Research by Furman Associate Professor of Communication Studies John A. McArthur ’02 and his student team of Cal Meachem ’20, Ryan DeLuca ’21, Jarya Outten ’21, Patrick Rice ’21  and Celena Taborn ’21 has been honored by the Game Studies Division of the National Communication Association.

Their presentation, “Exploring Play through Placemaking in Game Studies,” received the Chair’s Award, which recognizes research that makes the largest contribution to the advancement of research in game studies. The work is the result of an ongoing project in McArthur’s spring “Mobile Media, Space & Place” course.

Furman Associate Professor of Communication Studies John A. McArthur ’02.

“I invited students in that class to do two research projects. One of them is a group content analysis where they look at digital conversations online, and we’ve presented that at Furman Engaged for years,” McArthur said. “This actually came out of the second project that we do, which is a textual analysis of a space or place that is augmented with digital technology.”

The unique circumstances created by COVID-19 restrictions also provided an opportunity to explore places where people could go when their options were severely limited.

“During the pandemic, I found that a lot of my students gravitated toward video games to try to find a place or space that was augmented with digital technology, because a lot of the spaces or places that they might visit were closed,” McArthur, also the department chair, said. “Looking at video games gave us a window into how