Desperately Trying to Mediate Immediacy
A discussion of lived experiences in the digital and mediated context of esports
Abstract
Evermore aspects of contemporary cultures, societies and human life appear to be changed through processes of digitization and mediatization. A great body of work is touching on these processes of change. However, not many discuss aspects of leisure and aesthetics. And if they do so, seldom regarding bodily and worldly aspects. This paper thus seeks to discuss such changes alongside the phenomenon of esports. More precisely, the paper situates the aesthetic dimension and practices of watching and doing esports in contemporary cultures and societies, focusing on lived experiences (ästhetisches Erleben) in digital and mediated contexts. The failing attempt to understand, the attempt to re-present and Gelassenheit (composure or serenity) are introduced as modes of coping with immediate aesthetic experiences. Here, especially the constitutive transition from a physical to a meta-physical dimension of reality will be grasped on. By that, ongoing philosophical debates about the constitution of reality and being can be supported in their progress.
References
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Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter: on the discursive limits of 'sex'. New York: Routledge.
Brynjolfsson, E. & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age age. Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. New York & London; W.W. Norton & Company.
Cassirer, E. (1995). Nachgelassene Manuskripte und Texte. Zur Metaphysik der symbolischen Formen. Hamburg: Meiner.
Crawford, G. & Gosling, V.K. (2011). Game Scences. Theorizing Digital Game Audiences. Games and Culture, 6(2), 135-154. doi: 10.1177/1555412010364979
Deterding, S. (2013). Modes of Play. A Frame Analytic Account of Video Game Play. Dissertation at University of Hamburg. Retrived from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286402058_Modes_of_Play_A_Frame_Analytic_Account_of_Video_Game_Play
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Elias, N. & Dunning, E. (1986). Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things. New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1971). L’ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard.
Geertz, C. (2001). Available Light. Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of structuration. Oakland: University of California Press.
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Gumbrecht, H.U. (2003). Production of Presence. What Meaning Cannot Convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2006). In Praise of Athletic Beauty. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2012). Präsenz. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
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Hamari, J. & Sjöblom, M. (2015). What is eSports and why do people watch it? SSRN Working paper series, 1-31. doi: 10.1108/IntR-04-2016-0085
Hicks, D. (2010). The material-cultural turn: event and effect. InD. Hicks & M.C. Beaudry (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Meterial Culture Studies (pp. 25-98), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hutchins, B. (2008). Signs of meta-change in second modernity: the growth of e-sport and the World Cyber Games. New Media & Society, 10(6), 851-869. doi: 10.1177/1461444808096248
Imhof, K. (2006). Mediengesellschaft und Medialisierung. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 54(2), 191-215.
Jansson, A. (2013). Mediatization and Social Space: Reconstructing Mediatization for the transmedia Age. Communication Theory, 23, 279-296. doi: 10.1111/comt.12015
Jannson, A. (2014). Indispensable things: in mediatization, meteriality, and space. In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatization of Communication (pp. 273-296), Berlin: de Gruyter.
Jansz, J. & Martens, L. (2005). Gaming at a LAN event. The social context of playing video games. New Media & Society, 7(3), 333-355. doi: 10.1177/1461444805052280
Kaldewey, D. (2011). Das Realitätsproblem der Sozialwissenschaften: Anmerkungen zur Beobachtungen des Außersozialen. Soziale Systeme, 17(2), 277-307.
Kellner, D. (1995). Media Culture. Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics between the Modern and the Postmodern. London & New York: Routledge.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1988). The micro-social order. Towards a reconception. N.G. Fielding (ed.), Actions and structure: research methods and social theory (pp. 21-53), London: Sage.
Krotz, F. (2001). Die Mediatisierung des Kommunikativen Handelns. Der Wandel von Alltag und sozialen Beziehungen, Kultur und Gesellschaft durch die Medien. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Krotz, F. (2007). Mediatisierung. Fallstudenten zum Wandel von Kommunikation. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Luhmann, N. (1984). Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, N. (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, N. (2008). Schriften zur Kunst und Literatur. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Lundby, K. (2009). Introduction: "Mediatization" as key. In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatziation. Concept, changes, consequences (pp. 1-18), New York: Peter Lang.
Lundby, K. (2014). Mediatization of Communication. In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatization of Communication (pp. 3-35), Berlin: de Gruyter.
Nancy, J.L. (1993). The Birth to Presence. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a Theory of Social Practices. A Development in Culturalist Theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), 243-263. doi: 10.1177/13684310222225432
Reckwitz, A. (2017). The Invention of Creativity. Modern Society and the Culture of the New. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Rojek, C. (1995). Decentring Leisure. Rethinking Leisure Theory. London: Sage.
Rowe, D. (2004). Sport, Culture & Media. The Unruly Trinity. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Schatzki, T.R.; Knorr-Cetina, K. & Savigny, E. (2001)(eds.). The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London: Routledge.
Schlitte, A.; Hünefeldt, T.; Romic, D. & van Loon, J. (2014)(eds.). Philosophie des Ortes. Reflexionen zum Spatial Turn in den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften. Bielefeld: transcript.
Schulz, W. (2004). Reconstructing Mediatization as an Analytical Concept. European Journal of Communication, 19(1), 87-101. doi: 10.1177/0267323104040696
Seel, M. (2000). Ästhetik des Erscheinens. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Seo, Y. (2013). Electronic Sports: A new marketing landscape of the experience economy. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(14), 1542-1560. doi: 10.1080/0267257X.2013.822906
Sicart, M. (2014). Play Matters. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Simmel, G. (2013). Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Soeffner, H.G. (2004). Auslegung des Alltags. Der Alltag der Auslegung. Konstanz: UVK.
Soeffner, H.G. (2000). Gesellschaft ohne Baldachin. Über die Labilität von Ordnungskonstruktionen. Welerswist: Velbrück.
Taussig, M. (1993). Mimesis and Alterity. A Particular History of the Senses. London & New York: Routledge.
Taylor, T.L. (2006). Play Between Worlds. Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Taylor, T.L. (2012). Raising the Stakes. E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Taylor, T.L. & Witkwoski, E. (2010). This is how we play it. What a mega-LAN can teach us about games. Proceedings of the fifth international conference on the foundation of digital games, 95-202.
Tolino, A. (2010). Gaming 2.0 - Computerspiele und Kulturproduktion. Boizenburg: VWH.
Vattimo, G. (1997). Beyond Interpretation. The Meaning of Hermeneutics for Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wenner, L.A. (1998)(ed.). MediaSport. London: Routledge.
Witkowski, E. (2012). On the Digital Playing Field: How We "Do Sport" With Networked Computer Games. Games and Culture, 7(5), 349-374. doi: 10.1177/1555412012454222
Wimmer, J. & Schmidt, J.H. (2015). Game Studies und Mediensoziologie. In K. Sachs-Hombach & J.N. Thom (eds.), Game Studies. Aktuelle Ansätze der Computerspielforschung (pp. 252-278), Köln: Halem.
White, H. (2008). Identity and control. A structural theory of social action. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Abbott, A. (2016). Processual Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Adolf, M. (2006). Die unverstandene Kultur. Perspektiven einer kritischen Theorie der Mediengesellschaft. Bielefeld: transcript.
Adolf, M. (2017). Zwei Gesichter der Mediatisierung? Ein Beitrag zur theoretischen Fundierung der Mediatisierungsforschung und ihres Verhältnisses zur Mediensozialisationsforschung. In D. Hoffman, F.
Krotz & W. Reißmann (eds.), Mediatisierung und Mediensozialisation. Prozesse Räume Praktiken (pp. 41-57), Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Apperley, T.H. & Jayemane, D. (2012). Game Studies' Material Turn. Westminster Papers, 9(1), 7-25.
Bachelard, G. (1964). The Poetics of Space. The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places. Boston: Beacon Press.
Baecker, D. (2016). Wozu Kulturwissenschaft? [Blog post]. Retrived from https://kure.hypotheses.org/15
Baecker, D. (2017). Wie verändert die Digitalisierung unser Denken und unseren Umgang mit der Welt? Ausgangspunkte einer Theorie der Digitalisierung. R. Gläß & B. Leukert (eds.), Handeln 4.0 (pp. 31-63), Berlin: Springer.
Borowy, M. & Jin, D.Y. (2013). Pioneering eSport. The experience economy and the marketing of early 1980s arcade gaming contests. International Journal of Communication, 7(21), 2254-2274.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter: on the discursive limits of 'sex'. New York: Routledge.
Brynjolfsson, E. & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age age. Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. New York & London; W.W. Norton & Company.
Cassirer, E. (1995). Nachgelassene Manuskripte und Texte. Zur Metaphysik der symbolischen Formen. Hamburg: Meiner.
Crawford, G. & Gosling, V.K. (2011). Game Scences. Theorizing Digital Game Audiences. Games and Culture, 6(2), 135-154. doi: 10.1177/1555412010364979
Deterding, S. (2013). Modes of Play. A Frame Analytic Account of Video Game Play. Dissertation at University of Hamburg. Retrived from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286402058_Modes_of_Play_A_Frame_Analytic_Account_of_Video_Game_Play
Eco, U. (1990). The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Elias, N. & Dunning, E. (1986). Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things. New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1971). L’ordre du discours. Paris: Gallimard.
Geertz, C. (2001). Available Light. Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of structuration. Oakland: University of California Press.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (1998). Perception Versus Experience: Moving Pictures and Their Resistance to Interpretation. In T. Lenoir & H.U. Gumbrecht (eds.), Inscribing Science. Scientific Texts and the
Materiality of Communication (pp. 351-365), Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2002). Riskantes Denken. Intellektuelle als Katalysatoren von Komplexität. In U.J. Wenzel (ed.), Der kritische Blick. Über intellektuelle Tätigkeiten und Tugenden (pp. 148-157), Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2003). Production of Presence. What Meaning Cannot Convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2006). In Praise of Athletic Beauty. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2012). Präsenz. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2013). Historisierung der Beobachtung zweiter Ordnung - eine epistemologische Rahmenerzählung. In P.C. Pawling, A. Mazzucchelli, H.U. Gumbrecht (eds.), Beobachtungen zweiter Ordnung im historischen Kontext (pp. 7-22), München: Fink.
Gumbrecht, H.U. (2016). What Do Sports Spectators "Invest"? Talk at the 9th Toronto German Studies Symposium "Sports: Allure and Ethics". Retrived from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z28zsBd0SCE.
Halley, J. & Clough, P.T. (2007)(eds.). The affective turn: Theorizing the social. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Hamari, J. & Sjöblom, M. (2015). What is eSports and why do people watch it? SSRN Working paper series, 1-31. doi: 10.1108/IntR-04-2016-0085
Hicks, D. (2010). The material-cultural turn: event and effect. InD. Hicks & M.C. Beaudry (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Meterial Culture Studies (pp. 25-98), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hutchins, B. (2008). Signs of meta-change in second modernity: the growth of e-sport and the World Cyber Games. New Media & Society, 10(6), 851-869. doi: 10.1177/1461444808096248
Imhof, K. (2006). Mediengesellschaft und Medialisierung. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 54(2), 191-215.
Jansson, A. (2013). Mediatization and Social Space: Reconstructing Mediatization for the transmedia Age. Communication Theory, 23, 279-296. doi: 10.1111/comt.12015
Jannson, A. (2014). Indispensable things: in mediatization, meteriality, and space. In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatization of Communication (pp. 273-296), Berlin: de Gruyter.
Jansz, J. & Martens, L. (2005). Gaming at a LAN event. The social context of playing video games. New Media & Society, 7(3), 333-355. doi: 10.1177/1461444805052280
Kaldewey, D. (2011). Das Realitätsproblem der Sozialwissenschaften: Anmerkungen zur Beobachtungen des Außersozialen. Soziale Systeme, 17(2), 277-307.
Kellner, D. (1995). Media Culture. Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics between the Modern and the Postmodern. London & New York: Routledge.
Knorr-Cetina, K. (1988). The micro-social order. Towards a reconception. N.G. Fielding (ed.), Actions and structure: research methods and social theory (pp. 21-53), London: Sage.
Krotz, F. (2001). Die Mediatisierung des Kommunikativen Handelns. Der Wandel von Alltag und sozialen Beziehungen, Kultur und Gesellschaft durch die Medien. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Krotz, F. (2007). Mediatisierung. Fallstudenten zum Wandel von Kommunikation. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Luhmann, N. (1984). Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, N. (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, N. (2008). Schriften zur Kunst und Literatur. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Lundby, K. (2009). Introduction: "Mediatization" as key. In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatziation. Concept, changes, consequences (pp. 1-18), New York: Peter Lang.
Lundby, K. (2014). Mediatization of Communication. In K. Lundby (ed.), Mediatization of Communication (pp. 3-35), Berlin: de Gruyter.
Nancy, J.L. (1993). The Birth to Presence. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a Theory of Social Practices. A Development in Culturalist Theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), 243-263. doi: 10.1177/13684310222225432
Reckwitz, A. (2017). The Invention of Creativity. Modern Society and the Culture of the New. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Rojek, C. (1995). Decentring Leisure. Rethinking Leisure Theory. London: Sage.
Rowe, D. (2004). Sport, Culture & Media. The Unruly Trinity. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Schatzki, T.R.; Knorr-Cetina, K. & Savigny, E. (2001)(eds.). The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London: Routledge.
Schlitte, A.; Hünefeldt, T.; Romic, D. & van Loon, J. (2014)(eds.). Philosophie des Ortes. Reflexionen zum Spatial Turn in den Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften. Bielefeld: transcript.
Schulz, W. (2004). Reconstructing Mediatization as an Analytical Concept. European Journal of Communication, 19(1), 87-101. doi: 10.1177/0267323104040696
Seel, M. (2000). Ästhetik des Erscheinens. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Seo, Y. (2013). Electronic Sports: A new marketing landscape of the experience economy. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(14), 1542-1560. doi: 10.1080/0267257X.2013.822906
Sicart, M. (2014). Play Matters. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Simmel, G. (2013). Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.
Soeffner, H.G. (2004). Auslegung des Alltags. Der Alltag der Auslegung. Konstanz: UVK.
Soeffner, H.G. (2000). Gesellschaft ohne Baldachin. Über die Labilität von Ordnungskonstruktionen. Welerswist: Velbrück.
Taussig, M. (1993). Mimesis and Alterity. A Particular History of the Senses. London & New York: Routledge.
Taylor, T.L. (2006). Play Between Worlds. Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Taylor, T.L. (2012). Raising the Stakes. E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Taylor, T.L. & Witkwoski, E. (2010). This is how we play it. What a mega-LAN can teach us about games. Proceedings of the fifth international conference on the foundation of digital games, 95-202.
Tolino, A. (2010). Gaming 2.0 - Computerspiele und Kulturproduktion. Boizenburg: VWH.
Vattimo, G. (1997). Beyond Interpretation. The Meaning of Hermeneutics for Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wenner, L.A. (1998)(ed.). MediaSport. London: Routledge.
Witkowski, E. (2012). On the Digital Playing Field: How We "Do Sport" With Networked Computer Games. Games and Culture, 7(5), 349-374. doi: 10.1177/1555412012454222
Wimmer, J. & Schmidt, J.H. (2015). Game Studies und Mediensoziologie. In K. Sachs-Hombach & J.N. Thom (eds.), Game Studies. Aktuelle Ansätze der Computerspielforschung (pp. 252-278), Köln: Halem.
White, H. (2008). Identity and control. A structural theory of social action. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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January 14, 2018
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