Building culture in digital media
The video game “Grand Theft Auto V,” which recently grossed $1 billion in its first three days on sale, is set in the fictional city of Los Santos. But if you’ve played the game, you probably don’t need anyone to tell you that Los Santos is a simulation of Los Angeles. The setting, the characters, and the objects in the game all draw upon — and reinforce — a reservoir of existing cultural images about theft, violence, urban life, and other aspects of U.S. society.Such elements of stories, and indeed many cultural images based on particular worldviews, are “phantasms,” as MIT associate professor of digital media Fox Harrell writes in his new book about computing and expression. A phantasm, as Harrell writes, is “an image integrated with cultural knowledge and beliefs.” Such images help imbue stories with meaning — constructing imaginative worlds that may affect an audience member’s understanding of...