Positioning students as game journalists: Transforming everyday experiences into professional discourse

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present findings from a study which is part of an ongoing Design-Based Research project which explores how students can transform their everyday experiences with and attitudes towards games into game journalism within the context of Danish as a subject. Based on a theoretical framework combining domain theory with Ivanič’s theory of writing as identity construction, we analysed selected student articles and student interviews from four secondary classrooms (Grades 7–9). The findings show that some students mainly positioned themselves through a personal discourse, which was highly influenced by their positive, negative or ambivalent attitudes to their chosen game journalistic topics. Other students mainly positioned themselves through a professional journalistic discourse by means of critical reflection and representation of multiple perspectives on their topics. Based on the students’ high level of engagement in the writing process and the wide range of possible selves adopted by the student writers, we concluded that games and game culture represent a topic well-suited for transforming students’ everyday experiences and attitudes into journalistic texts.

Keywords

• student positioning
• domain theory
• games and literacies
• journalism