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DC Field | Value | Language |
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dc.contributor.advisor | Fennell, Hope-Arlene | |
dc.contributor.author | Boyd, Randall Ian (Randy) | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2017-06-05T14:40:35Z | |
dc.date.available | 2017-06-05T14:40:35Z | |
dc.date.created | 2010 | |
dc.date.issued | 2011 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://knowledgecommons.lakeheadu.ca/handle/2453/1019 | |
dc.description | To view accompanying video clips, please see CD accompanying the print version of this dissertation. | |
dc.description.abstract | This dissertation endeavours to create a conceptual frameworkwith which to examine “video games as postmodern magic.” I begin by defining the operative understanding of postmodernism for the purpose of this analysis, focusing on representation, power, and a critique of Enlightenment assumptions, then using the work of Deleuze and Guatarri I construct a postmodern approach to the research, and suggest “resonance” as an alternative mode of evaluation and validation. I then turn to examine the concept of magic, before it was reduced and discredited by the Enlightenment, and in so doing finding another way of looking at the world, a way that privileges imagination over rationality, spirit over materialism, and multidimensionality over linear logic. Having “reached back” to a time before the Enlightenment, I then seek to connect those insights to “visual digital culture” where image, interactivity and immersion predominate. Having created a framework that integrates the issues of postmodernism, magic, and visual digital culture, video games are analyzed within this structure. Noting that magic plays a surface role in many games, I suggest that there is a more pervasive magical element to such games, and look at how video games expand the realm of possibility through simulation and simulacra, how they challenge the meta-narrative by shifting power and control of the narrative to the player, and finally how video games augment our appropriation of reality by synaesthetically creating experiences and a “phenomenology of magic.” The dissertation is concluded with a discussion of a possible “pedagogy of enchantment” in which the insights gained from the analysis are applied to the educational environment, narrativity, intereactivity and immersion, are placed within a virtual environment for exploration. | |
dc.language.iso | en_US | |
dc.subject | Learning, Psychology of | |
dc.subject | Video games Psychological aspects | |
dc.subject | Video games and children | |
dc.title | "Welcome to the modern world, painted stick" : postmodern magic in educational virtual reality | |
dc.type | Dissertation | |
etd.degree.name | Doctor of Philosophy | |
etd.degree.level | Doctoral | |
etd.degree.discipline | Education | |
etd.degree.grantor | Lakehead University | |
Appears in Collections: | Electronic Theses and Dissertations from 2009 |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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BoydR2010d-1b.pdf | 12.38 MB | Adobe PDF | ![]() View/Open |
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