RachelMacKay

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Week 2 Discussion:

**Can Video Games be considered another new mass media? What makes Video Games a different medium from conventional movies and music? Why are video games catching on?**
Video games can be considered a new type of mass media for a few reasons. First of all, video games contain messages and ideologies aimed at their users, whether it be about a specific race, gender, religion or sex. Also increasingly seen throughout video games is product placement -- Coke machines scattered throughout levels, Billboards in futuristic cities with BMW's on them, main characters wearing Nike shoes, etc.

Video games are a different medium from convention forms such as movies and music because whether or not it is a media medium is controversial. Every users experience of a video game is different, however as internet play on video games begins to increase and players interact with one another more, the consensus of a general school of through will continue to grow. Video games struggle to fall into the 'mass media' definition of intending to deliver mass communication through a given medium. People have been watching movies and music, which have been around and popular for decades. Because of this, they are accustom and almost jaded to certain types of explicit and implicit messaging.

However, with the recent emergence of video games, users are unaware of the possible messages and implications they can have. Finally, video games are catching on because they are an amazing way to experience things without the fear, cost or lack of reality holding them back. It makes the impossible, possible. You can be a rock star, an army soldier, an alien, a race car driver and many other things in between. They are a great way to spend some time, have fun and experience another life while maintaining the safety of your own.

Week 3 Discussion:

Why are new genres created? Why is the definition of genre controversial and not so applicable to the formation of digital genres?
Genres are created to group together likenesses within any given element to support discourse in a community. Detective stories and scientific articles are examples of two types of documents that have identifiable elements, rules of form and content, which are the basic elements of any genre.

Hypermedia genres are controversial because select researchers argue that orientation and navigation of any given space are completely different from user to user and each one's perception of rules, information and space vary, which break the general conventions of a genre. It is argued that because the digital domain acquired many likenesses to analog conventions for ease of use and navigation such as layouts, guides and locations, it is difficult for the new medium types to evolve and create new genres.

Week 4 Discussion:

Do you agree with McLuhan when states comics are an extension of photographic media? Why or why not?
I agree when McLuhan states that comics are an extension of photographic media. He touches on the fact any comic strip provides very little information on any space, object or time, limiting interpretation by viewers. This is a "cold" media -- one that forces viewers to view in the blanks. This is the opposite of a "hot" media -- one that allows viewers to be passive and just sit back and absorb information with minimal activity.

Comics are an extension of photographic media because they have the ability to take one specific instance and define it by giving it relative substance through text such as plot, characters, story and development, which independent of the comic would be rendered meaningless. Comics have the ability to explicitly give meaning and information to pictures which enhance their definition to viewers, which standing alone could be weak and practically meaningless.