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APRU Games and Esports Webinar Series - Oct 2022

The APRU Games and Esports webinar series provides an opportunity for members of the APRU Games and Esports Research Working Group and invited guests to share information about their recent, current, or upcoming research related to games and esports. The series is intended to promote interaction among Working Group members in the hopes of building up international research collaborations and outcomes.

NOTE: Events in the series will typically last 90 minutes and feature two speakers. Each speaker will have 20 minutes to present, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A and discussion.

Date & Time
26 October 2022 5PM-6:30PM (Los Angeles/Vancouver)
27 October 2022 8AM-9:30AM (Beijing/Singapore)
27 October 2022 11AM-12:30PM (Sydney)
Check your local time

Registration: by invitation only

Webinar Speakers and Moderators
26/27 October

Speakers (in alphabetical order of last name):

  • Dr Mark JOHNSON, Lecturer in Digital Cultures, Discipline of Media and Communications, The University of Sydney
    Topic: Viewer perspectives on cheating in Esports: Ethics, explanations, and excuses
  • Dr ZHAO Yupei, Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University
    Topic: Esports in Asia: Critical culturalism and value co-evolution

Moderator: Professor Patrick WILLIAMS, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

 

Speakers
Dr Mark JOHNSON
Lecturer in Digital Cultures, Discipline of Media and Communications, The University of Sydney

Dr Mark R Johnson is a Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on live streaming and Twitch.tv, esports, game consumption and production, and gamification and gamblification. He has published in journals including ‘Information, Communication and Society’, ‘New Media and Society’, ‘Media, Culture and Society’, ‘Convergence’, and ‘Games and Culture’. Outside academia he is also an independent game designer best known for the roguelike game ‘Ultima Ratio Regum’, and a regular games blogger and podcaster.

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Dr ZHAO Yupei
Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University

Dr Yupei Zhao (PhD in University of Leicester, UK) is an “Hundred Talent Program Young Professor” and doctorial tutor in college of Media and International Culture in Zhejiang University. She is currently vice chair-elected of International Communication Association Popular Media and Culture Division, vice dean of Chinese Society for Science and Technology Jounalism in Game and eSports Communication Research Professionals. Co-founder of UK-China Media and Communication Association. Before joining ZJU, she was working as a senior research associate in school of Communciation and Design in Sun Yat-sen University. Meanwhile, Yupei Zhao has been invited as senior researcher in Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies, China Policy institute at University of Nottingham (UK), and the Eurasian Sport Industry at Emlyon’s Shanghai Campus, visiting professor in Xi’an-Liverpool University and Beijing Institute of Technology.

Her research interests widely includes mixed-methods use to examine digital culture and platformalization, global communication, media culture and industry. Particurly, she pays more attentions on eSports culture and industry, digital music and culture, fandom culture, media and platformalization. She has a PhD and MA focusing on Political Communication and New Media in University of Leicester (UK) since 2010 to 2016. Thus far, she is PI for twelve research funding projects, and her research has appeared in International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Cultural Economy, International Journal of Communication, Social Science Quarterly, Sage Open, Social media + Society, Media International Australia, popular music and society etc. She got “The Best Paper” Paper Award in both 2020 and 2019 International Communication Association Popular Media and Culture Division, and 2019 European Association for Sport Management.

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Professor Patrick WILLIAMS (Moderator)
Associate Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Patrick Williams (PhD) is Associate Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His primary areas of research are culture and identity, wherein he splits his time between the study of subcultural identity and authenticity on the one hand, and game-related experiences and identities on the other. Among his many publications, he has authored and edited several books on culture, identity and/or games, including Gaming as Culture: Essays in Social Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games(2006), Subcultural Theory: Traditions and Concepts(2011), and Studies on the Social Construction of Identity and Authenticity (2020). His current research focuses on the significance of DIY culture and identity in the growth of esports in Singapore.

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Contact
Us

Enquiry:

Ms. Anya Wong
Program Officer
[email protected]

Enquiry
Program Schedule
26/27 Oct

Speaker: Dr Mark JOHNSON, Lecturer in Digital Cultures, Discipline of Media and Communications, The University of Sydney

 

Viewer perspectives on cheating in Esports: Ethics, explanations, and excuses

 

Esports contests at the highest levels frequently involve millions of dollars in prize money and spectatorship numbers in six or seven figures. Given these opportunities for financial success and public visibility, players have found ways to cheat in esports competitions. We draw on over one thousand qualitative survey responses from esports viewers to examine how spectators perceive cheating, both “cheating to win” (attempting to secure an illegitimate victory) or “cheating to lose” (profit or advancement is secured by throwing a match). We show that spectators hold complex views ranking different forms of cheating, displaying varying levels of understanding of the esports ecosystem, and conceptualising cheating as often more a matter of rule breaking than ethical transgression. We conclude that esports viewers’ perspectives are heavily informed by their own play, and the opacity of certain elements of professionalised esports, with implications for the long-term sustainability of esports as a cultural form.

Speaker: Dr ZHAO Yupei, Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University

 

Esports in Asia: Critical culturalism and value co-evolution

 

Within eSports, more than 55% of players globally are in the Asia-Pacific, which is still the fastest-growing region. In this talk we introduce an APRU-affiliated project, lead by Yupei Zhao and Patrick Williams, and seek input from other Research Working Group members. The idea firstly is to focus on how eSports as sport is embraced within different national contexts. Second, we suggest the concept of transculturalism to map out how things such as agency, social cognition and power flow among different contexts. Third, we want to consider how to explore the structure and co-evolution of the Asian eSports ecosystem from a cross-cultural perspective, which we believe remains an important perspective among today’s eSports scholars.

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