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Abstract
Videogames, such as The Sims, are a digital media passion drawing adolescents to online spaces where they create and share content. This article explores how discourses and expectations are taught in one online, videogame-related fan site of adolescents who read and write Sims fan fiction. Using Bernstein's pedagogic discourse theory, data from a 2-year virtual ethnography are analyzed to study pedagogic interactions between moderators and members within The Sims Writers' Hangout, an online discussion forum. Findings point to the dominance of regulative discourse and how discourses relocated from other media sites serve as pedagogic discourse in this informal digital literacy learning space. This article contributes to our understanding of digital literacy and learning in online environments by focusing on the pedagogy used to teach expectations. The analysis also points to the utility of Bernstein's theory for studying informal online learning.
Acknowledgements
I express sincere gratitude to Elisabeth Hayes and Josephine Peyton Marsh for their help in shaping the earlier version of this manuscript that appears as a chapter in my dissertation. For their guidance in revising this article to its current form, I also thank my writing group, the editors of this special issue, and the anonymous reviewers for their input.
Notes on contributor
Jayne C. Lammers is an Assistant Professor in Teaching and Curriculum and the director of English Education Teacher Preparation at the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education in Rochester, New York.