In this paper we present a study of an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) called MeiGeist -a cross media game in which narrative elements of a story presented to players across a whole range of on-line and offline media and through which players can interact with in-game characters and events. The study looked at player progress over the eight weeks the game took to play, following their behaviours through the on-line forums, chat rooms and in-game logging of player interactions. The paper explores aspects of collective participation among players, the motivations underlying such participation and the factors that shape these contributions such as timescale of the game. It discusses too, how the narrative is produced and progressed through collective player interactions and how the experience is created through a collaborative suspension of disbelief. Different aspects of participation are also considered, in particular how a more passive spectatorship is an important experience for many players of the game. Finally the game considers how the ideal of a collective ethos among players is sometimes challenged during game play and the efforts necessary to repair this.
The recently launched Australian Curriculum Health and Physical Education has five propositions, one of which is for students to adopt a critical inquiry approach within this subject area. In particular, students are encouraged to explore issues that relate to social power and taken-for-granted assumptions. This paper problematizes the concept of ‘biological race’ as one such assumption at three government high schools in Canberra, Australia’s national capital. This study found that Indigenous students at the three schools experience racialization both from their health and physical education (HPE) teachers and from their non-Indigenous peers. Figurational sociology was used to show that this racialization is a characteristic of power relationships in the physical education and school sport figuration examined. The findings presented are important because they show that HPE teachers perpetuate the myth of ‘biological race’. Further, this fantasy of ‘biological race’ restricts opportunities for Indigenous students and is an obstacle for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
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