How Broken is Game Journalism? An Analysis of Three Gaming Sites. by Joseph Jackmovich.
Top ten lists, objectification of women, and the wholesale copying of press releases; these are some of the unfortunate trends in gaming journalism today. Some would call game journalism a kind of enthusiast press, and on many counts I find it hard to disagree with them. Like with other forms of enthusiast press, big gaming sites rely not only on strict gaming news, but also an array of gaming-related stories to flesh out their coverage. Sometimes these related stories fall within acceptable levels. At other times some of the content posted to gaming blogs makes me feel simply terrible for the state of the field. Jim Sterling, review editor at Destructoid, says that calling game journalism a form of journalism at all is usually incorrect. "The fact that topics unrelated to gaming rank above coverage for companies like Nintendo and Microsoft is absolutely terrible. While blame can be pointed at editors, writers, or readers I hold that those primarily responsible are the editors of these publications. In an internet world, the ability to comment on stories allows readers, editors, and writers to interact on coverage in a way never before possible. The problem is that comments can be heavily moderated to reduce the appearance of dissent to these articles. You’ll discover that going through many of these unrelated stories that there is little comment about why this particular story is being placed on a gaming website. Is that because readers truly enjoy this unrelated coverage or is it because of heavy-handed moderation? As publications allow for little transparency in their moderation procedures, I place responsibility in the hands of those in charge of producing content." more... http://tinyurl.com/23jweyc _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
