Minecraft and children's digital making: implications for media literacy education

This article aims to contribute new knowledge about the media literacies children assemble as they play the digital game Minecraft which it describes as a children's digital making platform. The article argues media literacy's tendency to use sociocultural and humanist accounts of media participation limit its ability to fully explain digital making practices. Socio-material and performative literacy theories are used to introduce a framework for exploring digital media literacies across four nodes: digital materials, media production, conceptual understanding and media analysis [Anonymous Dezuanni 2015]. The article's second half outlines how the author uses digital ethnography in his home to understand children's Minecraft digital making and the article's theoretical claims are explored using empirical data. The conclusion considers the ramifications of digital making for media literacy research and practice