[Air-l] new issue on games and ethics

[Charles Ess]

Hi AoIR-ists

I'm pleased to announce that the current issue of the International Review
of Information Ethics, a special issue on ethics and computer games, is now
online,  <http://www.i-r-i-e.net/current_issue.htm>.

The issue was co-edited by AoIR Ethics Working Group members Elizabeth
Buchanan and Charles Ess, and includes articles by our sister and fellow
AoIRists Mia Consalvo and Dan Burk. (And perhaps others?  Apologies if I've
omitted a name - I don't have access to the membership list!)

As we note in the forward, much of the especially popular discussion of
computer games tends to come in the form of Manichean dualities, fueled by
moral panics.  By contrast, there is a striking lack of serious
philosophical scholarship and reflection on the ethical issues involved -
i.e., that takes into account the manifold complexities of what our German
colleagues like to call e-games, including their social dimensions.
    We hope that the articles in this special issue begin to address that
scholarly deficit - and thereby provide scholarship that is more guided by
attention to the complexities of e-games (including their cross-cultural
dimensions) and more extensive ethical and legally-informed reflection.
Ideally, we hope these articles will help cut through the largely artificial
and unproductive dichotomies of "Computer games: good or bad?" and help
inform and shape more productive dialogue and reflection on computer games
as a phenomenon of rapidly growing significance in both Internet research
(especially Computer and Information Ethics) and our larger social and
political worlds.

If you find this issue, and/or specific articles of relevance and interest
(ahem, say by Mia Consalvo or Dan Burk - smile), we would appreciate your
calling these to your colleagues' attention.

Thanks - and enjoy!

Charles Ess

Distinguished Research Professor,
Interdisciplinary Studies <http://www.drury.edu/gp21>
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.              Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA       FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html

Co-chair, CATaC'06: http://www.catacconference.org
Co-chair, ECAP'06: http://www.eu-cap.org

Professor II, Globalization and Applied Ethics Programmes
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
http://www.anvendtetikk.ntnu.no/pres/bridgingcultures.php

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23