Understanding the Video Game Experience through Reader Response Theory

Abstract

The world of literacy has expanded alongside technology, and new literacies are being used as an alternative or an addition to traditional text. By including video gaming as literacy, the connection can be made between students’ multi-modal world outside of school with the world of literacy they encounter in school. As a way to look at the gaming experience, a case study of 15 participants examined three mainstream video games using Louise Rosenblatt’s reader response theory. In this qualitative study, interview transcripts about the gaming experience are coded for themes relating to reader response theory. The literature does not currently contain substantial research regarding how the gaming experience and reading experience are similar, so this study begins to add to the present literature by demonstrating that at least for these games the presence of the components of the theory can be evaluated in much the same way as the reading experience.