This book directs critical attention to one of the most ubiquitous and yet under-analyzed games, Minecraft. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork into mobile games in Australian homes, the authors seek to take Minecraft seriously as a cultural practice. The book examines how Minecraft players engage in a form of gameplay that is uniquely intergenerational, creative, and playful, and which moves ambivalently throughout everyday life. At the intersection of digital media, quotidian literacy, and ethnography, the book situates interdisciplinary debates around mundane play through the lens of Minecraft. Ultimately, Exploring Minecraft seeks to coalesce the discussion between formal and informal learning, fostering new forms of digital media creativity and ethnographic innovation around the analysis of games in everyday life.

The iPhone represents an important moment in both the short history of mobile media and the long history of cultural technologies. Like the Walkman of the 1980s, it marks a juncture in which notions about identity, individualism, lifestyle and sociality require rearticulation. this book explores not only the iPhone's particular characteristics, uses and "affects," but also how the "iPhone moment" functions as a barometer for broader patterns of change. In the iPhone moment, this study considers the convergent trajectories in the evolution of digital and mobile culture, and their implications for future scholarship. Through the lens of the iPhone-as a symbol, culture and a set of material practices around contemporary convergent mobile media-the essays collected here explore the most productive theoretical and methodological approaches for grasping media practice, consumer culture and networked communication in the twenty-first century.

This international, interdisciplinary collection explores a range of possible theoretical and empirical approaches to cultural technologies and mobile communication by treating the iPhone as a case study. As the mobile phone graduates into a fully web-capable and multi-media device, the contributors to this volume critically examine the nature and implications of this shift, considering the iPhone as a significant moment in media history.

With the emergence of networked, convergent mobile media devices like the iPhone, new media and communication practices are emerging. Increasingly, the mobile phone is becoming a platform for gaming, online social networking and emergent lifestyle applications. The iPhone is symbolic of this phenomenon, but it also has its own distinctive features (in terms of branding and use), and so provides media and communication theorists with a unique opportunity to explore these practices. Indeed, the iPhone--as part of broader shifts toward ubiquitous, convergent mobile devices and "smartphones"--can be usefully deployed as a case study enabling new insights into mobile media culture.

Have you ever considered how mobile media change what we see, hear and pay attention to in urban spaces, or how they alter our pedestrian movement through the city? Over the last decade, mobile media and communication technologies have become deeply integral to our perception and bodily experience of the world.   In this original book, Ingrid Richardson and Rowan Wilken explore mobile media as a lens through which to understand how embodiment both shapes, and is shaped by, media experience. Bodies and Mobile Media offers a unique approach by focusing on specific sensory affordances and body parts – including the eyes, ears, face, hands and feet – to consider the uneven ratios of sensory perception at work in our engagement with mobile devices. Each chapter provides rich and accessible narratives of mobile media practices interwoven with current scholarship in media studies and phenomenology, with a concluding chapter that considers mobile media use holistically as a synaesthetic experience. The book thus serves as an important work of knowledge translation, by interpreting theoretical insights about the body-technology relation. This knowledge translation is crucial, the authors argue, if we are to critically understand how our perception and experience of the world is mediated by technology.   This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies.

Have you ever considered how mobile media change what we see, hear and pay attention to in urban spaces, or how they alter our pedestrian movement through the city? Over the last decade, mobile media and communication technologies have become deeply integral to our perception and bodily experience of the world.   In this original book, Ingrid Richardson and Rowan Wilken explore mobile media as a lens through which to understand how embodiment both shapes, and is shaped by, media experience. Bodies and Mobile Media offers a unique approach by focusing on specific sensory affordances and body parts – including the eyes, ears, face, hands and feet – to consider the uneven ratios of sensory perception at work in our engagement with mobile devices. Each chapter provides rich and accessible narratives of mobile media practices interwoven with current scholarship in media studies and phenomenology, with a concluding chapter that considers mobile media use holistically as a synaesthetic experience. The book thus serves as an important work of knowledge translation, by interpreting theoretical insights about the body-technology relation. This knowledge translation is crucial, the authors argue, if we are to critically understand how our perception and experience of the world is mediated by technology.   This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies.

This book directs critical attention to one of the most ubiquitous and yet under-analyzed games, Minecraft. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork into mobile games in Australian homes, the authors seek to take Minecraft seriously as a cultural practice. The book examines how Minecraft players engage in a form of gameplay that is uniquely intergenerational, creative, and playful, and which moves ambivalently throughout everyday life. At the intersection of digital media, quotidian literacy, and ethnography, the book situates interdisciplinary debates around mundane play through the lens of Minecraft. Ultimately, Exploring Minecraft seeks to coalesce the discussion between formal and informal learning, fostering new forms of digital media creativity and ethnographic innovation around the analysis of games in everyday life.

Digital games are one of the most significant media interfaces of contemporary life. Games today interweave with the social, economic, material, and political complexities of living in a digital age. But who makes games, who plays them, and what, how and where do we play? This book explores the ways in which games and game cultures can be understood. It investigates the sites, genres, platforms, interfaces and contexts for games and gameplay, offering a critical overview of the breadth of contemporary game studies. It is an essential companion for students looking to understand games and games cultures in our increasingly playful and 'gamified' digital society.

Digital games are one of the most significant media interfaces of contemporary life. Games today interweave with the social, economic, material, and political complexities of living in a digital age. But who makes games, who plays them, and what, how and where do we play? This book explores the ways in which games and game cultures can be understood. It investigates the sites, genres, platforms, interfaces and contexts for games and gameplay, offering a critical overview of the breadth of contemporary game studies. It is an essential companion for students looking to understand games and games cultures in our increasingly playful and 'gamified' digital society.