Theorists

A general theorist of collective identity is Michael Wesch

Media Theorists

Máire Messenger-Davies is Professor of Media Studies, and Director of the Centre for Media Research at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland. A former journalist, with a PhD in psychology, who has taught in universities on both sides of the Atlantic, she is the co-ordinator of the recently-formed Meccsa Policy Network .


Her research interests focus on media, young people and children; broadcasting in the USA and the UK; and teaching research methodology. Her most recent research, in collaboration with colleagues at Cardiff, Bournemouth and Nottingham Universities, is on young people, citizenship and news – especially in relation to the transition from broadcast to online journalism; this is a BBC/AHRC Knowledge Exchange funded project.


She has written a number of books, including Dear BBC: Children, television storytelling and the public sphere (2001); Fake, fact and fantasy: children’s understanding of television reality (1997) and Making People Count: Practical Research Methods for Media & Cultural Studies (2006). 

Films

"We've all seen movies based on video games, but movies ABOUT video games are a whole different animal"

• Gamer is a 2009 science fiction thriller film written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.
  The film stars Gerard Butler as a participant in an online game in which participants can control human beings as players, and Logan Lerman as the player who controls him.

Trailer:

• eXistenZ is a 1999 body horror/science fiction film by Canadian director David Cronenberg. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law. Like many of Cronenberg's other films, eXistenZ has strong elements of surrealism.

- - - Full film bio

Trailer:

BBC's Panorama on Video Games

This is the BBC's  documentary series, Panorama, on their investigation into addiction to video games and the bad effects of gaming to young children.


Part 1:




Part 2:

Personal Experience Research

To gain information and feedback from those who are included in the social group and call themselves gamers, i will create a survey of questions and post it to gaming community sites / forums.
By doing this, i can get gamers personal opinions and experiences for my research.

As i myself am part of some gaming communities, i will be able to get alot of information from gamers of different nationalities and ages.

Internet Research

I searched the internet for articles written about the effects of gaming, the stereotypical argument is that getting involved with video games that are intense or violent is bad for children.

These articles are mainly focused on young children, some also include the positive & negative effects they have found:


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0816/is_6_21/ai_n9772319/

http://www.ehow.com/list_5815166_pros-exposing-children-electronic-games.html

http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/occ72-compgames.pdf

http://www.ifets.info/journals/12_2/1.pdf

http://www.ehow.com/about_5370127_positive-effects-video-gaming.html

http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_behavioral_effects


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In the BBC documentary series program ‘Panorama’ an episode featured the negative effects of gaming / intense gaming, and didn’t state many positive for the opposing argument.

I will study both the negative and positive media representation of gamers and gaming, across various types of media.