Interactive Media: Studying Multiple Interactivity And Narrative Patterns Of Digital Game

Since the digital game can be viewed as a typical form of new media, this study analyses its communication model, multiple interactivity character and narrative patterns in order to figure out its media features which attracts massive players. The findings of this paper can enrich communication theory and media theory and tries to answer the new questions of communication theory under the new media environment.By using interviews, observation, case analysis in conjunction with the researchers'gaming experience, the paper clarifies the concepts of game, media and digital game, reviews the development of the digital game and constructs the game's communication model:Game's Multiple Encoding and Decoding Model, which shifts the traditional binary pattern between senders and receivers in the mass media. The main part of this model is the behavior of players with the coexistence of multiple encoding and decoding.Then through the study of typical case of digital games, game reports and interviews with players and game developers, the paper finds out the coexistence of three types of interactivity: player-to-computer, player-to-game, and player-to-player, which builds huge virtual game communities and interpersonal interaction platform. Based on the player-to-computer interactivity, the players not only "use and flow in" the games, but also put their own intelligence into the game's content. The players'multiple choice and active involvement means that in the virtual world the players build a large number of game guilds of different types and functions and communicate with other players deeply and extensively. The multiple interactivity of the digital game spawns the game's different narrative patterns and the mechanism of generating meaning, which is based on the players'own game-choice. In the game world, the players personalize the setting of the avatars and wander with the multiple viewing angles and overlapping narrative identity, the nonlinear-narrative and synchronic-narrative of that is closer to the narrative rules and patterns of the real world than other media.The dissertation is consisted of seven chapters. The first one introduces the topic, study significance and methods. The second chapter reviews the research literature of games and digital games at home and abroad. The third one defines the concept of game, media and digital game in order to demonstrate that the digital game can be treated as a new media from the etymological point of view. In the forth chapter, the paper provides a clear development history of digital game as the history basis of the study on the digital game's media features and the impact on the media ecology. The fifth, sixth and seventh chapter are the key sections of the paper. The fifth one analyzes the game's multiple encoding and decoding model. The sixth chapter analyzes the game's three types of interactivity and its feature. The seventh one analyzes the difference of game narrative and the mechanism of generating meaning based on the players'own game-choice. The conclusion summarizes the paper and further generalizes the new media features of digital game.