E-Games: Far more complex than simple "good / bad"
dualities the popular press suggest

The latest Issue of the “International Review of Information Ethics“ focuses on E-Games. Guest Editors Elizabeth Buchanan and Charles Ess have compiled an issue that builds up a collection of philosophically and empirically robust articles and is now available free of charge at www.i-r-i-e.net.

E-games command our attention, in part as they have inspired “moral panics” among worried parents and politicians, who are concerned (and in some measure, with good reason) with e-games built around violence (including sexual violence) and bloodshed. But e-games are of compelling interest as the ethical questions they evoke are far more complex than simple "good / bad" dualities the popular press would suggest. They represent some of the most sophisticated utilizations of the potentials of computing and network technologies – and both their stand-alone and online versions implicate a complex array of ethical questions that include issues of individual and community responsibilities, cross-cultural interactions, etc., alongside central philosophical questions concerning reality and its construction in human experience, human nature and play, and, ultimately, the nature of the good life, both individually and in community.

About the Guest Editors:

Elizabeth A. Buchanan is Associate Professor and Co-Director, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Elizabeth's research focuses on information ethics, research methods and research ethics in general, and Internet research ethics in particular. She is the editor of Readings in Virtual Research Ethics: Issues and Controversies (2003) as well as numerous publications, and is currently Chair of the Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Working Group.

Charles Ess is Distinguished Research Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, USA; he is further affiliated (as a Professor II) with the Programme for Applied Ethics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway, and teaches this year as an Erasmus Mundus scholar at NTNU and University of Linköping, Sweden. He has served as a Senior Fulbright Scholar (University of Trier, Germany) and Guest Professor at the IT-University of Denmark. His recent publications include editing a special issue of Ethics and Information Technology devoted to conceptions of privacy and data privacy protection in Asia, and (with co-editor Fay Sudweeks) a special issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication on „Culture and CMC“.

About the Journal:

The International Review of Information Ethics is the official journal of the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE). It envisions an international as well as intercultural discussion focusing on the ethical impacts of information technology on human practices and thinking, social interaction, other areas of science and research and the society itself.

The journal seeks to be a general forum for ethical scholarship in this area. It seeks to publish the best available scientific works concerned twice a year in an online edition.

The International Review of Information Ethics is available free of charge at:

http://www.i-r-i-e.net

For more Information regarding the ICIE, visit:

http://icie.zkm.de