From security training simulations to war games to role-playing games, to sports games to gambling, playing video games has become a social phenomena, and the increasing number of players that cross gender, culture, and age is on a dramatic upward trajectory. "Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences" integrates communication, psychology, and technology to examine the psychological and mediated aspects of playing video games. It is the first volume to delve deeply into these aspects of computer game play. It fits squarely into the media psychology arm of entertainment studies, the next big wave in media studies. The book targets one of the most popular and pervasive media in modern times, and it will serve to define the area of study and provide a theoretical spine for future research.
This unique and timely volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, and marketing.

Serious Games provides a thorough exploration of the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained and transferable to the real world. "Serious games" is defined herein as any form of interactive computer-based game software for one or multiple players to be used on any platform and that has been developed to provide more than entertainment to players. With this volume, the editors address the gap in exisiting scholarship on gaming, providing an academic overview on the mechanisms and effects of serious games. Contributors investigate the psychological mechanisms that take place not only during gaming, but also in game selection, persistent play, and gaming impact.

The work in this collection focuses on the desirable outcomes of digital game play. The editors distinguish between three possible effects -- learning, development, and change -- covering a broad range of serious games potential impact. Contributions from internationally recognized scholars focus on five objectives:

• Define the area of serious games
• Elaborate on the underlying theories that explain suggested psychological mechanisms elicited through serious game play, addressing cognitive, affective and social processes
• Summarize the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of serious games,
• Introduce innovative research methods as a response to methodological challenges imposed through interactive media
• Discuss the possibilities and limitations of selected applications for educational purposes.

Anchored primarily in social science research, the reader will be introduced to approaches that focus on the gaming process and the users experiences. Additional perspectives will be provided in the concluding chapters, written from non-social science approaches by experts in academic game design and representatives of the gaming industry. The editors acknowledge the necessity for a broader interdisciplinary study of the phenomena and work to overcome the methodological divide in games research to look ahead to a more integrated and interdisciplinary study of digital games.

This timely and singular volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students working in media entertainment and game studies in the areas of education, media, communication, and psychology.

Serious Games provides a thorough exploration of the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained and transferable to the real world. "Serious games" is defined herein as any form of interactive computer-based game software for one or multiple players to be used on any platform and that has been developed to provide more than entertainment to players. With this volume, the editors address the gap in exisiting scholarship on gaming, providing an academic overview on the mechanisms and effects of serious games. Contributors investigate the psychological mechanisms that take place not only during gaming, but also in game selection, persistent play, and gaming impact.

The work in this collection focuses on the desirable outcomes of digital game play. The editors distinguish between three possible effects -- learning, development, and change -- covering a broad range of serious games potential impact. Contributions from internationally recognized scholars focus on five objectives:

• Define the area of serious games
• Elaborate on the underlying theories that explain suggested psychological mechanisms elicited through serious game play, addressing cognitive, affective and social processes
• Summarize the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of serious games,
• Introduce innovative research methods as a response to methodological challenges imposed through interactive media
• Discuss the possibilities and limitations of selected applications for educational purposes.

Anchored primarily in social science research, the reader will be introduced to approaches that focus on the gaming process and the users experiences. Additional perspectives will be provided in the concluding chapters, written from non-social science approaches by experts in academic game design and representatives of the gaming industry. The editors acknowledge the necessity for a broader interdisciplinary study of the phenomena and work to overcome the methodological divide in games research to look ahead to a more integrated and interdisciplinary study of digital games.

This timely and singular volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students working in media entertainment and game studies in the areas of education, media, communication, and psychology.

As entertainment becomes a trillion-dollar-a-year industry worldwide, as our modern era increasingly lives up to its label of the "entertainment age," and as economists begin to recognize that entertainment has become the driving force of the new world economy, it is safe to say that scholars are beginning to take entertainment seriously. The scholarly spin on entertainment has been manifested in traditional ways, as well as innovative ones. Representing the current state of theory and research, Psychology of Entertainment promises to be the most comprehensive and up-to-date volume on entertainment. It serves to define the new area of study and provides a theoretical spin for future work in the area. Divided into three basic parts, this book: *addresses the fundamental mechanisms and processes involved in orienting to and selecting entertainment fare, as well as receiving and processing it; *explores the mechanisms and processes by which we are entertained by the media messages we select and receive; and *provides an opportunity for the application of well-established as well as emerging psychological and psychobiological theories to be applied to the study of entertainment in ways that seldom have been utilized previously. Psychology of Entertainment will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, marketing, and other areas contributing to the entertainment studies area.

This collection represents a systematic exploration of media entertainment from an academic perspective. Editors Zillmann and Vorderer have assembled scholars from psychology, sociology, and communication to provide a broad examination of the primary function of media entertainment--the attainment of gratification. Chapters included here address vital aspects of media entertainment and summarize pertinent findings, providing an overview of what is presently known about the appeal and function of the essential forms of media entertainment, and offering some degree of integration. Written in a clear, non-technical style, this volume provides a lively and entertaining study of media entertainment for academic study and coursework.

This volume begins with the general assumption that suspense is a major criterion for both an audience's selection and evaluation of entertaining media offerings. This assumption is supported not only by the popularity of suspenseful narratives, but also by the reasons users give for their actual choice of media contents. Despite this, there is no satisfying theory to describe and explain what suspense actually is, how exactly it is caused by films or books, and what kind of effect it has on audiences. This book's main objective is to provide that theory by bringing together scholars from different disciplines who are working on the issue. The editors' goal is to reflect the "state of the art" as much as it is to highlight and encourage further developments in this area.
There are two ways of approaching the problem of describing and explaining suspense: an analysis of suspenseful texts or the reception process. Researchers who follow the more text-oriented approach identify the uncertainty of the narrative outcome, the threat or danger for the protagonist, the play with time delay, or other factors as important and necessary for the production of suspense. The more reception-oriented scholar focuses on the cognitive activities of audiences, readers' expectations, the curiosity of onlookers, their emotions, and their relationships with the protagonists. A correspondence between the two seems to be quite difficult, though necessary to determine.
Both perspectives are important in order to describe and explain suspense. Thus, the editors utilize the thesis that suspense is an activity of the audience (reader, onlooker, etc.) that is related to specific features and characteristics of the text (books, films, etc.). Their question is: What kind of relation? The answer comes from finding out "how, why, " and "which" elements of the text cause effects that are experienced as suspense.
Scholars from semiotics, literary criticism, cultural studies, and film theory assess the problem from a text-oriented point of view, dealing primarily with the "how" and "which." Other scholars present the psychological perspective by focusing on the cognitive and emotional processes that underlie viewers' experience of suspense; that is, the reception theory tries to answer the question of "why" suspenseful texts may be experienced as they are.

Permanently Online, Permanently Connected establishes the conceptual grounds needed for a solid understanding of the permanently online/permanently connected phenomenon, its causes and consequences, and its applied implications. Due to the diffusion of mobile devices, the ways people communicate and interact with each other and use electronic media have changed substantially within a short period of time. This megatrend comes with fundamental challenges to communication, both theoretical and empirical. The book offers a compendium of perspectives and theoretical approaches from leading thinkers in the field to empower communication scholars to develop this research systematically, exhaustively, and quickly. It is essential reading for media and communication scholars and students studying new media, media effects, and communication theory.

Permanently Online, Permanently Connected establishes the conceptual grounds needed for a solid understanding of the permanently online/permanently connected phenomenon, its causes and consequences, and its applied implications. Due to the diffusion of mobile devices, the ways people communicate and interact with each other and use electronic media have changed substantially within a short period of time. This megatrend comes with fundamental challenges to communication, both theoretical and empirical. The book offers a compendium of perspectives and theoretical approaches from leading thinkers in the field to empower communication scholars to develop this research systematically, exhaustively, and quickly. It is essential reading for media and communication scholars and students studying new media, media effects, and communication theory.

As entertainment becomes a trillion-dollar-a-year industry worldwide, as our modern era increasingly lives up to its label of the "entertainment age," and as economists begin to recognize that entertainment has become the driving force of the new world economy, it is safe to say that scholars are beginning to take entertainment seriously. The scholarly spin on entertainment has been manifested in traditional ways, as well as innovative ones. Representing the current state of theory and research, "Psychology of Entertainment" promises to be the most comprehensive and up-to-date volume on entertainment. It serves to define the new area of study and provides a theoretical spin for future work in the area.
Divided into three basic parts, this book:
*addresses the fundamental mechanisms and processes involved in orienting to and selecting entertainment fare, as well as receiving and processing it;
*explores the mechanisms and processes by which we are entertained by the media messages we select and receive; and
*provides an opportunity for the application of well-established as well as emerging psychological and psychobiological theories to be applied to the study of entertainment in ways that seldom have been utilized previously.
"Psychology of Entertainment" will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, marketing, and other areas contributing to the entertainment studies area.

This collection represents a systematic exploration of media entertainment from an academic perspective. Editors Zillmann and Vorderer have assembled scholars from psychology, sociology, and communication to provide a broad examination of the primary function of media entertainment--the attainment of gratification. Chapters included here address vital aspects of media entertainment and summarize pertinent findings, providing an overview of what is presently known about the appeal and function of the essential forms of media entertainment, and offering some degree of integration. Written in a clear, non-technical style, this volume provides a lively and entertaining study of media entertainment for academic study and coursework.

Im Mittelpunkt des Bandes stehen sowohl die "Interaktionen" zwischen Medienfiguren und Mediennutzern als auch die "Beziehungen," die das Publikum zu den Protagonisten der Medien unterhalt. Wenn etwa ein TV-Showmaster seine Zuschauer begrusst und diese entsprechend darauf reagieren, wenn jugendliche Rezipienten von Seifenopern ihre Lieblingsfiguren bewundern oder auch vermissen, wenn Moderatoren oder Ansager zu den fast standigen Begleitern des Publikums werden, die diesen so vertraut sind wie gute Bekannte oder gar Freunde, dann spricht man innerhalb der Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft von "parasozialen Interaktionen" bzw. von "parasozialen Beziehungen." Der Band gibt einen Uberblick uber die aktuelle Forschung zu diesem Forschungsbereich und berucksichtigt dabei sowohl texttheoretische als auch empirisch-sozialwissenschaftliche Zugangsweisen."

When Palladas, the Greek poet who flourished in the 4th century AD, said that life is but a game, he hardly could have imagined how pervasive games could become in every aspect of our modern lives. From security training simulations to war games to role-playing games, to sports games to gambling, playing video games has become a social phenomena and the increasing number of players that cross gender, culture, and age is on a dramatic upward trajectory. Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences integrates communication, psychology, and technology to examine the psychological and mediated aspects of playing video games. It is the first volume to delve deeply into these aspects of computer game play. It fits squarely into the media psychology arm of entertainment studies, which promises to be the next big wave in media studies. The book targets one of the most popular and pervasive media in modern times, and it will serve to define the area of study and provide a theoretical spine for future research.