Gaming in Social, Locative and Mobile Media

The convergence of online social media, location-based services, mobile apps and games is transforming the way we communicate with each other and participate in media spaces. Gaming in Social, Locative and Mobile Media explores this complex dynamic of platforms and interfaces, reflecting on some of the social, personal and political dimensions of the 'playful turn' in contemporary culture. Drawing on ethnographic case studies across the Asia-Pacific region, Hjorth and Richardson consider how mobile social media are changing our experience of place, mobility, intimacy and sociality, both in the context of quotidian life and across geographic regions. Through the lens of everyday practices, and adapting a range of concepts and theoretical perspectives from media, communication and game studies, the authors think critically about how locative, mobile, social and 'playful' media are reshaping our experience of the world and ourselves as cultural beings.

Larissa Hjorth is an artist, digital ethnographer and Professor in the Games Programs, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Australia. She is co-director of RMIT's Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) with Heather Horst. Since 2000, Hjorth has been researching the gendered and socio-cultural dimensions of mobile, social, locative and gaming cultures in the Asia–Pacific. These studies are outlined in her books, Mobile Media in the Asia-Pacific (2009), Games and Gaming (2010), Online@AsiaPacific: Mobile, Social and Locative in the Asia–Pacific Region (with Michael Arnold, 2013), and Understanding Digital Media in the Age of Social Networking (with Sam Hinton, 2013).

Ingrid Richardson is Associate Professor in Digital Media at Murdoch University, Western Australia. She has a broad interest in the 'human-technology relation', and has published on topics such as scientific technovision, virtual and augmented reality, games, mobile media and small-screen practices, urban screens, remix culture and web-based content creation and distribution.

1. Introduction: Social, Locative, and Mobile Media Gaming
PART I: MOBILE MEDIA GAMES
2. The Histories of Mobile Media and Mobile Gaming
3. Locating the Mobile: The Unruly and Ambiguous Rise of Mobile Gaming
4. Reconceptualising Casual Play
PART II: LOCATIVE MEDIA AND GAMES
5. Ambient Play
6. Locating the Game: Location-based services (LBS) and Playful Visualities
7. Co-presence Café Cultures: Kakao, Games, and Camera Phone Sharing in Seoul, South Korea
PART III: SOCIAL, LOCATIVE, AND MOBILE: NEW CARTOGRAPHIES OF GAMING AND PLAY
8. Social Media, Facebook games, and Fantasy Sport
9. Locating Home: Cross-generational Play and Co-presence
10. Games and Cultural Play
11. Beyond the Casual: Situating Ambient and Cultural Play