexW2168002528
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas38

Scholars from various disciplines have explored the powerful symbolic function that children occupy within public discourses of technology, but less attention has been paid to the role this plays in the social shaping of the technologies themselves. Virtual worlds present a unique site for studying how ideas about children become embedded in the artifacts adults make for them. This article argues that children's virtual worlds are fundamentally negotiated spaces in which broader aspirations and anxieties about children's relationships with play, technology, consumer culture, and the public sphere resurface as "configurations" of an imagined, ideal child player. The article begins with a brief overview of the children's virtual worlds phenomenon, followed by a discussion of related research on children's play and play technologies. Findings from a case study of six commercial, game-themed virtual worlds targeted specifically to children are then presented, with a focus on how these artifacts configure their child players in highly ideological and normative ways, wherein play is narrowly defined in accordance with a neoromantic, consumerist ethos. The article aims to uncover the hidden politics inscribed within a particular genre of children's technology and to explore some of the implications for children's digital play

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Ethos · Human–computer interaction · Ideology · Inscribed figure · Metaverse · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Virtual reality · Child Development and Digital Technology · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Gender, Feminism, and Media