Minecraft ‘worldness’ in family life: Children’s digital play and socio-material literacy practices

The chapter suggests Minecraft can usefully be thought of as a media production platform that enables even young children to become media producers and as children develop loose and more structured narratives around their digital block construction in the game, they effectively author media experience as a form of material digital assemblage. Players experience a sense of agency and capability through creating simple structures to share with friends and family and children’s conversations and school playground activity with Minecraft draw attention to the game’s complex terminology and knowledge system. Minecraft has also entered popular culture through broader consumption of YouTube videos, physical toys and clothing. This chapter argues Minecraft involves distinctive socio-material literacy practices, across virtual and physical spaces in the family home. It suggests Minecraft is experienced through ‘worldness’ that traverses online and physical spaces in ways that are becoming common in children’s lives and this often includes complex negotiations of collaboration, and the blending of online communication with physically co-present instances of communication and interaction. The chapter shares the outcomes of an ethnographic approach in which I have observed my own family’s Minecraft play since 2012. Through sharing our story, I hope to draw attention to Minecraft’s specific digital media literacy practices.