Patty in the Webkinz World

 

Patty loves playing in the virtual world of Webkinz, where real-life play with stuffed animals blends into a virtual world, where the animals take on real personalities. On opening the first page of the Webkinz site, we notice how the Ganz Company has designed an opening screen, which introduces numerous discourses for the entrant to the Webkinz world. For example, the login screen has a small portal, which resembles the rabbit hole in

Alice´s Wonderland. For their main page, the designers of Webkinz have chosen the powerful design of a newspaper, which legitimizes the discourse found within this virtual world through its alignment with a common household media artifact. The Replica Patek Philippe Watches daily newspaper labeled Webkinz Newz shares the latest bulletins, offers access points to play, and contains other entertainment and advertisements, which connect the virtual world to the real one where Webkinz owners can purchase new pets, clothing, and jewelry. As a result, we see how the design and discourses, such as fashion and shopping, are extended through the distribution of the site´s possible affordances in real life objects, which can then be redesigned to become virtual objects for play.

On the Webkinz main screen, we see how the varying modes, such as graphics, font, and visual representations of the pets, provide available designs for pet owners to construct their understanding of this virtual world. My Stuff contains representations of objects, which carry discourses of healthy and active living, home decor, and gaming. Headings such as Things to Do offer opportunities for the pet owners to earn Kinzcash (the website currency) through quizzes and games, attend school, or get a job for their virtual pets.

Kress and Van Leeuwen´s (2001) four points (discourse, design, production, and distribution) help develop our understanding of the multimodal composition of these sites beyond the obvious technical possibilities. Reading digital texts means that we read the work semiotic ally and are aware of the affordances offered by the available modes of the site, eventually gaining a greater understanding of the skills needed to comprehend Replica Tag Heuer Carrera and further immerse ourselves in these sites. Patty shows how a motivated and engaged learner uses these available modes, such as games, design features, and interaction, with other players to formulate new discourses and to recontextualize new understandings (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000). In this discussion, Anne (Burke, second author) and Patty talk about the combination of discourses placed on the site mimicking real-world living, and how these contribute to the socially constructed reality of the pet owner´s world.