It is undeniable: games are part of our culture and our everyday life. We are living in an age where entertainment and work cross paths in every moment. I think it’s possible to say that certain audiences are living in a kind of “culture of play”.
My idea in this post is to discuss briefly and cast light on this subject and recommend an excellent text for further reading. I think that, in a first moment, we need to understand this “culture of play” and the idea of “play” itself.
This complex idea requires a multidisciplinary approach. To understand the “culture of play” in the mediatic scene and contemporary world we need mostly to search for knowledge in sociology, anthropology, history, psychology and other sciences.
As Ehrmann says (1968, p.55) in an antropology of play, play cannot be defined by isolating it on the basis of its relationship to an a priori reality and culture. To define play is, at the same time and in the same movement, to define reality and to define culture.
So, a good starting point for a rich discussion can be found in the reference below.
Have fun!
Reference:
EHRMANN, Jacques.
Homo Ludens Revisited. Yale French Studies, No 41. Game, Play, Literature (1968). pp. 31-57. Stable (
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