PARTICIPATORY QUITTING: QUITTING TEXTS AND WORLD OF WARCRAFT PLAYER CULTURE

DUTTON, NATHAN T., M.A., March 2007, School of Telecommunications PARTICIPATORY QUITTING: QUITTING TEXTS AND WORLD OF WARCRAFT PLAYER CULTURE (84 pp.) Director of Thesis: Mia L. Consalvo In over a decade of scholarship on the subject scholars have focused on the creation and circulation of various kinds of fan-made texts as a central component of participatory culture. Scholars such as Henry Jenkins, T.L. Taylor, Nancy Baym, and Mia Consalvo have studied everything from fanfic, FILK, slash fiction, and fanzines to online forums, walkthroughs, machinima, and web comics – among many others – as evidence that media fans are both critical consumers and active producers of media content. In all of this work on participatory culture, however, quitting has so far been ignored. This project is a qualitative textual analysis of quitting in World of Warcraft player culture, specifically of the quitting texts that players create when they stop playing the game. My analysis reveals that quitting texts contain richness, depth, and diversity; they come in multiple forms, contain varied themes and practices, and are meaningful to the players that make and view them. As such, like other kinds of fan/player made texts quitting texts are an important element of participatory culture, and are key to understanding both media fandom and the player culture that gave rise to them. Approved: Mia L. Consalvo Associate Professor of Telecommunications