Toys, games, and media

Abstract

Toys, Games, and Media. Jeffrey Goldstein, David Buckingham, and Gilles Brougere, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 249 pp. $69.95 hbk. At first glance, Toys, Games, and Media appears a bit unfocused. Its title suggests three different topics. Its subdivisions-Toy Culture, Children and Digital Media, and How Technology Influences Play-also suggest different foci. Its three editors are affiliated with organizations whose names suggest divergent interests: the International Toy Research Association and the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth, and Media at the University of London Institute of Education. Yet Toys, Games, and Media works as a unit, largely because of the excellent introduction provided by its editors. Its real topic, as the editors point out, is convergence, a subject often discussed but too seldom investigated. Here, convergence refers to the seamless blending of toys, games, and media, both in the commercial marketplace and in children's lives. In today's world, traditional play has not lost its appeal, but digital technology is increasingly applied to the pursuit of pleasure. Many computer-mediated activities and games are driven by purposeful goals, such as education in the form of edutainment. At the same time, games and activities are promoted through webs of integrated marketing, which link books, movies, television shows, and other media with toys of many kinds. Toys, Games, and Media focuses on the interconnections between traditional toys and play and those mediated by or combined with digital technology. The book has much to recommend it. Its perspective is multicultural. Its seventeen authors represent universities and research institutes in eight different countries. Its scope is broad. Most of the research is cutting edge, some based on prototype and new hybrid toys, such as electric toy vehicles with global positioning systems (GPS) that adapt scooters and tricycles for use by seeing-impaired children. Less appealing is the book's heavy reliance on qualitative research. Observations, interviews, etc., are appropriate in the initial investigation of an issue, when such information can help frame questions for subsequent studies. Such is the case with Christine R. Yano's fascinating Litter: Japanese Cute at Home and Abroad, which addresses the marketing of Hello Kitty items in Japan and other parts of the world. In several other chapters, however, quantitative methods could have added depth to the analysis of issues that have been studied previously. Also disappointing is the uneven quality of the writing. In a few chapters, traditional elements of research papers, such as literature reviews and descriptions of research methods, are sketchy or missing entirely. …