We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics

Cultural Studies of Science Education (Print), v. 7, p. 909-943, 2012

Video games, as technological and cultural artifacts of considerable influence in the contemporary society, play an important role in the construction of identities, just as other artifacts (e.g., books, newspapers, television) played for a long time. In this paper, we discuss this role by considering video games under two concepts, othering and technopoly, and focus on how these concepts demand that we deepen our understanding of the ethics of video games. We address here how the construction of identities within video games involves othering process, that is, processes through which, when signifying and identifying ‘Ourselves’, we create and marginalize ‘Others’. Moreover, we discuss how video games can play an important role in the legitimation of the technopoly, understood as a totalitarian regime related to science, technology and their place in our societies. Under these two concepts, understanding the ethics of video games goes beyond the controversy about their violence. The main focus of discussion should lie in how the ethics of video games is related to their part in the formation of the players’ citizenship. Examining several examples of electronic games, we consider how video games provide a rich experience in which the player has the opportunity to develop a practical wisdom (phronesis), which can lead her to be a virtuous being. However, they can be also harmful to the moral experiences of the subjects when they show unethical contents related to othering processes that are not so clearly and openly condemned as violence, as in the cases of sexism, racism or xenophobia. Rather than leading us to conclude that video games needed to be banned or censored, this argument makes us highlight their role in the (science) education of critical, socially responsible, ethical, and politically active citizens, precisely because they encompass othering processes and science, technology, and society relationships.

2016

Video games are the most recent technological advancement to be viewed as an educational panacea and a force for democracy. However, this medium has particular affordances and constraints as a tool for democratic education in educational environments. This paper presents results from a study of the design and content of four iCivics games and their potential to meet the goals of democratic education. Specifically, we focus on the games as designed experiences, the nature and accuracy of the content, and the nature of intellectual engagement in the games. We find that the games, while easily accessible and aligned with standardized curriculum, do not provide opportunities to engage players in deliberative decision making on contemporary issues or to apply concepts from the game world to their role as citizens in training. Further, the game content is more “textbook” than the potentially dynamic and authentic types of civic engagement the medium of games can provide. While playing the...

2017

Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; they represent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interact with those systems and form judgments about them, requiring a pedagogic reflection, aiming at specific juxtapositions and complexity. They force us to review the semantic paradigms of ethics and politics, as they lead us into scenarios of increased reality, characterised by played temporality, constantly changing, passing from a synchronic visionary dimension, even to a temporality that goes backwards, recovering memories that have often never belonged to the person/videogamer beforehand.

2009

Games and Culture, 2010

Scholars, educators, and media designers are increasingly interested in whether and how digital games might contribute to civic learning. However, there are three main barriers to advancing understanding of games’ potential for civic education: the current practices of formal schooling, a dearth of evidence about what kinds of games best inspire learning about public life, and divergent paradigms of civic engagement. In response, this article develops a conceptual framework for how games might foster civic learning of many kinds. The authors hypothesize that the most effective games for civic learning will be those that best integrate game play and content, that help players make connections between their individual actions and larger social structures, and that link ethical and expedient reasoning. This framework suggests an agenda for game design and research that could illuminate whether and how games can be most fruitfully incorporated into training and education for democratic citizenship and civic leadership.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2010

2018

Video games are commonly considered transgressive for providing the context for excessive violence, hypersexualized imaginaries, cheating, bullying and other sorts of inadequate behavior. Transgressions can be linked to struggles for social change, and video games present and represent ideological materializations, and therefore it is possible to look politically at the transgressions that different video games challenge players to negotiate. To explore the civic dimensions of video games, data was collected in a series of ten workshops involving 73 participants, in mixed groups of students, researchers and lecturers of various fields of study. Analyses allowed us to identify four types of transgression i) the transgression of linear narratives; ii) the transgression of the ideologically aseptic idea of truth; iii) the transgression of the idea of free choice and merit and iv) transgression of individualism and the myth of “Other” that were present in the experience of players, and ...

gamevironments, 2024

Video games offer a wealth of potential topics for instruction at the university level. Theoretical content can be made more concrete and accessible and allow students to consider course content in new ways. Topics related to biases, stereotypes, behaviour, representation, and ethics can be explored. This is particularly true for narrative-rich games, like role-playing games and games that feature religion. These aspects of some video games can support and extend course content on numerous topics including structural inequalities, cultural influences, and player motivations as they relate to narrative content and contexts. Taken together, instructors can use examples from video games to support student discussion and learning by pairing video game content with higher-level theory and course materials. These approaches are effective in engaging students, grounding course concepts, and supporting learning outcomes.

2013

Ethics, Political Perspective Taking, and Digital Games Colin Fitzpatrick, Alexis Hope, Salwa Barhumi, Yanna Krupnikov and Matthew W. Easterday Northwestern University Author Note Colin Fitzpatrick, School of Communication, Northwestern University; Alexis Hope, School of Communication, Northwestern University; Salwa Barhumi, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University; Matthew W. Easterday, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University; Yanna Krupnikov, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Colin Fitzpatrick, School of Communication, Frances Searle, 2240 Campus Drive, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208 Email: [email protected]