The Relationship between Game Literacy and Information Literacy

The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between game literacy (GL) and information literacy (IL), in order to provide cross-disciplinary insight as a foundation for future research. This will be done:

  • By examining the origins, definition and treatment of the two literacies in scholarly literature in the disciplines of Games Studies and of IL, and;
  • By using examples drawn from two recent mixed methods research studies of information behaviour and information literacy in video games, to illustrate the connections between GL and IL.

Previous studies investigating video games and IL have tended to focus on the elements of IL used in gaming (e.g. Beutelspacher, & Henkel, 2021), rather than, as in this paper, the conceptual intersection between IL and GL. IL and GL developed in different disciplinary contexts. Whilst the concept of IL emerged from the field of librarianship and the online information industry (Nazari, & Webber, 2012), GL emerged in the field of literacy studies, influenced by the New Literacies movement’s focus on multimodality and social practice, and stimulated by a desire to include cultural media popular with young people (Squire, 2008). Initially, definitions and frameworks of IL focused on practical skills applied to published print or digital material. However, more recently IL experts have identified IL as socially situated, involving production as well as consumption, and engaging with multimodal information, for example in Mackey & Jacobsen’s (2022) definition of metaliteracy. This brings IL ontologically closer to Hayes & Gee’s (2010, p. 69) conception of GL as “a family of different practices engaged in by different social groups with a variety of cross-cutting similarities and differences”.

Despite this, the information literacy component of GL is not surfaced in GL definitions, and nor does engagement with games feature explicitly in IL definitions and frameworks. This paper aims to fill this research gap by (1) drawing on the scholarly literature to compare and relate definitions of GL and IL, and (2) illustrating the connections between GL and IL with findings from two investigations supervised by the author (both of which received ethics approval). Wang (2022) used questionnaires (n=600) and six interviews with Chinese gamers to investigate information behaviour in the ban-pick phase of League of Legends (an internationally popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game). Using similar methods (164 questionnaires; six interviews) Meng (2022) researched Chinese gamers’ IL in playing the social deduction game Dread Hunger. The three dimensions of Bourgonjon’s (2014) model of game literacy (i.e. operational, critical and cultural) will be used to identify how IL is intertwined with GL. For example in compiling and analysing clues that indicate whether a player is the traitor in Dread Hunger IL and GL are required in both operational and cultural dimensions. Further examples will be given in the final paper.

References

  • Beutelspacher, L., & Henkel, H. (2021). Information literacy in video games’ affinity spaces: A case study on Dota 2. In S. Kurbanoğlu, S., Špiranec, S., Ünal, Y., Boustany, J., Kos, D. (Eds.), Information Literacy in a Post-Truth Era, The Seventh European Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2021, online, September 20-23, 2021: Revised Selected Papers. Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) 1533. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  • Bourgonjon, J. (2014). Meaning and relevance of video game literacy. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 16(5), 8.
  • Hayes, E. R., & Gee, J. P. (2010). No selling the genie lamp: A game literacy practice in The Sims. E–learning and digital media, 7(1), 67–78.
  • Mackey, T. P., & Jacobson, T. E. (2022). Metaliteracy in a connected world: Developing learners as producers. Chicago: Neal-Schuman.
  • Meng, X. (2022). Investigating social deduction computer games’ impact on players’ information literacy, using Dread Hunger as an example. [Unpublished master’s dissertation]. University of Sheffield.
  • Nazari, M., & Webber, S. (2012). Loss of faith in the origins of information literacy in e-environments: Proposal of a holistic approach. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 44(2), 97–107.
  • Squire, K. (2008). Video-game literacy: A literacy of expertise. In J. Coiro, M. Knobel, C. Lankshear, D. J. Leu. (Eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies. (pp.635–670). London: Routledge.
  • Wang, Y. (2022). Information behaviour in ban pick phase of League of Legends. [Unpublished master’s dissertation]. University of Sheffield.

Sheila Webber
University of Sheffield, UK

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