Week 1

— CIM211 —

Class notes

LARPers: hobbyists who re-enact events either from history or fiction for entertainment, e.g. Civil War LARPers who re-enact events from the Civil War for recreation.
Goth:
Straight Edge: A subculture of goth defined by the abstinence from alcohol, drugs, tobacco, etc. to revolt against the excessive use of such in conventional goth culture.
Freegans: free vegans, those who revolt against capitalism and the conventional economy, where they will engage in scavenging through, for example, supermarket bins to either save money or contribute to the cause that revolts against a wasteful society.
Kwaito Culture:
Chola/Cholo: This subculture is found primarily in low socioeconomic groups of Mexican and Spanish people that formed gangs to fulfull their need for belonging, with things like drugs, alcohol and crime being very prevalent in this subculture.

CIM211 23T1 - Week 1 - During class slides - Culture & Subculture

Week 1 Activity

Pre-Class Padlet Activity

Dominant Ideology

I think a dominant ideology for at least the majority of Australian society is that firearms are too dangerous for the general public to access. Australia has very strong firearm laws, with high requirements to deter those who may want to commit a crime with a firearm. The danger of firearms and the importance of gun control is highlighted and reinforced by mainstream media in society.

Reinforcement

One example of media in the mainstream that reinforces this ideology is the public service announcements created by Crime Stoppers, an organisation that specialises in reporting services to fight against criminal activity. In this example, Crime Stoppers' Illegal Guns campaign reinforces the dominant ideology by spreading awareness of the danger that unlicensed or unregistered firearms pose, and push to normalise the reporting of illegal firearms to remove them from the community (Crime Stoppers South Australia, 2022).

References

Crime Stoppers South Australia. (2022, February 18). Illicit Firearms Focus and Permanent National Amnesty. Retrieved May 27, 2022 from https://crimestopperssa.com.au/campaigns/national-firearms-amnesty-2/
Crime Stoppers South Australia. (2022). [Illegal Guns PSA posters] (Image). https://crimestopperssa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/guns-campaign-web.png

Image: Posters created for the Illegal Guns public service announcement by Crime Stoppers (Crime Stoppers South Australia, 2022).

In-Class Padlet Activity

Dominant Culture

Microtransactions are becoming more prevalent in games and are causing games to become more segmented, e.g. with additional content locked behind paywalls.

Hegemony

These microtransactions are presented in a way that makes the player feel that they'll get more content by paying more, whereas in the past, paying for the base game would have yielded them the same amount of content.

Media Example

Escape From Tarkov's recent new tier for buying the game, the Unheard Edition, locks a core gamemode behind a paywall, including for the previous top tier for the game, Edge of Darkness Edition, which players were promised free access for all subsequent DLC. Before this, tiers higher than the base game offered better gear that were otherwise attainable with the base game.

References

Dinsdale, R. (2024, April 29). Escape From Tarkov Dev's 'Shameless' Controversy Response Called Out By Fans and Esports Company. IGN. Retrieved May 28, 2024 from https://www.ign.com/articles/escape-from-tarkov-devs-shameless-controversy-response-called-out-by-fans-and-esports-company.

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