Genre, activity, and collaborative work and play in world of warcraft: Places and problems of open systems in online gaming

Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 263-293

  Sherlock, Lee ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Activity theory; FAQ; Genre theory; Grouping; Interface modification; Open systems; Professional communication; Social software; Wikis; World of Warcraft

Indexed keywords

EID: 70349314652     PISSN: 10506519     EISSN: 15524574     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1050651909333150     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. Alexander, P. (2007). "But that's not writing": The literacies, communication and composing practices of City of Heroes gamers. Unpublished master's thesis, Miami University, OH.
2. Ang, I. (2000). New technologies, audience measurement, and the tactics of television consumption. In J. T. Caldwell (Ed.), Electronic media and technoculture (pp. 183-196). New York: Routledge.
3. Artemeva, N. (2008). Toward a unified social theory of genre learning. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 22, 160-185.
4. Bakhtin, M.M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
5. Barboza, D. (2005, December 9). Ogre to slay? Outsource it to Chinese. The New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/technology/09gaming.html
6. Bazerman, C., & Russell, D.R. (2003). Introduction. In C. Bazerman & D. R. Russell (Eds.), Writing selves/writing societies: Research from an activity perspective (pp. 1-6). Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse and Mind, Culture, and Activity. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/selves_societies/
7. Blizzard Entertainment-Press release. (2008, January 22). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/080122.html
8. Blizzard Support-How Do I Remove My Customized UI? (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://us.blizzard.com/support/
9. Brown, J.S., & Thomas, D. (2006, April). You play World of Warcraft? You're hired! Wired. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html
10. Carless, S. (2006, August 25). IGE: Inside the MMO trading machine. Gamasutra. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060825/carless_01.shtml
11. Christensen, D.M., Cootey, J.L., & Moeller, R.M. (2007). Playing in genre fields: A play theory perspective on genre. In SIGDOC'07: Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (pp. 1-8). New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
12. Coppola, N.W. (2003). Developing a virtual simulation game for eLearning. Proceedings of 2003 International Professional Communication Conference. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from IEEE Electronic Library Online: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
13. Craft, J.T. (2004). Fiction networks: The emergence of proprietary, persistent, large-scale popular fictions (Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2004). Available from Texas Digital Library, Retrieved August 19, 2008, from http://labs.tdl.org/tdl/handle/2152/1366
14. De Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life (S. Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
15. Devitt, A.J. (1991). Intertextuality in tax accounting: Generic, referential, and functional. In C. Bazerman & J. Paradis (Ed.), Textual dynamics of the professions (pp. 336-357). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
16. Devitt, A.J. (2004). Writing genres. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
17. Dias, P., Freedman, A., Medway, P., & Paré, A. (1999). Worlds apart: Acting and writing in academic and workplace contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
18. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.
19. Engeström, Y. (1990). Learning, working, and imagining: Twelve studies in activity theory. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.
20. Forum Community. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/index.html?sid=1
21. Freedman, A. (1996). ReACTivating genre: ReGENERating discourse theory, research and pedagogy. Keynote address presented at the European Writing Conferences, Barcelona, Spain.
22. Freiermuth, M.R. (2003). Case-based simulations in the EST classroom. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 46, 221-230.
23. Gee, J.P. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
24. Geisler, C. (2003). When management becomes personal: An activity-theoretic analysis of Palm technologies. In C. Bazerman & D. R. Russell (Eds.), Writing selves/writing societies: Research from an activity perspective (pp. 125-158). Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse and Mind, Culture, and Activity. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/selves_societies/
25. Geisler, C., Bazerman, C., Doheny-Farina, S., Gurak, L., Haas, C., & Johnson-Eilola, J., et al. (2001). IText: Further directions for research on the relationship between information technology and writing. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15, 269-308.
26. Hecht, E. (2007, June 23). Wowhead sold for $1M? Update: Confirmed. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/06/23/wowhead-sold-for-1m/
27. Houser, R., & DeLoach, S. (1998). Learning from games: Seven principles of effective design. Technical Communication, 45, 319-329.
28. Instance. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/Instance
29. Instance grouping guide. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/Instance_grouping_guide
30. Jakobsson, M., & Taylor, T.L. (2003). The Sopranos meets Everquest: Social networking in massively multiplayer online games. Proceedings of Digital Arts and Culture (DAC) 2003 Conference. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from RMIT University Web site: http://hypertext.r-mit.edu.au/dac/papers/Jakobsson.pdf
31. Jantke, K.P. (2006). Games that do not exist: Communication design beyond the current limits. In SIGDOC'06: Proceedings of the 24th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (pp. 35-42). New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
32. Jennings, A.S. (2002, December). Creating an interactive science murder mystery game: The optimal experience of flow. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 45, 297-301.
33. Ketter, J., & Hunter, J. (2003). Creating a writer's identity on the boundaries of two communities of practice. In C. Bazerman & D. R. Russell (Eds.), Writing selves/writing societies: Research from an activity perspective (pp. 307-329). Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse and Mind, Culture, and Activity. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://wac.colostate.edu/books/selves_societies/
34. Maffei, J. (2007, June 7). Q&A: Affinity's Maffei talks IGE sale, MMO media future. Gamasutra. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14235
35. Miller, C.R. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70, 151-167.
36. Nakamura, L. (2008, July 11). Don't hate the player, hate the game: The racialization of labor in World of Warcraft. Paper presented at the Games+Learning+Society 4.0 Conference, Madison, WI. Retrieved August 19, 2008, from http://www.glsconference.org/2008/index.html
37. Nardi, B. (2006). Interview with M. Zachry. Technical Communication Quarterly, 15, 483-503.
38. Pickup group. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/Pickup_group
39. Poster, M. (2006). Information please: Culture and politics in the age of digital machines. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
40. Recommended Grouping AddOns. (2008, March 6). Retrieved August 18, 2008, from http://wow.curse.com/c/recommended-grouping/
41. Schryer, C.F. (1994). The lab vs. the clinic: Sites of competing genres. In A. Freedman, & P. Medway (Eds.), Genre and the new rhetoric (pp. 105-124). London: Taylor & Francis.
42. Sherlock, L. (2007). When social networking meets online games: The activity system of grouping in World of Warcraft. In SIGDOC'07: Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (pp. 14-20). New York: Association for Computing Machinery.
43. Spinuzzi, C. (2003). Tracing genres through organizations: A sociocultural approach to information design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
44. Spinuzzi, C., & Zachry, M. (2000). Genre ecologies: An open-system approach to understanding and constructing documentation. Journal of Computer Documentation, 24, 169-181.
45. Steinkuehler, C. (2007). Massively multiplayer online gaming as a constellation of literacy practices. eLearning, 4, 297-318.
46. UI FAQ/AddOns. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/UI_FAQ/AddOns
47. University of Helsinki, Finland, Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research. (n.d.). Cultural-historical activity theory. Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/chatanddwr/chat/
48. Warner, M. (2002). Publics and counterpublics. New York: Zone.
49. Wow Forums-2.4 Changes-Concise List. (2007, November 19). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2968233433&sid=1
50. WoWWiki:About. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:About
51. WoWWiki:Policies. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Policies
52. WoWWiki:Policy/Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2008, from WoWWiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Policy/Writing
53. Yee, N. (2006, January 2). Yi-Shan-Guan: The reality of gold farming. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from The Daedalus Project Web site: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001493.php?page=11