Play, Record, Learn: Machinima as Epistemic Rhetoric

by Keith Morton

Within the last couple of decades, a new medium called "machinima" has emerged. Machinima is a method of creating videos using videogames or virtual worlds. The new technique gives potential filmmakers the freedom of animation without much of the cost or time expenditure. But machinima is more than a low-budget compromise of animated filmmaking. It is its own unique art form complete with its own potential to foster learning. Machinima is epistemic. As such, it is capable of not only conveying knowledge but also creating new knowledge. This project asks how exactly machinima is epistemic. In what ways does it foster learning? And, more importantly, how can it be implemented in education? The research here relies on educational theories from Paulo Freire to Stuart Moulthrop, media theories from Marshal McLuhan to Greg Ulmer, film theories from Sergei Eisenstein to Vladimir Pudovkin, culture theories from Lawrence Lessig to Paul Miller, and rhetorical theories from Aristotle to Kenneth Bruffee. It is a project to establish machinima as a justifiable and practical media form to be used as a tool for student learning. Free from the restrictions that plague many academic works, Play, Record, Learn is uninhibited, unbridled, and unbound media theory at its best!

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 15, 2010