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BodiesInPlay.pdf (8.48 MB)
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
Bodies in Play: Representations of Disability in 8- and 16-bit Video Game Soundscapes
Author Info
Plank, Dana Marie
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543506274730883
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Music.
Abstract
This dissertation explores sonic signifiers of injury, disease, and mental illness in 8- and 16-bit video game soundscapes. The immediacy and invasiveness of the medium makes game sound uniquely positioned to influence players’ personal identification and immersion within the narrative, and incorporation within the body of the avatar. Games replicate social discourse about the meanings of bodies, and tell stories that matter in a medium that engenders an unusually deep personal engagement. In order to confront these sonic signifiers, I subject my own transcriptions of game audio to analysis drawing on disability studies, ludomusicology (the study of music and play, usually focusing on video games), and music cognition literatures to implicate games in broader discourses of human difference and media representation. In games, bodily impairments are treated not as part of a nuanced spectrum of lived experience, but as obstacles to overcome. Game sound often represents these mechanics in the abstract, to communicate changes in game states to the player, and so the soundscape becomes a vital arbiter of meaning and action. Players’ responses to these aural cues is to seek a cure, reading disabilities as temporary setbacks in performance, cues to restore the avatar to “normal.” Game sounds reinforce ableist ideals, promoting an unrealistic view of the idealized normative body and mind as achievable constants and reflecting deep cultural anxieties about the implications of bodily difference.
Committee
Arved Ashby, Ph.D (Advisor)
Graeme Boone, Ph.D (Committee Member)
David Bruenger, Ph.D (Committee Member)
Neil Lerner, Ph.D (Committee Member)
Pages
360 p.
Subject Headings
Music
Keywords
Video Game Music
;
Video Game Sound
;
Video Game Soundscapes
;
Soundscapes
;
Ludomusicology
;
Disability Studies
;
Music and Disability
;
Impairment
;
Musicology
;
Video Games
;
Disability
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Refworks
EndNote
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Mendeley
Citations
Plank, D. M. (2018).
Bodies in Play: Representations of Disability in 8- and 16-bit Video Game Soundscapes
[Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543506274730883
APA Style (7th edition)
Plank, Dana.
Bodies in Play: Representations of Disability in 8- and 16-bit Video Game Soundscapes.
2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543506274730883.
MLA Style (8th edition)
Plank, Dana. "Bodies in Play: Representations of Disability in 8- and 16-bit Video Game Soundscapes." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543506274730883
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
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Document number:
osu1543506274730883
Download Count:
15,104
Copyright Info
© 2018, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.