politics – Page 4 – frans goes blog

Not travelling

I have made few somewhat painful personal decisions and radically cut down the amount of international travel I do. Travelling might be something we are told we have to do, that our careers require it, and that internationalisation or globalisation even dictates that we should be flying around the globe all the time, busily collaborating with everyone else. But why? Don’t we really have any communicational tools that we could use to cut down this insane waste of time, energy — both human energy and precious reserves of natural energy, turning it into carbon dioxide? I think we can do better. I was supposed to present game studies papers in two important conferences, CHI 2008 in Italy, and Crossroads conference of cultural studies in Jamaica. It was a real pity, but I decided not to go. Continue reading “Not travelling”

Internet censorship in Finland

There is an escalating row currently in Finnish blogosphere and media about Internet censorship: there is now a special law in Finland which allows police to create secret lists of materials that they deem ‘inappropriate’ with some criteria and other, and ISPs are required to block access to those addresses. The law was pushed through with arguments of blocking child pornography, but now it seems that also other kinds of pages, or entire domains, are being blocked, and police declines to give any information about the censorship lists, or publicly defend their decisions. You can read more in Finnish from blogs of Jyrki J.J. Kasvi, an MP, and Petteri Järvinen, an IT author, who comment on the blocking of access to activist Matti Nikki’s anti-censorship site. An issue of fundamental rights, and I hope there will be more serious discussion about the overall ethical problematics of censorship after this.

Future Play proceedings in ACM library

You might be interested in taking a look; the Future Play 2007 conference proceedings have been published online in the ACM digital library:
[click here]
However, this is yet another closed, pay-to-view repository, so the Pervasive Games in Ludic Society paper by Jaakko Stenros, Markus Montola and myself might be locked in there for some. Lets see if it is possible to upload an authors’ version somewhere for open access.

Communicatio Academica

Today Communicatio Academica, the joint seminar of Finnish professors and researchers, takes place in University of Tampere. The main topic of discussion is the integration, unification or collaboration of Finnish universities. Deep-going, structural issues that touch the future of learning, science and scholarship in our country. Program (in Finnish, PDF): [link].

STM meeting

STM meeting
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Today will be spent in Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, where I will be presenting views of digital culture and game studies in a working seminar on children, youth and wellbeing/malaise in contemporary society. Pictured is Minister Paula Risikko.

Finnish digital culture, Finnish independence

Finnish digital culture, Finnish independence
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Tomorrow is the 90th Anniversary for the Finnish republic, the Day of Independence. Today, somewhat appropriately, I visited one of the key coordinating institutions for the preservation of Finnish cultural heritage, Museovirasto (The National Board of Antiquities). Surprisingly lively and exiting discussion followed my brief presentation, looking deep into the possibilities for providing more shared opportunities for the “Museum 2.0” and gamelike, playful structures of collaborative construction of meaning around our national treasures – both material and immaterial treasures, like our memories that we can now attach with the digital versions of physical objects and places with much more flexibility than before.

Against the digital games divide

Here is something that I will be presenting in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health next week: a one page comment paper in Finnish from the game studies point of view to the ongoing discussion about children, youth and interactive media: Kannanotto 12.12.2007 STM:n työkokoukseen. My main points in English are:

Digital culture and games are currently unevenly distributed in our society in a manner which is likely to put them under suspicion, basically because lack of real knowledge (E.g. gameplay experience is often claimed to be more emotionally immersive than e.g. a novel or a movie, whereas according to our research, children actually talk mostly about immersion into challenge or action in games, and it is books and movies that can have really powerful “emotional effects”.)
Children have adventures and engaging experiences with games Continue reading “Against the digital games divide”

Joensuu, Tuusula massacre

Joensuu, Tuusula massacre
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

I am today and tomorrow visiting Joensuu university on the Chancing Views in Technology seminar; pictured is the early morning in Joensuu market square. – Yesterday the news of Tuusula school shootings caught me in the airport. The entire day was spent in deepening feelings of sadness and shock. Today there are already news being published how the Internet is responsible for the massacre, or the shooter games (the school shooter was a fan of shooter games as well as real guns, and übermench style of extreme philosophies). I cannot but just repeat what I have said many times: please care of people in the real life, and they are also better capable of making positive use of the virtual worlds. If the society and people near to a mentally sick person abandon him, there is not much a virtual reality can do to him.

Salary solution for Finnish universities

This autumn has been full of news about the Finnish labour market turmoils — particularly nurses have protested that they were promised a lot during the parliamentary election campaigns, and then let down in the actual salary solutions. This morning there was this piece of news that also university professionals and other government/civil servants have now the results from the salary negotiations: 11,5 % by the end of 2010. I suppose the solution is pretty much in line with what has been going on in the other negotiations, but the entire salary negotiations roulette leaves bad taste in your mouth. The economists and lawyers disagree with the fundamentals on what the current and future Finnish economy can handle in terms of salary rise, politicians change their views on what they have promised and what not — and the “competitive”, “innovation based” knowledge society refuses to fix the unmotivating and deep gap in the basic funding of Finnish universities. See: YLE uutiset / Kotimaa.

Discussing the Sacred and the digital games

The age-old battle between church authority and domains of the popular, the secular and the art takes new forms: the Catholic Church of England is apparently considering of suing Sony Computer Entertainment for use of the likeness of the Manchester Cathedral as a backdrop for a scifi-horror style fantastic battle. See more discussion on this topic in Matteo Bittanti’s blog here: http://www.videoludica.com/news.php?news=639