The Cartoonist and the Whaler: Two Tales of Journalism's Future

Thursday, Dec. 8, 2:00 p.m. Wilson 235
Speaker: Ian Bogost, Georgia Tech.
A "newsgame" is a videogame that does journalism. Drawing from five years of commercial development and academic research on this new approach, this talk summarizes the principles of newsgames and then offers two related but conflicting perspectives on its role in the future of newsmaking.

Dr. Ian Bogost is Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (where he is also Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media) and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing considers videogames as an expressive medium, and his creative practice focuses on political games and artgames. Bogost is author or co-author of many books, including Unit Operations, Persuasive Games, Racing the Beam, Newsgames, How To Do Things with Videogames and the forthcoming Alien Phenomenology. Bogost's videogames cover topics as varied as airport security, disaffected workers, the petroleum industry, suburban errands, and tort reform. His games have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally. His most recent game, A Slow Year, a collection of game poems for Atari, won the Vanguard and Virtuoso awards at the 2010 Indiecade Festival.

Digital Inequality and Its Implications for Internet Research

Tuesday, December 6, 4:00 p.m.
Speaker: Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University

Many of the questions being asked about whether or how digital media are changing our world and our lives assume universal outcomes across population segments. Many inquiries tend to take for granted that there is one overarching answer that applies to all cases. Questions such as "Does Internet use influence political participation?", "Are digital media democratizing the public sphere?", "What is the relationship between playing video games and one’s health?", "Does the Internet help people find jobs?" often disregard that the answers may not apply uniformly across different population segments. This talk will discuss disparities in people’s online practices and what challenges such digital inequality poses for Internet research more generally speaking.

Eszter Hargittai is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University where she heads the Web Use Project. She is also Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society where she spent the 2008-09 academic year in residence.