Publications

Infrastructures Enabling Creativity and Play in Hybrid Spaces.

Glover, R. (2024). Infrastructures Enabling Creativity and Play in Hybrid Spaces. In The Mobile Media Debate (pp. 130-142). Routledge.

Studies of hybrid spaces often focus on the important role of mobile and computational media in contributing to experiences of these spaces. This chapter argues for a focus on infrastructures. Infrastructures possess a politics that becomes inherited by hybrid spaces. This politics shapes who has access to hybrid spaces and how these spaces are experienced over time. Yet, a focus on how infrastructures co-produce hybrid spaces is not without debate. One concern is that by focusing on infrastructures, we lose sight of the important role of mobile and computational media. Another concern relates to the technological determinism implied by stating that infrastructures contribute to the production of hybrid spaces. This chapter highlights the contours of this debate. It concludes by providing three strategies that scholars might use to better understand the constitutive role of infrastructures within hybrid spaces: (1) look to creativity/play to identify how infrastructures shapes experiences in hybrid spaces, (2) understand creative/playful practices used to achieve infrastructural access, and (3) examine creative/playful interventions that people make to maintain access to hybrid spaces.

Software Presentation: The Retro Mobile Gaming Database.

de Souza e Silva, A. & Glover-Rijkse, R. (2023). Software presentation: The retro mobile gaming database. Mobile Media & Communication, 11(3), 566-571.

With the goal to provide a research resource for those interested in mobile, ludic and digital cultures, we have developed an online, publicly searchable database of early mobile games developed between 1975 and 2008. The Retro Mobile Gaming Database (RMGD) offers mobile communication scholars, game scholars, students interested in games, and game enthusiasts a centralized repository where they can search for games by using a wide range of criteria, such as title, time frame, genre, type of connectivity, number of players, place of development, authors and hardware (Figure 1). The database also provides a map that shows the geographical location of where the searched games were developed, displays popular press and scholarly articles written about the games and suggests related games (Figure 2). By combining search criteria, users can trace new correlations and interdependencies among games that otherwise might not be evident. Key research questions that the database could help answer include: (a) how the hardware for mobile games has changed with time; (b) who the key developers and artists in the history of mobile games are; and (c) how developments in connectivity have enabled sociability and collaborative opportunities while playing mobile games.

Rethinking Micromobility as Mobilities Justice: Location-based Traffic Apps in Rio de Janeiro

de Souza e Silva, A. & Glover-Rijkse (2022). Rethinking Micromobility as Mobilities Justice: Location-based Traffic Apps in Rio de Janeiro. In Stein, E., Halegous, G., and Kredell, B. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Media and the City. New York: Routledge

In this chapter, we review how micro-mobility location-based apps are integrated with forms of urban mobility in Rio de Janeiro. We discuss how these apps may (or may not) support sustainable urban mobility in Global South regions by focusing on key issues of security, physical accessibility, and economic status. We conclude by connecting the analysis with a discussion of creative appropriation of technologies in situations of hardship.

Evolving Geographies of Mobile Communication

Glover-Rijkse, R., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2022). Evolving Geographies of Mobile Communication. In P. Adams & B. Warf (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Media Geographies. New York: Routledge.

This chapter considers the evolving ways in which mobile communication technologies produce and shape experiences of spaces, focusing on three key moments: (1) the late 1990s and early 2000s, when mobile phones were widely diffused and adopted into new spaces, (2) the emergence of smartphones in the late 2000s, along with the normalization of locations embedded with digital information, and (3) the spread of mobile infrastructures in the second decade of the 21st century, demonstrating how these infrastructures impact communication and mobility.

Playful mobilities in the Global South: A study of Pokémon Go play in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi

de Souza e Silva, A., Glover-Rijkse, R., Njathi, A., de Cunto Bueno, D. (2021).Playful mobilities in the Global South: A study of Pokémon Go play in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi. New Media & Society.

Pokémon Go is the most popular location-based game worldwide. As a location-based game, Pokémon Go’s gameplay is connected to networked urban mobility. However, urban mobility differs significantly around the world. Large metropoles in South America and Africa, for example, experience ingrained social, cultural, and economic inequalities. With this in mind, we interviewed Pokémon Go players in two Global South cities, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Nairobi (Kenya), to understand how players navigate urban spaces not only based on gameplay but with broader concerns for safety. Our findings reveal that players negotiate their urban mobilities based on perceptions of risk and safety, choosing how to move around and avoiding areas known for violence and theft. These findings are relevant for understanding the social and political aspects of networked urban spaces as well as for investigating games as venues through which we can understand ordinary life, racial, gender, and socioeconomic inequalities.

Exploring the material conditions of Pokémon Go play in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi

de Souza e Silva, A., Glover-Rijkse, R., Njathi, A., de Cunto Bueno, D. (2021). Exploring the material conditions of Pokémon Go play in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi. Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1909098

Pokémon Go offers an important locus for understanding how location-based mobile gaming practices interconnect with urban mobility and the materialities of urban spaces. Yet, most of the literature on location-based mobile games overlooks the specific materialities that influence gameplay in Global South cities. These are worth considering, given that Pokémon Go requires players to move through their environment with access to both a mobile smartphone and network connection. These prerequisites pose challenges to players because in some Global South cities players experience difficult mobilities, precarious access to technologies, and inconsistent networked connections. To explore these issues, we offer a qualitative study about Pokémon Go gameplay in two large Global South cities: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Nairobi (Kenya). We have chosen these two cities because of their similar social, infrastructural, and economic inequalities. Based on interviews with Pokémon Go players, we explore how these inequalities shape the interconnections between location-based gameplay, mobile phone use, and urban mobilities. We found out that players often contend with urban challenges by adopting a number of practices, unique to their local context, to successfully play the game. These practices include collaborating and caring for others during and outside gameplay and adjusting their mobilities to preserve networked connections. Our study contributes an understanding of how players, in these cities, respond to their material circumstances in order to play the game and care for each other. We also offer a framework for understanding location-based gameplay outside Global North contexts.

Historicizing Hybrid Spaces in Mobile Media Art

de Souza e Silva, A. & Glover-Rijkse, R. (2020). Historicizing Hybrid Spaces in Mobile Media Art. In: L. Hjorth, A. de Souza e Silva, & K. Lanson (Eds.), The Routledge Companion of Mobile Media Art. New York: Routledge, pp. 117-128.

In this chapter, we historicize hybrid spaces by analysing how early telecommunications-based art has reinterpreted public places, using telecommunication technologies (e.g., satellites, telephones, videophones, flip phones) as interfaces for art making and the city as a canvas for artwork. In doing so, we situate telecommunications-based art in relation to mobile media art, emphasizing telecommunications-based art as a foundation for mobile media art. We argue that the artists who created these works transformed sociability and human interaction in urban places and spaces. Our goal is to analyze the hybrid space-making practices of early telecommunications-based artists in relation to current practices of contemporary mobile media artists.

You start it: A dialogue with Nick Tandavanitj from Blast Theory

Glover-Rijkse, R. (2020). You start it: A dialogue with Nick Tandavanitj from Blast Theory. In: A. de Souza e Silva and R. Glover-Rijkse. (Eds). Hybrid Play: Crossing Boundaries in Game Design, Player Identities, and Play Spaces. New York: Routledge Press.

In this chapter, I offer a dialogue with Nick Tandavanitj about how Blast Theory does this in their games / art work. We begin by discussing the development of Blast Theory’s work since its formation in 1991. Then, we transition to discuss the process of integrating hybrid play in their work.
In this dialogue, Nick Tandavanitj describes three interrelated characteristics that Blast Theory uses to create hybrid play experiences: (1) permeable boundaries, (2) pervasiveness, and (3) presence and liveness.

Hybrid Play: Crossing Boundaries in Game Design, Player Identities, and Play Spaces

This book explores hybrid play as a site of interdisciplinary activity―one that is capable of generating new forms of mobility, communication, subjects, and artistic expression as well as new ways of interacting with and understanding the world. The chapters in this collection explore hybrid making, hybrid subjects, and hybrid spaces, generating interesting conversations about the past, current and future nature of hybrid play. Together, the authors offer important insights into how place and space are co-constructed through play; how, when, and for what reasons people occupy hybrid spaces; and how cultural practices shape elements of play and vice versa. A diverse group of scholars and practitioners provides a rich interdisciplinary perspective, which will be of great interest to those working in the areas of games studies, media studies, communication, gender studies, and media arts.

Public address as embodied experience: using digital technologies to enhance communicative and civic engagement in the communication classroom

Gallagher, V., Renner, M. & Glover-Rijkse, R. (2020). Public address as embodied experience: using digital technologies to enhance communicative and civic engagement in the communication classroom. Communication Education, 69(2), pp. 1-19.

This study examines how students characterize their experience of a communication-based digital humanities project in relation to elements of situated embodiment and situated learning. Analysis of student response data indicates that the Virtual Martin Luther King Project situates students in a particular space and historical context resulting in communication outcomes including a form of cognitive attention that is conducive of reflection and fosters civic engagement. The essay concludes with a discussion of what is transferable from this case in relation to creating the conditions for situated learning and public address as immersive, embodied experience in communication classrooms.

Mobilized networked infrastructures: Implications for action, space, and knowledge.

Glover-Rijkse, R. (2019). Mobilized networked infrastructures: Implications for action, space, and knowledge. Mobile Media & Communication, 7(3), pp. 380-394.

Networked infrastructures support the flows of information and communication. While traditional conceptions of networked infrastructures render them necessarily immobile and centralized, this article rethinks the concept of networked infrastructures to instead consider their mobility. In doing so, this article conceptualizes mobilized networked infrastructures (MNIs) and examines their implications in three sections: Forms of Action, Production of Networked Space, and Ways of Knowing. The Forms of Action section indicates that, over time, MNIs have allowed for new spaces and practices of communicative mobility. The Production of Networked Space section considers the speculative potential for MNIs to deterritorialize networked space, but argues that MNIs often reinforce already networked spaces and reterritorialize deterritorialized networked space. Finally, the Ways of Knowing section examines the mobility of networked infrastructures as a new way of knowing by allowing the tracking of infrastructural mobilities in addition to, and in concert with, the tracking of human and nonhuman actors.