EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

DATE: 11 a.m. (talk), 2 p.m. (panel) Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015

EVENT: “Game Changers: Video Games Transition from Technology Product to Cultural Form”

At 11 a.m., Leigh Alexander, video gaming journalist and editor-in-chief of Offworld.com, Boing Boing’s countercultural games site, will discuss the emergence of video games as a pop cultural form and how they have evolved from simple diversions and commercial products. Her topics will include the democratization of tools, the rise of women creators, the conservative backlash and future trends.

At 2 p.m. Alexander will join a panel discussion, “The Enemies of Information and Memory.” Other panelists are Edouard Perrin, a reporter with Premières Lignes in France and a Knight-Wallace Fellow at U-M, and Louisa Lim, former NPR and BBC correspondent and the author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited and Howard R. Marsh Visiting Professor.

The panelists will discuss their experiences with attempts to limit freedom of information, the prospects for journalism under adversity, and the tactics that might be employed to preserve the public’s right to know. The panel will be moderated by Christian Sandvig, associate professor in the U-M School of Information and Department of Communication Studies.

Both talks are part of the John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology and Society, an annual event that features thought leaders from the front lines of the digital world.

PLACE: Alexander’s talk will be in the Mendelssohn Theater of the Michigan League, 911 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor. The panel discussion will take place in the Ehrlicher Room, 3100 North Quad, 105 S. State St., Ann Arbor.

SPONSOR: U-M School of Information. Made possible by the support of its founding donor, John Seely Brown, former chief scientist of Xerox Corp. and director of the Palo Alto Research Center.

INFORMATION: JSB Symposium on Technology and Society: Leigh Alexander

Note: Watch a livestream of Alexander’s talk at si.umich.edu.