Game studies seminar : “Mediated Intimacy: para-social relationships with game characters“ (Joleen Blom, Tampere University)
5th of May at 5pm GMT+2
Online : meet.google.com/kzr-nfsw-qnk
Organized by the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University
Presentation
Why do we create intimate connections with fictional characters? And how do games let us create relationships with these figures? In an increasingly technological world, Joleen explores and reflects on what games and related playful technology do to stimulate para-social relations with characters, and what it means for our understanding of intimacy.
Dr Joleen Blom is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University, where she just started her project ‘Mediated Intimacy’ on para-social relationships with game characters. She received her Ph.D. in 2020 at the IT University of Copenhagen for which she wrote a dissertation on transmedia- and game characters.