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Games & Culture's scope will include the socio-cultural, political, and economic dimensions of gaming from a wide variety of perspectives, including textual analysis; political economy; cultural studies; ethnography; critical race studies; gender studies; media studies; public policy; international relations; and communication studies. Other possible arenas include:
Of primary importance will be the bridging of the gap between games studies scholarship in the United States and in Europe. One of the primary goals of the journal will be to foster dialogue among the academic, design, development, and research communities that will influence both game design and research about games within various public contexts. A second goal will be to examine how gaming and interactive media are being used in contexts outside of entertainment, including in education contexts, for the purposes of training, for military simulation, and for political action.
Programmers in the 1950s and '60s-"old school" hackers-challenged existing
paradigms of computer science. In the 1960s and '70s, hacker subcultures
flourished at computer labs on university campuses, making possible the
technological revolution of the next decade. Meanwhile, on the streets,
computer enthusiasts devised ingenious ways to penetrate AT&T, the
Department of Defense, and other corporate entities in order to play
pranks (and make free long-distance telephone calls). In the 1980s and
'90s, some hackers organized to fight for such causes as open source
coding while others wreaked havoc with corporate Web sites.
Even as novels and films (Neuromancer, WarGames, Hackers, and The Matrix)
mythologized these "new school" hackers, destructive computer viruses like
"Melissa" prompted the passage of stringent antihacking laws around the
world. Addressing such issues as the commodification of the hacker ethos
by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the high-profile arrests of prominent
hackers, and conflicting self-images among hackers themselves, Thomas
finds that popular hacker stereotypes reflect the public's anxieties about
the information age far more than they do the reality of hacking.
"an interesting and compelling account of the major role hackers have
played in the short history of computers and the digital culture."
- Choice
"Hacker Culture provides an indispensable insight into a history of
computing that it has become increasingly important to understand for
computer users of all levels and abilities."
- Slashdot.org
"an intelligent and approachable book on one of the most widely discussed
and least understood subcultures in recent decades."
- Publishers Weekly
"Combining elements of cultural studies and the history of technology,
Thomas has fashioned an illuminating and surprising examination of hackers
and their place in contemporary culture."
- Seminary Co-Op Review
"In this highly readable
examination of the computer underground,
Doug Thomas looks at hacking culture from the inside out. He brings an
intellectual's eye to one of the modern age's most compelling topics while
acting simultaneously as storyteller, historian and cultural guide par
excellence."
- Katie Hafner, author of Cyberpunk: Outlaws and
Hackers on the Computer Frontier
". . . .an unusually balanced history of the computer underground and its
sensational representation in movies and newspapers. [Thomas's] account
starkly shows what hackers have realized all along: Our unease with Kevin
Mitnick and his sort actually reflects our discomfort with technology
itself." - San Francisco Chronicle
Buy Hacker Culture. |
Demonized by governments and the media as criminals, glorified within
their own subculture as outlaws, hackers have played a major role in the
short history of computers and digital culture-and have continually defied
our assumptions about technology and secrecy through both legal and
illicit means. In Hacker Culture, Douglas Thomas provides an in-depth
history of this important and fascinating subculture, contrasting
mainstream images of hackers with a detailed firsthand account of the
computer underground
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