Cinema of the Gun: Science and Technology Studies and the First Person Shooter

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Author(s): Sam Hinton (University of Canberra, Australia)
Copyright: 2011
Pages: 15
Source title: Global Media Convergence and Cultural Transformation: Emerging Social Patterns and Characteristics
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Dal Yong Jin (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-037-2.ch019

Keywords: Information Science Reference / Media & Communications / Social Computing / Social Networking

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Abstract

Games, like other technological artifacts, do not fall mysteriously from orbit. They are constructed by humans within a matrix of social, economic and cultural conditions of production and consumption. Technologies including the refrigerator, the M16 machine gun and the bicycle have famously been the subject of so-called science and technology studies (STS) analyses, following MacKenzie and Wajcman, Pinch and Bijker and Latour and Callon, among others. Aside from a few initial forays, games have largely escaped this kind of in-depth and sustained analysis. This chapter argues for the use of STS in games research and uses an STS approach to explore the evolution of a ’genre’ of computer games – the first person shooter, or FPS – and in particular the cinematic turn that has taken place within this genre over the past decade.

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Cinema of the Gun: Science and Technology Studies and the First Person Shooter

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