Files
Abstract
While the educational community should look to games as possibilities for learning in school spaces, it is also necessary to examine how games happen outside of these spaces as well, in order to understand issues such as how these social and cultural worlds function. In this dissertation, a variety of online fan communities dedicated to the video game Portal 2 are examined with a focus on how the subject of science, broadly construed, arises in online discussions of the game. The project uses the concept of assemblage from Deleuze and Guattari to frame the study and consider how these discussions are navigated by the many disparate actors. The exploration of these varied interactions reveals a number of key findings. First, the science discussions that occur in these spaces are heavily shaped by the element of free choice as different actors choose to focus on different ideas without an external source telling them where they should and should not go with a discussion. Second, these discussions form a rhizomatic network in which they connect in surprising ways to many different assemblages rather than unfolding in a tidy arborescent style of unidirectional progress from a foundational core idea. Finally, many particulars shape any discussion that occurs and are not likely to be exactly recreated. Therefore, similar starting points for interactions that develop on different sites or at different times can lead to discussions that unfold in dramatically different ways, forestalling replication of a particular conversation. These insights into how the communication of ideas about science occurs in these online spaces can help science educators better understand how to use tools such as games and online communities to enhance student learning about science.