Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies
The time we live in is characterized by the crisis of interaction: the interface is losing its medial and communicative nature and no longer performs the function of linking elements — rather, it becomes a source of immediate experience and an environment, a signifier without a signified, an amedial mirror-like surface. In computer games, this trend shows itself most vividly. In games, reflection about anything is transformed into production of a new reality: game mechanics force their laws upon the narrative, generate a special sensual-bodily experience, and set the perception of the categories of space and time. The reality of the interface, eluding the researcher’s gaze in its entirety but manifested in a variety of specific forms, often generates breakdown, glitches, and phantom phenomena, which in turn bring forth various ludic mutations.
The articles included in this issue cover a wide range of issues related to computer games as interfaces, i.e. media instances of gaming experience, from the general characteristics of games as a media environments and total works of art (gesamtkunstwerk of our time), inheriting the Bauhaus aesthetics, to the analysis of certain game mechanics. Specifically, the methods for constructing time are analyzed, the category of “phantom affordances” (a source of breakdowns in perception and a way to frustrate users) is introduced, the narrative communication levels, the transformation of cultural memory in “encyclopedic games” and the ways of constitution of gamer’s body are investigated. Moreover, even when authors consider computer games as a form of reflection about something external (for example, about history or about the nature of time), the analysis also detects effects generated by internal features of the game as a medium. This issue is based on the results of the Double Game Philosophy Conference (October 21–25, 2019), organized jointly by the Centre for Media Philosophy, the Laboratory for Computer Games Research, and the Game Philosophy Network.
Guest Editors:
Alina R. Latypova, Centre for Media Philosophy and the Laboratory for Computer Games Research, St. Petersburg, Russian.
Margarita M. Skomorokh, Laboratory for Computer Games Research, St. Petersburg, Russian.
We are glad to welcome you on the website of the network journal of media research “Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies”.
This project is a truly ambitious initiative that serves to disseminate scientific intellectual knowledge and information in the field of media and popular culture (history, cultural studies, anthropology, philosophy, etc.) in the modern world community.
It is not for nothing that we used the epithet ambitious, since from the very beginning of its inception and preparation, it really is such. The project was started in 2018 by a small group of enthusiasts, young scientists whose interests lie in the above-mentioned areas of research.
1. First of all, we have assembled a truly big international team to become the members of our editorial board, people from different parts of our “small global village” called planet Earth, as media culture theorist Herbert Marshall McLuhan put it. Our editors are leading scholars in the field of media and popular culture from Russia, USA, UK, Spain, Austria, Sweden, India, Sri Lanka, China, Malaysia, Ghana.
2. Therefore, we chose English (the international language of science) and Russian (as the project is an initiative of Russian scientists) as the working languages of the online journal.
3. Openness, no charge, and peer reviews by leading scholars are the fundamental principles of our project (Ethics). And the digital character of modern international communications made us choose the electronic version of the journal (without physical printing). Based on the above while choosing a platform we preferred an open and free engine called Open Journal Systems, which ideally allows to organize the entire publishing process.
4. This allowed us to automate each stage of publication through the user registration system.
5. The names and e-mail addresses entered on the website of this online journal will be used solely for the purposes indicated by the journal and will not be used for any other purposes or passed to other individuals or organizations.
6. In the “Submit an article” section, any author can independently familiarize themselves with the requirements for the design and submission of an additional document package and submit their papers.
7. In the section “About online publishing” anyone can get acquainted with the main goals, objectives and functions of the project. There is also information about spheres of knowledge within which we accept research papers.
Respectfully,
chief-editor PhD Rastyam Aliev
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ISSN: 2658-7734
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© 2019 Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies. e-ISSN: 2658-7734