Nicola Pallitt's List: BLOGS: education, games, digital media

I am currenly doing my PhD in Media Studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. I started this blog for research purposes.  I did my MA (at UCT as well) on the use of educational software at a disadvantaged primary school, where access to such resources were both scarce and new. (To view my MA thesis “Children’s discourse and software use in a Western Cape Primary School” click here.) My PhD thesis is on middle-class urban children’s use and contextual meanings of commercial games. I look at differential access to games, how they connect with children’s consumer culture and how boys and girls interpret gender branded culture in relation to games. I enjoy doing research with young people about their digitally mediated play and learning experiences.

Online papers (game studies) & blog entries

True 'Media in Transition' - Maher on "The Grid":
"Users can explore Sowetan youth culture on their cellphones from anywhere in South Africa through The Grid’s map interface, or by physically touring the famous township and watching documentary clips on their phones at the locations where they were shot.

The location-based documentary looks at people, music, fashion, social issues and places of interest. Instead of showing the twenty-five minute documentary in a linear fashion from start to finish, Mobikasi splits the content up into twenty-five inserts of one minute each. Each one-minute clip covers a different topic that is relevant to the youth in Soweto and is geo-tagged to the location where it was shot. This means that viewers can now explore Soweto’s vibrant youth culture by virtually “travelling” through a mobile streetmap of the township and stopping off at various locations to enjoy the one-minute video clips."