Two of my friends and fellow investigators of digital media have recently been featured on Boing Boing:
- “Reducing the World’s Suck with Henry Jenkins” is an article that deals with Henry’s perspectives on fandom and the still-prevalent myths of videogame violence and addiction.
“Chimerical Avatars and Other Identity Experiments from Prof. Fox Harrell” details Fox’s ongoing work on better representing identity in videogames and other computing systems.
The article on Fox Harrell was reblogged on Kotaku, too: “Making Avatars That Aren’t White Dudes Is Hard.” While the title is catchy, I have to point out that Fox’s work is about richer and more multidimensional ways of representing oneself digitally, beyond the one idea of skin color or race. So, we should anticipate that this work is likely to benefit “whitey” as well – and anyone who wants more than a Monopoly token as an in-game or online representation.