i’m a nerd (have you met me?). one big way i express that is exploring communication in all its forms through research and analysis. sometimes, that stuff gets published! here’s where you can find me in print.

It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This (New Technology): Nintendo's Impact on the Technological Landscape of the Video Gaming Industry

Transnational Contexts of Development History, Sociality, and Society of Play: Video Games in East Asia / Springer · Jan 1, 2017

This book examines the historical background of game development, offline and online gamer interactions, and presents a method to study the health impacts of digital games in East Asia. Focusing on examinations of how video games shape external interactions with the world as well as internal spaces, Lee and Pulos' volume brings together a range of approaches and regions to understand the impact of video games in East Asia and beyond. Contributions range from assessments of Nintendo's lasting technological impact in Japan and globally to analyses of mobile social gaming among teenage girls in Korea, with qualitative and quantitative methodologies set in contact with one another to offer a full spectrum of perspectives on video gaming and its profound cultural impact.

Male Action vs. Female Inaction

Asian Communication Research · Dec 1, 2012

Video game characters are overwhelmingly male; most female characters in games reaffirm problematic gender ideologies through their designed performances and semiotic representations of gender. The present study employs semiotic analysis, underpinned with Butler’s theory of gender performativity, in order to uncover the gender ideologies represented by Tifa Lockhart in Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy VII and Princess Zelda in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The authors contend that these female characters reflect and reify historical Japanese gender ideologies in which men are taught to be strong and dominant, while women are taught to be reserved and subservient.

Co-authors: S. Austin Lee, Alexis Pulos

Federal Donuts: The (Partially) True Spectacular Story

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017

My ode to Federal Donuts - an inked donut I’ll remember eating for all of time - is featured in this recounting of the restaurant’s history.