User:LSClark/Sara grimes

Bio
Sara M. Grimes is an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. She primarily focuses her studies and lessons in children’s media and literature and the ways play and technology interact with one another. She has a PhD and Masters in Communication from Simon Fraser University and a Bachelor’s from the University of Ottawa. Much of her work, published on a personal research blog and several forums such as The Escapist, analyzes the role of children in the virtual setting, the marketing campaigns aimed at children in the virtual setting and social, ethical and cultural impacts the virtual setting has on them. Her most current research regards cultural and legal impacts of child-aged user generated content.

Main Focus of Works
Grimes’ work deals most specifically with the relationship between children and technology. Her studies have brought to light how the increasing usage of the internet by younger audiences, specifically their creation of various media content as well as an increasing trend of blogging, have shaped media marketing policy, content and strategy. Grimes argues that the trend of blogging among today’s generation provides access to bountiful amounts of personal data. While a primary concern of this is potential internet predator bait, Grimes points out that this is additionally a potential gateway to highly specialized marketing campaigns that read through collective personal information to discover what currently appeals most to the target audience. Examples include social tendencies, times when youth were most likely to participate in a specific activity, what products were most commonly used among the target demographic and so forth.

In addition to the possibility of data-mining in order to create a specialized marketing campaign for youth, Grimes has noted that issues of intellectual property and copyright may also present a viable problem. Due to the age group of the target audience, there are debates regarding the ability for their creations to have legitimate ownership and personal rights to the owner despite their statuses as minors. Grimes explains that while this legal confusion and lack of regulation persists, marketers have the ability to discreetly sift through these creators’ media and select preferred content to market as their own without permission of the original creators. Legal and ethical aspects such as these are a large portion of Grimes’ research.

Citing: http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/970000/966500/741.html?ip=130.253.201.39&CFID=45293801&CFTOKEN=84159154&__acm__=1317228058_b4761520d2a4c214e3d029e53414f274

Teaching
Courses taught at Simon Fraser University : Fall 2009 cmns455: Women and New Information Technologies(Archive of Course Website used during the Fall 2009 semester.) Fall 2009/Spring 2009/2010 Cmns324: Media, Sports and Popular Culture Citing: http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/sara-grimes/ Courses teaching at St. Michael’s College : Winter 2012 SMC300H1S Mediating the Social: Social Technologies and Networks Winter 2012 INF1005/1006: Information Workshop: Children's Digital Games Fall 2011 INF2141H: Children's Cultural Texts and Artifacts Fall 2011 INF1240H: Research Methods Citing: http://stmikes.utoronto.ca/bookmedia/faculty.asp Works and Articles: I’m a Barbiegirl in a Barbiegirl's World

In the article, “I’m a barbiegirl in a barbiegirls world, Sara focuses on the Barbie brand how Barbie has reincarnated its brand to a media brand to continue its longevity. With sales declining between 2001 and 2004 by 27 percent, by revamping the brand and transitioning to reach the new generation, Barbie has become one of the most successful children’s virtual worlds to date.

Citing: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_165/5187-Im-a-Barbie-Girl-in-a-BarbieGirls-World

Mining the game

This article discusses the integration of marketing tactics into video games.

Citing: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_86/486-Mining-the-Game Hit'em Hard and Make'em Bleed Citing: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_173/5407-Hitem-Hard-and-Makeem-Bleed

Academic Publications

The Turbulent Rise of the “Child Gamer”: Public Fears and Corporate Promises in Cinematic and Promotional Depictions of Children's Digital Play Citing: Article first published online: 15 SEP 2009;Communication, Culture & Critique Volume 2, Issue 3, pages 319–338, September 2009;http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01040.x/abstract

Rationalizing Play: A Critical Theory of Digital Gaming

Citing: Released online 10 MAR 2009; The Information Society Volume 25, Issue 2; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/01972240802701643#tabModule

Projects: Grimes published many articles on a variety of media related subjects like the increase in gaming among children and the ways that researchers study other researchers. She devoted an article to girl’s relationship with video games entitled, “Getting (More) Girls into (More) Game”. She has been featured in such publications as Pop Matters, Cerise Magazine and Financial Times. She is affiliated with The Edge Lab, Escapist Magazine, The Mother Bear Project and the Union for Democratic Communication.. He colleagues include Alissa Antle, Andrew Feenberg, Benjamin Woo, and Danielle Deveau.

The UGC Game Project Studied on user generated content and the use of commercialization, ownership, relationships between cultural participation and enclosure, fan communities and fair use/dealings, cross-platform convergence and transmedia intertextuality, among others. By shifting the focus onto leisure and play, this project aims to re-situate the analysis within the domestic spaces of children’s every day lives, as well as the liminal spaces “betwixt and between”. Citing: http://www.iposgoode.ca/2009/01/digital-games-ugc-and-the-mainstreaming/

Endorsements : Sara Grimes endorses the games Assassin’s Creed, Child of Eden, Dance Central', Portal 2 and Littlebigplanet2. She endorses certain children’s media like Babble, Center for Children, Commercial Free Childhood and Gamer Camp. She is supportive of the children’s literacy program “Freedom to Read.” http://gamineexpedition.blogspot.com Neopian Economics of Play : Sara Grimes co-wrote an article with Leslie Regan Shade about how Neopets and other children’s games are becoming increasingly commercialized. The article dissects the game as both a business and a form of entertainment. The article was published in The International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics. http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Article,id=5081/ Rationalizing Play : Grimes’ article “Rationalizing Play” was featured in the March 2009 issue of Taylor and Francis. It explores the idea that video games are one of the few areas of play that an adult can justify in our modern society. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01972240802701643 Saturday Morning Cartoons Go MMOG : This piece was featured on Media International Australia. It explains how large children’s television stations (Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Etc.) create websites, which promote their shows more and keep children constantly saturated with advertising for their material. http://www.uq.edu.au/emsah/mia/issues/mia126.html#grimes You Shoot Like a Girl : Grimes wrote an essay about girl’s hesitancy to participate in video games, despite the fact that games now have more female protagonists. Role player games have created an immersive environment, which seems more appealing to men. http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05150.01496