The ludus of the media: taming, coercion and reproduction as categories of the media experience

Abstract

In a private school in the city of São Paulo, Brasil, elementary school students (age 6) have been receiving tablet computers equipped with apps and video games designed for educational purposes. This article is the result of a daily observation of the classrooms in which children used the tablets and its applications. The research is part of a Master’s Degree written by Mota e Silva (2016) and supervised by Baitello. By the application of focal groups, observations and a unique method of mimetic work with imagery, the research’s objective was to comprehend how the insertion of that equipment altered the communicational environment of the classroom, and also to comprehend how the consumption of images through the tablet impacted the children’s imagery. It has been verified indications of how those images transmitted by the equipment sediment itself in the imagery in a process that can be better described by evoking the theories about the play experience and games proposed by Huizinga (2010), Caillois (1990), allied with the Historical Anthropology as developed by Kamper (2002a; 2002b). A ludus of the media experience is perceived as a vector that defines the impact and the dynamics of this early media ambience.