On game forums, players often discuss the positive impact of video games on their lives. We collected 964 messages from top ranked game forums ( viaAlexa.com ) and analyzed them using a coding scheme based on an existing taxonomy about the impact of the arts. This directed qualitative content analysis resulted in an exploration of how players’ talk about the impact of video games reflects broader cultural rhetorics. By analyzing players’ positive experiences using a theory-based coding scheme that is attentive to the wide array of effects that have been ascribed to the arts, this study offers a broad perspective on the attributed impact of video games.

The rise of digital media affects literacy practices, notably how literary fiction is read and discussed in online environments. Traditional notions of literacy and interpretations of what it means to act as readers or literature teachers can be re-examined within this new configuration of literacy. Starting from a perspective of teachers-as-ethnographers, the authors of this article study how pre-service teachers describe their roles and opportunities to act in social media environments. They present a framework which charts an evolution toward an understanding of reading as social practice. The authors present an exploration of reading practices within the social reading environment Goodreads that was set up with 79 student-teachers. The participants collaboratively composed an autoethnographic document consisting of multiple discussion threads that detail their experiences and reflections on social reading practices. Content analysis revealed seven themes, divided into two clusters: social reading and the implementation of social media in literacy education.

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Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact:

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