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This article investigates the use and effect of optimizing strategies in the online game World of Warcraft. Specifically, it looks at the phenomenon known as "theorycrafting," wherein expert players reverse engineer the game and use its underlying algorithms to calculate maximized play strategies. Play from a theorycrafting perspective is about the correct input and output of numbers, challenging the narrative of play as something free and frivolous. Seeking to understand how play and knowledge relate to each other, the article discusses how theorycrafting's seemingly abstract, objective, and neutral information about the game is also embedded with values, ideas, and norms. Based on a 1-year ethnographic study, the article uses Jasanoff's idiom of coproduction to discuss how abstract calculations are rendered meaningful and valuable by players, and the consequences of this in stabilizing particular ways of playing World of Warcraft.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Part 1 A Critical Perspective On Digitalization -- Chapter 1: Getting Lost in the Digital -- 1.1 Limited or Liberated by Ubiquitous Digital Technology? -- 1.2 It Could Be Otherwise (ICBO): The Foundation of Critical Thinking -- 1.3 Opening the Black Box -- 1.4 A Response to Political and Corporate Solutionism -- 1.5 Digitalization as a Topic for Science and Technology Studies (STS) -- 1.6 A Critical Sociotechnical Perspective -- 1.7 The Structure of This Book -- 1.8 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 2: What Is "Digitalization," Exactly? -- 2.1 Digitalization as a Technological Fix -- 2.2 Defining Digitalization -- 2.3 Defining Digitalization as a Political Act in Itself -- 2.4 A Digitalized World -- 2.5 Digitalization as a Sociotechnical Process -- 2.6 Conclusion -- References -- Part 2 Analytical Tools -- Chapter 3: A Sociotechnical Perspective on Digitalization -- 3.1 What Is a Sociotechnical Perspective on Digitalization? -- 3.2 What Do We Mean by "Technology"? -- 3.3 Technologies and Their Agency -- 3.4 Why Technological Determinism Is a Dead End -- 3.5 Technological Reductionism -- 3.6 How Social Determinism Is Equally Problematic -- 3.7 Conclusion -- Note -- References -- Chapter 4: Domestication: User Perspectives on Technology -- 4.1 A User Perspective on Technology -- 4.2 Domestication Theory -- 4.3 The Dimensional Model of Domestication -- 4.4 The History of Domestication -- 4.5 Strengths and Weaknesses of Domestication Theory -- 4.6 Re-domestication and Dis-domestication -- 4.7 What Non-Users Can Teach Us about the Use of Technology -- 4.8 Normativity and Use -- 4.9 Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: Script: Technology's Manuscript for Use -- 5.1 Script as Technology's Manual -- 5.2 The Historical and Theoretical Position of Script Theory.

What characterises the relationship between users and platforms? How are use and users configured by platform design, and in turn, how do users accept or reject such efforts? Using the live-streaming platform Twitch, this paper explores the user-platform relationship to answer these questions. Twitch is a highly popular live-streaming platform with an emphasis on gaming, whose rise to fame has been far from streamlined or expected. Based on qualitative analysis of design, discourse and user practices, the paper draws on script theory from science and technology studies and platform theory from Internet studies, to unpack the configuration of use and users. By tracing the development of the platform, we identify a pattern of frequent interaction between platform owners and users, and consequent course changes, which we label co-scription. Finally, we analyse the current Twitch script and propose five dimensions of co-scription that determine the user-platform relationship: 1) Sociality: community or individual use; 2) Audience: specific or general; 3) Moderation: strictly moderated or laissez-faire; 4) Content: user-generated or commercial; and 5) Scope: specialised or multi-feature. ; The politics of user-platform relationships: Co-scripting live-streaming on Twitch.tv ; publishedVersion ; "The politics of user-platform relationships: Co-scripting live-streaming on Twitch.tv" av Kristine Ask, Hendrik Spilker, Martin Hansen er lisensiert under en Creative Commons Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal Lisens.