Re-Gaming the Digital Divide: Broadband, MMOGs and U.S. Latinos

Ortiz, Julio Angel

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/14947 Copy

Description

Title

Re-Gaming the Digital Divide: Broadband, MMOGs and U.S. Latinos

Author(s)

Ortiz, Julio Angel

Issue Date

2010-02-03

Keyword(s)

• Videogames
• digital divide
• municipal broadband
• Latinos

Abstract

Using a socio-technical theoretical lens, this paper delineates and defends the claim that access to broadband-enabled serious computer games is necessary to bridging the digital divide. Most of the research of videogames tends to focus on the potential psycho-behavioral impacts of this industry on society without regard for the unique social, cultural, and economic contexts of disenfranchised life. More specifically, little research examines how U.S. Latinos will access, consume, and use, in their daily lives, knowledge gained from serious massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) via broadband. This void presents us with a critical moment for this research to take place and crucial theoretical and methodological problems. Latinos do not simply use videogames for entertainment or distraction. To adequately analyze and evaluate access to ICT like videogames via broadband, we must consider the larger structural and institutional forces, notably the cultural and social framework, i.e. social community informatics and socialshaping theory. Such a multidimensional perspective would help reveal the structural factors associated with Latinos’ appropriation of videogames, and more interestingly how their experiences in the virtual world of videogames alters their perceptions of their real-life physical world.

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/14947

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