International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   Entertainment technologies are increasingly relevant to international studies. The rapid proliferation of their consumption, their growth as a global industry, and the ways in which they have been utilized by international actors for political purposes reveal a growing significance for scholars of international studies. The term “entertainment technologies” does carry connotations of mass communication and news media technologies such as radio, television, and the internet. To avoid conceptual overlap with traditional academic literatures in political communication and media studies, entertainment technologies are discussed in this essay as those forms of media communication that are primarily purposed to provide forms of play, fantasy, and other forms of recreation. Entertainment technologies are presented both as vehicles for content and as modes of social interaction. The significance of entertainment technology for international studies is evident in multiple studies across fields relevant to international studies – such as communication, media studies, geography, critical studies, and related subfields. From James Der Derian's (2001) pathbreaking work on video games and the simulation of war to Marwan Kraidy's (2007) analysis of reality television in the Arab world, international studies scholars have explored how these technologies are a factor ... log in or subscribe to read full text