MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

As video games continue to become more complex and to appeal to wider audiences, they undergo deeper scrutiny from public media and the academic community. While this attention can have a positive influence on games, it tends to have divisive results. Games are claimed as objects of study best suited to one academic field or another, but are derided as dangerous or wasteful by news media. The purpose of this presentation is to examine how this discursive dissonance negatively impacts the perception of games by juxtaposing academic and popular views of games with editorial and legislative views.