{"title":"Shira Chess","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ready-player-two-book-shira-chess-9781517900694","title":"Ready Player Two","description":"Cultural stereotypes to the contrary, approximately half of all video game players are now women. A subculture once dominated by men, video games have become a form of entertainment composed of gender binaries. Supported by games such as Diner Dash, Mystery Case Files, Wii Fit, and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood-which are all specifically marketed toward women-the gamer industry is now a major part of imagining what femininity should look like.   In Ready Player Two, media critic Shira Chess uses the concept of “Player Two”-the industry idealization of the female gamer-to examine the assumptions implicit in video games designed for women and how they have impacted gaming culture and the larger society. With Player Two, the video game industry has designed specifically for the feminine ideal: she is white, middle class, heterosexual, cis-gendered, and abled. Drawing on categories from time management and caregiving to social networking, consumption, and bodies, Chess examines how games have been engineered to shape normative ideas about women and leisure.  Ready Player Two presents important arguments about how gamers and game developers must change their thinking about both women and games to produce better games, better audiences, and better industry practices. Ultimately, this book offers vital prescriptions for how one of our most powerful entertainment industries must evolve its ideas of women.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49571107995921,"sku":"GOR010971303","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50270028235025,"sku":"CIN1517900697G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51198100013329,"sku":"CIN1517900697VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1517900697.jpg?v=1764845049"},{"product_id":"play-like-a-feminist-book-shira-chess-9780262044387","title":"Play like a Feminist.","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn important new voice provides an empowering look at why video games need feminism-and why all of us should make space for more play in our lives.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eYou play like a girl\u003c\/i\u003e- It's meant to be an insult, accusing a player of subpar, un-fun playing. If you're a girl, and you grow up, do you \"play like a woman\"-whatever that means?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In this provocative and enlightening book, Shira Chess urges us to play like feminists. Playing like a feminist is empowering and disruptive-it exceeds the boundaries of gender yet still advocates for gender equality. Roughly half of all players identify as female, and \"Gamergate\" galvanized many of gaming's disenfranchised voices. Chess argues games are in need of a creative platform-expanding, metaphysical explosion-and feminism can take us there. She reflects on the importance of play, playful protest, and how feminist video games can help us rethink the ways that we tell stories. Feminism needs video games as much as video games need feminism.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Play and games can be powerful. Chess's goal is for all of us-regardless of gender orientation, ethnicity, ability, social class, or stance toward feminism-to spend more time playing as a tool of radical disruption.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49737951936785,"sku":"NGR9780262044387","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50660656185617,"sku":"CIN0262044382VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51415597842705,"sku":"CIN0262044382G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262044382.jpg?v=1751446593"},{"product_id":"unseen-internet-book-shira-chess-9780262553889","title":"The Unseen Internet","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow the intersection of magical thinking and technological innovation helped to form digital culture, both past and present.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Our contemporary digital landscape often reflects a strange logic- Elon Musk believes there's a one-in-a-billion chance that we are not living in a computer simulation. People argue about culturally collective false memories popularly known as \"Mandela Effects.\" And various factions engaged in a magic meme war leading up to the 2016 election. In \u003ci\u003eThe Unseen Internet\u003c\/i\u003e, Shira Chess explores the tensions between the occult and digital spaces in the twenty-first century. These practices have resulted in distinct kinds of otherworldly discourse that affects the broader popular perceptions of reality in the twenty-first century, within and beyond the internet.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Behind the glossy sheen of slick social media influencers and corporate oligopolies, the internet is built in part on a foundation of magical thinking. The word \"magic\" here is not entirely metaphorical, although the metaphor is not irrelevant. Historically the emergence of the internet was concurrent with technopaganism, which blended digital technologies with the occult in ways that are both seen and unseen by the casual user. While technopaganism is not the only lens with which to understand the emergence of the internet, it is an understudied one that reaches toward contemporary anxieties about the ineffability of our tech.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52435831554321,"sku":"NGR9780262553889","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53336371167505,"sku":"GOR014856610","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780262553889.jpg?v=1769687082"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-shira-chess.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}