Dr Tom Apperley
Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Arts
Qualifications
BA (Honors, 1st Class) and LLB from the University of Otago, PhD, University of Melbourne
Contact
| Email: | ta@unimelb.edu.au |
| Room: | Arts (E11) LG14 |
Tom Apperley, Ph.D. is an ethnographer, researcher and consultant on digital media technologies. His previous writing has covered videogames, mobile telephones, digital literacies and pedagogies, and the digital divide. He has held a research position at Deakin University, and has taught at the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, and the University of New England. He is the co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Digital Culture and Education, http://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com.
Areas of Teaching
Digital Media
Research interests
My main area of interest is New Media – particularly videogames, and mobile and networked technologies – with a focus on the subjectivities that they engender. The main issue that currently interests me is the shift in global power dynamics that these forms of media precipitate through the participation of the audience. Key to my research is a commitment to understanding the interplay between industry, consumer, and medium in the formations and configurations of power.
Current Research Interests:
• Platform and software studies approaches to mobile media.
• Globalization and intercultural communication in videogames.
• Videogames, ecology and eco-citizenship.
• Tele-presence through Virtual Worlds.
• Videogames and Social Networking.
• Virtual World Health Communication.
• The Creative Industries model for the Videogame Industry.
• Teaching and professional development for game studies.
Publications
Apperley, T. (2010). What Game Studies can teach us about Computer Games in the English and Literacy Classroom. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 33(1), http://www.alea.edu.au/html/publications/16/australian-journal-of-language-and-literacy.
Beavis, C., Apperley, T., Bradford, C., O’Mara, J. & Walsh, C. (2009). Literacy in the digital age: Learning from computer games, English in Education 43(2), 162-175.
Walsh, C. & Apperley, T. (2009). Gaming capital: Rethinking literacy, refereed conference paper from the proceeding of the Australian Association for Research in Education 2008 conference: Changing Climates: education for Sustainable Futures (Brisbane, Australia, December 2008).
Apperley, T. (2008). Videogames in Australia. In M. J. P. Wolf (Ed.). The Videogame Explosion: A History from Pong to Playstation and Beyond (pp. 223-228). Westport: Greenwood Press.
Apperley, T. (2008). Of sins, vices, and pecados: The cultural context of videogame play. In D. Capsi & T. Samuel-Azran (Eds.). New Media and Innovative Technologies (pp. 240-261). Be’er Shiva: Ben-Gurion University Press/Tzivonim Publishers.
Apperley, T., Beavis, C., Bradford, C., Omara, J. & Walsh, C. (2008). Researching kids and computer games: Games, game play, and literacy in the 21st Century, in the refereed conference proceedings of the [player] conference (pp. 4-29) August 2008, Information Technology University of Copenhagen.
Walsh, C. & Apperley, T. (2008). Researching digital game players: Gaming capital and literacy education, in the refereed conference proceedings of IADIS: International Association for Development of the Information Society (pp. 99-102) July 2008, Utrecht University.
Apperley, T. (2008). Citizenship and consumption: Convergence culture, transmedia narratives, and the digital divide, part of the ‘Entertainment in the Age of Integrating Media: Aesthetics, Strategies and Transmodiology’ panel submitted for IE2007: Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment (December 2007, RMIT University, Melbourne).
Apperley, T. (2008). Rhythms of gaming bodies: The grotesque ecology of the videogamer, part of the ‘In Another Sense: Videogames beyond the Audio-Visual’ panel submitted for IE2007: Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment (December 2007, RMIT University, Melbourne).
Apperley, T. (2007). Piracy in the Caribbean: The political stakes of videogame piracy in Chávez's Venezuela, in the refereed conference proceedings of DiGRA 2007: Situated Play (pp. 286-291) Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Apperley, T. (2007). Games without borders: Globalization, gaming and mobility in Venezuela, in G. Goggin & L. Hjorth (Eds.). Mobile Media 2007: Proceeding of an International Conference on Social and Cultural Aspects of Mobile Phones, Convergent Media, and Wireless Technologies (pp. 171-178) Sydney: University of Sydney Press.
Apperley, T. (2007). Virtual Unaustralia: Videogames and Australia’s colonial history. In P. Magee (Ed.). The Unaustralia Papers: the electronic refereed conference proceedings of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference.
Apperley, T. (2006) Genre and game studies: Towards a critical approach to videogame genres. In Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory Practice and Research, 37(1) pp. 6-23.