Open Literacy: Games, Social Responsibility and Social Innovation: Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue of Cultural Science Journal

Publication of this special issue of Cultural Science Journal is generously supported by Tencent Research (China). Editorial work was undertaken by members of the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT, Curtin University). The special issue is co-edited by John Hartley (editor of Cultural Science Journal), Katie Ellis (Director of CCAT) and Tama Leaver (discipline lead of Curtin Internet Studies). In addition to supporting this publication, Tencent provided bursaries, scholarships and travel grants to assist presenters to attend the research symposium from which the papers derive.

-Corporate: what are the social responsibilities of games developers and publishers? What are they doing right or wrong, according to whose criteria? -Individual: What are rights and duties of players and gamers themselves; how can parents and young people achieve and maintain social responsibility through play? Focusing on the extension of digital capabilities among a broad global population via smart devices, apps and digital entertainment to smart users, groups and enterprises, we need to explore how opening digital knowledge systems to popular participation may boost innovation and social inclusion and responsibility.
Many media scholars are sceptical of the 'mass media effects' tradition of research, inherited from anxiety about earlier forms of popular media, from print to broadcasting (Przybylski, 2016). At the same time they are mindful that public debate about this topic still depends on outmoded industrial and individualist theories. We need to go beyond that paradigm, to understand the challenges of digital, online media and the possibilities for renewing knowledge systems and social groups in times of technological change and geopolitical uncertainty. In short, what do entertainment systems and knowledge systems-and their users-have in common?
This special issue comprises papers drawn from the participants in a specially convened research symposium, held in Fremantle and at Curtin University in September-October 2019. Presenters ranged from guest international experts (from China, Australia, the US and Europe) to local PhD students, each with a unique perspective that allowed the symposium to develop a line of thought from literacy and its uses, through fanship and media in society, to games, play, and policy questions in a global context.
The 'live' event featured presentations of papers that are not included here, mostly because they are destined for publication elsewhere, including work by Brendan Keogh (post-doc researcher, QUT), Kathryn Locke (PhD student, Curtin), Jatinder Singh (researcher, University of Cambridge UK), Chen Guo (PhD student, Curtin), and Rui Zhang (Masters student, Western Sydney University). Abstracts for these presentations can be found here: https://ccat.curtin.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2019/09/Final-Program-Open-Literacy.pdf.
We also invited Professor Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), a global expert on children and media in the digital age. She was unable to attend but with her colleague Alicia Blum-Ross she is contributing a new paper to Cultural Science Journal on the symposium topic.
All papers have been peer reviewed in accordance with the Journal's protocols. In order to compress the timeframe for reviewing, we instituted an experimental form of refereeing, where two (anonymous) colleagues and guests at the symposium reviewed papers as delivered, which made the subsequent revision process more manageable in terms of timing. The three co-editors (Hartley, Ellis and Leaver) were allocated an equal number of papers to take through the editing process, which was handled in such a way that their own contributions were assessed and edited anonymously.

Contributors
Because of time constraints caused by the end-of-year holiday season, necessitating an early deadline set by Ubiquity Press for uploading papers for production and publication in 2019, we are publishing the special issue in two batches. The first is published herewith; the second batch will be released in 2020. The full list of authors and co-authors for both batches is as follows.

Luke
Webster is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University. He is researching transmedia storytelling and the evolution of the communal narrative. Luke has extensive professional experience in the tertiary education sector and has produced a national award-winning transmedia campaign in support of increasing engagement in higher education. He is a lifelong fan of all things superhero related and is @lukeweb on Twitter.