Communicative Implications of the Modern Video Game: An Audience-Centered Approach

Abstract

The advent of the home video game console and three decades of continuously evolving gaming technology has had a profound impact on American culture. While many studies have investigated various sociocultural outcomes and conducted behavioral correlation analyses of video games, few have examined how individuals talk about, or share meaning from the game outside of game play. This analysis first briefly reviews extant video game research and arguments for the increasingly immersive aspect of playing video games, then identifies a lack of focus in the literature on the communicative aspect of audience-centered analysis of these games via gamer-generated blogs and message board interactions. Subsequently, a rhetorical analysis of two independent blogs for World of Warcraft (WoW), a massively multiplayer online (MMO) video game examines, from a communication perspective, the inherent structure of the game, as well as the various methods by which the gamers discuss and share meaning about in-game and out-game experiences. A rhetorical analysis of gamers' out-game talk on WoW-centered message board forums and blogs is then conducted via the lens of dramatism. The theoretical underpinnings of this analysis further concretize the value and necessity of a communicative lens as a privileged voice in the field of video game studies.