Rhetoric and Technology – ENC 6421

In setting up his argument that computer games and gaming is a viable subject for scholarly study, McAlister defines dialectics as a way to search for truths and rhetoric as a way to search for truths. The three concepts, including ideology, intersect in the domain of “play.” Citing Crawford, he notes that “Every game (computer-based or not) has four components: representation, interaction, conflict, and safety” (36). Games in general, and computer games in particular, represent issues and struggles experienced in life. This is echoed by Gee, who, in establishing the terms and concepts in his discussion of the teaching value of video games, argues that “‘everyday’ ‘ordinary’ life is itself a semiotic domain.” Bogost as well spends considerable time clarifying definitions of rhetoric and procedure to advance his argument that computer games can be persuasive, can alter or shape the worldview of the players– some intentionally, such as the Italian McDonald’s game that elucidates the ecological and economic dangers of globalized fast food chains, others in unintentional ways, such as the vast array of conflict/dominance shoot-and-destroy games so often criticized (not only by feminists) as further encouraging already-entrenched patriarchal values. The focus on definitions is necessary because computer games are traditionally not taken seriously as a field of scholarly research, at least (or so these articles seem to indicate) not as a subject worthy of consideration as a positive force in society– the view shared by all the authors. According to these three authors, video/computer games do have value, as do all games, yet they are often disparaged and considered largely a waste of time. I see the value, as McAlister proposes, in scholarly analysis of the interaction of ideology, dialectics and rhetoric in the realm of computer gaming.  However, I felt that Gee’s was largely a straw man argument. The issue for most opponents of video games, I believe, is not so much that there is no value whatsoever in playing the games (characterized as Grandpa saying there was no content), but that the monumental amount of time playing these games is the problem. Even if one agrees that some learning that does take place, after the first few games, how much is new learning? If anybody other than myself has read to this point, I’d like to vent my frustration with the turgid prose of many scholars. Arrrrggghhh! Here’s McAlister in a nutshell:

The exigencies of the dialectic of idealogical rhetoric, often but not systematically contingent upon the agency of rhetorical ideology, can be viewed as a paradigmatic extension of the inherently conflictual sociocultural transparency of the agent, and appropriationally divided by the multiperspectival conglomeration of idiosyncratic technologies,  not withstanding the dual homologies of agency and metanoia, and, furthermore, this dialectical opposition reflects both the antagonistic and non-antagonistic disparity of the former, one resulting in future scholarly research that could conceivably explore the plethora of nonantagonistic dimensions within the confines of the oppositional relationship between rhetoric and dialectical inquiry. I will cover this more extensively in Chapter 3.    kate z