Rhythms of Gaming and Cultural Development in an Urban, Media-Rich Youth Community Center

• In Event: 34.080 - Affective Potentials in Informal, Media-Rich Learning Programs: New Directions in Theory and Design

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Framework
Researchers involved in media-rich, informal learning settings have argued that educational design is “out of time” (e.g., Boldt, Lewis & Leander, 2015; Leander & Boldt, 2018), meaning that the design of educational experiences often focuses on pre-planning or post-hoc reflection. Although educators and researchers move intentionally and with feeling in moments of teaching and learning, social theory in education research is underdeveloped in supporting the field’s understanding of educational designs that move through moments consequential to learning.
This paper therefore develops theories of the embodied rhythms of learning (Leander & Hollett, 2017) to analyze emergent rhythms of gaming and cultural development over six months in an urban community centre, MetroDigital (pseudonym), serving socially marginalized teens. Researchers worked with MetroDigital administrators to develop videogame programming in complement to ongoing learning opportunities with digital media in their recording studio and makerspace. Our analysis thereby follows the creation and development of a gaming culture within MetroDigital from its inception. This rhythmanalysis is framed by the understanding that “everywhere where there is interaction between a place, time, and expenditure of energy, there is rhythm” (Lefebvre, 2004, p. 15). We understand rhythm, therefore, as irreducible to the triad of space, time, and affective intensities (Manning & Massumi, 2014).

Methods and Data
Through rhythmanalysis, we focused on how youth and their researcher-mentors produced affectively charged social flows with one another over time. Analysis primarily drew upon recorded videos of both in-room and in-game play, field notes, and interviews conducted with participants in-the-midst of gameplay to target particular moments where participants began to fall into—or out of—rhythm with one another. We here provide two snapshots from these data to illustrate such moments from our findings:

Data snapshot 1
Amidst the discordant rhythms between avid and shy gamers, we play Soda Shake, from Nintendo’s One-Two Switch. Shy bodies bolden and non-gamers gather to shake the bubbling “soda” (or vibrating game controller) and pass it on before it explodes. Suddenly we huddle together, holding our breath, gasping in unison when the soda doesn’t explode, until—

Data snapshot 2
Super Smash Bros. strikes a competitive chord across gaming proficiencies. As our avatars compete, we urge: “go left! Press A!” Wanting to scaffold newer gamers without undermining their independent play, our bodies oscillate. We lean in, move back. They need us, they need space. We wonder if these loud-to-us pedagogical rhythms register to the gamers at all.

Discussion and Significance
The rhythms of our gaming community are co-composed by shyness, enthusiasm, anticipation of soda explosions drawing us closer, hesitations of developing pedagogies moving us back-and-forth. Attuning to these rhythms enables us to move in relation to affective intensities, our pedagogical moves pulled by beats of desire. This propels the co-composition of a gaming community and culture of affectively attuned bodies. By learning to feel such rhythms, we argue that the design of digital media and learning programs can benefit from producing educational design in and through moments in order to sustain change-making energies over time.

Authors

• Bronwen E. Low, McGill University

• Christian Ehret, McGill University

• Lea Ehret, McGill University

• Luka Ciklovan, McGill University