Nick Dyer-Witheford
Nick Dyer-Witheford is an author, and associate professor at the University of Western Ontario in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies.[1] His area of study primarily focuses on the rise of technology and the internet, as well as their continuous impact on modern society. He's written six books, along with seventeen other publications.
Bibliography
Books
- 1999: Cyber Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-technology Capitalism, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 9780252067952
- 2003: Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing, McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 9780773525917
- 2009: Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0816666105
- 2015: Cyber Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex, Pluto Press, ISBN 1771132221
- 2019: Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 9781452960487
- 2019: Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism, Pluto Press, ISBN 0745338607
Journals
- "Games of Magnitude" (Fibreculture, 2010)[2]
- "A Playful Multitude? Mobilising and Counter-Mobilising Immaterial Game Labour" (Fibreculture, 2005)[3]
- "Prolegomenon to a theory of slump media" (with James R. Compton, Media, Culture & Society, 2014)[4]
- "Net, square, everywhere?" (Radical Philosophy, 2012)[5]
- "Nintendo Capitalism: Enclosures and Insurgencies, Virtual and Terrestrial" (Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 2011)[6]
- "Commons and Cooperatives" (with Greg de Peuter, Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action, 2010)[7]
- "Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis Under Communitarian Capitalism" (Perspectives on Politics, 2007)[8]
- ""EA Spouse" and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, and Exodus" (with Greg de Peuter, Canadian Journal of Communication, 2006)[9]
- "The Political Economy of Canada's Video and Computer Game Industry" (with Zena Sharman, Canadian Journal of Communication, 2005)[10]
- "The New Combinations: Revolt of the Global Value-Subjects" (CR The New Centennial Review, 2001)[11]
- "Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker" (Rethinking Marxism, 2001)[12]
- "The Work in Digital Play" (Journal of International Communication, 1999)[13]
- "Cognitive Capitalism and the Contested Campus" (Engineering Culture, 2019)[14]
Chapters
- "Hegemony or Multitude? Two Versions of Radical Democracy for the Net" (Radical Democracy and the Internet, 2007)[15]
Articles
Papers
- "Species-beings: For Biocommunism" (2008)[18]
Publications
Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games
“Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games,” is Dyer-Witheford's third book, published in 2009 and cowritten with Greg de Peuter. In it they talk about how the history of video games has shown how capitalism has shaped the means of how the video game industry works. It serves as an analytical approach to areas such as control, industry and expenditure over the short life of video games.[7] Dyer-Witheford and Peuter use a marxian lens to examine the concept of games as a contributor to a substantial part of financial systems.[19]
Critical Reception
The book received mixed reviews from its readers. Dr.Joseph Rebello, assistant professor of economics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said "Reactions, both positive and negative, to this work have been strong. This is not the place to rehash existing debates, but a reader uncomfortable with the very concepts of empire and multitude will probably not be entirely convinced by the book's arguments concerning imperial and multitudinous games. That being said, the book offers plenty of insight to anyone interested in the political economy of video games (or that of popular media).[19] Media lawyer Alex Wade, deemed it "Readable and accessible" and said "its critical approach was a vital counterpoint to the sclerotic ludology/narratology debate that dominated games studies discourse in the early years of the 21st century.[20]
Accolades
Nick Dyer-Witheford won the Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize in 2016 by the Canadian Communication Association. He was given the award for his book, Cyber Proletariat: Global Labour in the Digital Vortex. The prize is named after Professor Gertrude J. Robinson for all she had done for the field of communications across the globe.[21]
References
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick; Peuter, Greig De (2009). Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816666102.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick; Peuter, Greig de (2010-07-01). "Games of Multitude". Fibreculture Journal (16). ISSN 1449-1443.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick; Peuter, Greig de (2005-01-01). "A Playful Multitude? Mobilising and Counter-Mobilising Immaterial Game Labour". Fibreculture Journal (5). ISSN 1449-1443.
- Compton, James; Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2014-11-01). "Prolegomenon to a theory of slump media". Media, Culture & Society. 36 (8): 1196–1206. doi:10.1177/0163443714544867. ISSN 0163-4437.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick. "Nick Dyer-Witheford: Net, square, everywhere? / Radical Philosophy". Radical Philosophy. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2001). "Nintendo Capitalism: Enclosures and Insurgencies, Virtual and Terrestrial". Canadian Journal of Development Studies. 22 (4): 965–996. doi:10.1080/02255189.2001.9669951. ISSN 0225-5189.
- Reyes, Ian (2017). "Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter, Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games (2009)". Markets, Globalization & Development Review. 2 (1). doi:10.23860/mgdr-2017-02-01-08. ISSN 2473-4055.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2007). "Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis Under Communitarian Capitalism". Perspectives on Politics. 5 (3): 649. doi:10.1017/S1537592707071927. ISSN 1537-5927.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick; De Peuter, Greig S. (2006-10-23). ""EA Spouse" and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, and Exodus". Canadian Journal of Communication. 31 (3). doi:10.22230/cjc.2006v31n3a1771. ISSN 1499-6642.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick; Sharman, Zena (2005-04-24). "The Political Economy of Canada's Video and Computer Game Industry". Canadian Journal of Communication. 30 (2). doi:10.22230/cjc.2005v30n2a1575. ISSN 1499-6642.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2001). "The New Combinations: Revolt of the Global Value-Subjects". CR: The New Centennial Review. 1 (3): 155–200. doi:10.1353/ncr.2003.0063. ISSN 1539-6630.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2001). "Empire, Immaterial Labor, the New Combinations, and the Global Worker". Rethinking Marxism. 13 (3–4): 70–80. doi:10.1080/089356901101242009. ISSN 0893-5696.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (1999). "The work in digital play: Video gaming's transnational and gendered division of labour". Journal of International Communication. 6 (1): 69–93. doi:10.1080/13216597.1999.9751883. ISSN 1321-6597.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2019). "COGNITIVE CAPITALISM AND THE CONTESTED CAMPUS". Engineering Culture: 71–93.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2007), "Hegemony or Multitude? Two Versions of Radical Democracy for the Net", Radical Democracy and the Internet, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 191–206, doi:10.1057/9780230592469_11, ISBN 978-1-349-28315-6
- Fuchs, Christian; Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2013-08-01). "Karl Marx @ Internet Studies". New Media & Society. 15 (5): 782–796. doi:10.1177/1461444812462854. ISSN 1461-4448.
- Coleman, Sarah; Dyer-Witheford, Nick (2007). "Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture". Media, Culture & Society. 29 (6): 934–953. doi:10.1177/0163443707081700. ISSN 0163-4437.
- Dyer-Witheford, Nick (January 2008). "Species-beings: For Biocommunism". Species-beings: For Biocommunism. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.458.8546.
- Rebello, Joseph (2014-04-03). "Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games, by Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009". Rethinking Marxism. 26 (2): 291–294. doi:10.1080/08935696.2014.885219. ISSN 0893-5696.
- Wade, Alex (2010). "Book Review: Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Videogames". The Sociological Review. 58 (4): 716–718. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2010.01955.x. ISSN 0038-0261.
- "Cyber-Proletariat wins book prize – Between the Lines". btlbooks.com. Retrieved 2019-11-18.