Essay:

This is a new form of essay, which involves active and critical use of Internet sources as an integral part of the essay format. Students are required to use website references as well as the usual academic literature, documentary and other referenced sources. The essay will be assessed in accordance with the degree’s standard guidelines. All essays must include theoretical content. The usual standards of academic rigour, referencing, argument and synthesis apply. Students are expected to use a range of appropriate website sources. The ways in which they cite and discuss material from them should demonstrate their understanding of the different nature of these sources and critical awareness of the different types of information they contain and its status. The course content, lectures and seminar work will include guidance on this area of assessment.
So Hypertext means 1) that you are doing your research and literature review as usual and include a number of academic sources in your reference list (they can be paper articles and books, or the ones available online, e.g. an e-book via the library); 2) that you are also using credible and suitable online resources for your essay and also reference them correctly both in-text and at the end of the paper. You need also to provide enough info within the body of the essay rather than just placing a link in the essay (e.g. ‘As the recent statistic on gender division on social networking site indicates…’ and then provide the data in question and then the link). So, just to give you further several examples: it can be some up-to-date statistical data (which you cannot find in a book published some time ago), a video (but please make sure that you indicate the duration of the video which is relevant [e.g. 8:00-9:00 min], it should not be more than 2-3 minutes), a graph, a link to the forum discussion, etc.
Please use only those sources which support your argument and are necessary. Do not over do it!
Question:
3 Games: Review one example of how video games have been framed. What does this framing tell us about the role of video games in society, and about this new media form’s characteristics and relationship to its players?