In Search of Critical Digital Ludoliteracy: An Autoethnographic Study of Critical Issues in Video Game Play
Video games, ludoliteracy, digital literacy, applied linguistics, autoethnography
This study in applied linguistics aimed to investigate the video game play practices of high school students and the researcher and player. Theoretical contributions about the game and play were problematized; discourses about play in post-colonial perspectives; play as a textual-discursive activity and the grammar of game-works. Digital literacy was also discussed in the functional and critical perspectives. Autoethnography was the methodological perspective chosen because it understands that the act of play is inseparable from personal experience, as a researcher, player and teacher. Data were collected through an initial questionnaire; virtual classroom interactions and virtual conversations carried out in messaging and/or videoconferencing tools. Data interpretation generated topics based on game studies discussions such as interfaces between players; between game and player, and between players and the contexts that inform the two. The results reveal that the experiences lived and shared by the participants promoted expansions of visions that go beyond common sense regarding electronic games and the act of playing them, as well as a more informed understanding of electronic games as cultural and ideological artifacts and of relationships with the other(s) in culturally-politically-socially located contexts. Critical ludoliteracy was promoted.