1. Ruffin Bailey North Carolina State University Template shamelessly stolen from Christian Casper Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames

2. Note: Two note taking applications Windows: Foxit Reader -- http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ Macintosh: Skim -- http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/ http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/

3. Overview Bogost’s Background What are Unit Operations? Discussion of “Rhetorics” Discussion Questions

4. Bogost’s Background B.A. -- Philosophy and Comparative Literature -- USC M.A. and Ph.D. -- Comparative Literature -- UCLA –Worked with N. Katherine HaylesN. Katherine Hayles Faculty at Georgia Tech –School of Literature, Communication, and Culture –Works with Janet MurrayJanet Murray

5. Bogost on the Report

6. Unit Operations: Definition “modes of meaning-making that privilege discrete, disconnected actions over deterministic, progressive systems.” “unit operations privilege function over context, instances over longevity.” “unit operations give us a lever for understanding any form of human production as potentially procedural.”

7. Unit vs. System “I contend that unit operations represent a shift away from system operations…” “a movement away from the simple, orderly, static categorization of things.” “In human biology, DNA nucleotide bonding displays unit operations; the Darwinian idea of acquired characteristics illustrates system operations.” “The Internet, the brain, human genetics, and social fads are examples of complex, unit- driven networks.”

8. Traditional “Rhetorics” Socratic –Technical –Vs. Dialectic (“unknown conclusions”) Sophistic –Demonstrative/performative Aristotelian –Philosophical

9. Burke Broadens “While rhetoric still entails persuasion for Burke, he greatly expands its purview, arguing that it facilitates human action in general” (20) “Wherever there is persuasion,” writes Burke, “there is rhetoric. And wherever there is ‘meaning,’ there is ‘persuasion’” (21).

10. “New Rhetorics” Visual –Emotional vs. Philosophical? (21ff) –Manipulated vs. Persuaded? (34) Digital –Digital non-digital Procedural “Success means effective expression, not necessarily effective influence” (20)

11. McDonald’s Video Game, “anti-advergame” (29)

12. Save the Whales; Rhetoric? “but the actions themselves are designed to generate provocation, not to make arguments for policy changes.” –Provocation isn’t rhetoric? “Topics like taxation, deforestation, and globalization are not the usual subject matter of videogames… Procedural rhetoric is not limited to such anomalous specimens…”