Volume 17, Number 28, Fall 2025

EN:

With the arrival of new media comes the age-old anxiety that more traditional media – namely tangible forms like the print book – will be displaced, abandoned, or forgotten entirely. However, the book continues to be incorporated into sculptures that surround libraries and clothing and tote bags that we purchase, signifying that the traditional codex holds a lasting place in our hearts. This paper argues that newer forms of media can function as outlets for our love of physical manuscripts and can renew our infatuation with them rather than threaten to replace them. Digital media like Rand and Robyn Miller’s 1993 computer game Myst, as well as transmedia like J.J. Abrams’ and Doug Dorst’s digitally-supplemented novel S. use immersive techniques to recreate the feeling of “losing ourselves” in a good book, intensifying a desire to explore and discover in the physical world and the virtual world alike. Moreover, this paper utilizes Jay David Botler’s and Richard Grusin’s theory of remediation to suggest that transmedia has the potential to inform new engagement with the physical world, as is evident in trends like escape rooms and geocaching.

EN:

This working paper provides a preliminary treatment of issues of social class in relation to the video game Rust as it is played on servers and streamed on Twitch. The paper uses the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to explore Rust as a field and to describe the social class habitus of those who play and stream the game.

EN:

Developed by Montfort and Bogost (2009) for their research on the Atari Video Computer System, platform studies analyzes the hardware and software environment through which media are interacted with. However, there needs to be more research in this area focusing on early mobile media platforms. This article considers the Cybiko Computer, a short-lived handheld computer marketed primarily to youth in the United States in the early 2000s. Featuring a monochrome LCD screen and a small QWERTY keyboard, the Cybiko was an early example of a device capable of various gaming, utility, and communication functions through numerous applications well before such multifunctionality became standard among mobile devices. These many applications were provided for free through Cybiko’s website, similar to modern app stores. The device was also promoted as an open platform for developers, leading to a variety of 3rd party applications. The Cybiko could also serve as an MP3 player via an add-on accessory. These features, mirroring those of later smartphone devices, should have seemingly ensured Cybiko's success. However, ineffective and inconsistent marketing, lack of cellular connectivity, and the rapid release of an upgraded version one year after the device’s debut led to its failure. Despite this, the Cybiko is a significant case study providing insight into how a device ahead of its time in terms of features can fail to gain wide adoption.

EN:

This article explores the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, examining its bordered heterocosm by carefully looking at how in-game cities are constructed and how certain spaces within them can be regarded as heterotopias, thus denouncing and exposing sociocultural inequalities, which are enforced and maintained through numerous physical and abstract boundaries. Then, the role of the Dragonborn will be taken into consideration, so as to understand how this character, as the video game’s protagonist, transgresses these same boundaries without being subjected to the repercussions faced by the majority of non-player characters. As such, the Dragonborn is capable of subverting the very core dynamics of transgression, while holding a privileged social status within the video game’s rich and deeply fragmented world.