Blog Post 2 - Bogost

 Bogost's text "The Rhetoric of Video Games" sheds a new light on the impact video games have on our society. In this reading, Bogost introduces the audience with the age old phenomena of video games being a technology for the lazy, a means of distraction, an unproductive pursuit so to speak (Bogost, pg. 4). However, the author is quick to divert this idea of video games being a negative stimulant for children to one of great educational and developmental resolve. One quote from Bogost's reading that I thought captured this idea well was when he states "...'play is the free space of movement within a more rigid structure.' Understood in this sense, play refers to the "possibility space" created by constrains of all kinds...imposing rules does not suffocate play, but makes it possible in the first place." (Bogost, pg. 4). The idea that "play" is exclusively for leisure or young children is far from the truth. As Bogost highlights in his text, play is a necessary factor in development and processing for any individual, especially impressionable adolescence. When the rhetoric of play is associated with limitations, the space for that play to exist in the first place becomes limited as well. 

As Bogost continues in his study, he pulls inspiration from rhetorician Kenneth Burke's work. In this expansion he talks about the tension between verbal and written rhetoric and this new theory of rhetoric that is inclusive to technological evolution. This is where video games enters the conversation. Burke talks a lot in his studies about symbolism and identification which Bogost touches on briefly in his analysis. I think these concepts are important to include because they are the foundation of redefining and "re-identifying" the rhetoric of video games. In our cultural narrative today, video games are symbolic not simply because of the thing itself, but for the behaviors associated with them. However, this symbolism is not universal. Many communication scholars would agree that symbolism is subjective based on context. Without it, culture would be un-definable and chaotic. So when attempting to tackle this idea of "video game rhetoric", Bogost is challenged with introducing a new rhetoric. He defines this as visual rhetoric, or "digital rhetoric" (Bogost, pg. 8).  

When reflecting on my own experiences pertaining to these topics, one very specific memory comes to mind. In high school my class attended an assembly where the speakers were talking about rule-following and safety. During their presentation they used an analogy that I believe coincides with Bogost's concept of play very well: A group of elementary students goes to play on the playground during recess. Their school is close to a busy road and there is no fence surrounding the premises. The kids never felt safe to wander further than the playground because anything outside of that contained environment was "too close" to the open road. Some time goes by and the school puts up a fence surrounding the entire grounds of the school, providing a barrier between the busy road and the school. With this added safety measure in placed, the kids start navigating to other parts of the school grounds in order to expand in their playfulness. While some people may look at the fence as an isolating entrapment, the children felt safe to be closer to the road because of the restrictions enforced on their play. I found this analogy to be a perfect representation of the argument Bogost is making in this text. The space of "play" must not only be defined or redefined, but must also be created in a meaningful way.