Developing a Reflexive Spatial Analysis Model for Video Games: Exploring Digital Spatial Construction and Reflexivity in Geography Education Through a Bilingual Case Study of ‘That Dragon, Cancer’

The paradigm shifts of the various philosophical-cultural turns (e.g., spatial, linguistic) significantly brought the subjective perception and construction of space into focus in geography as a spatial science. In video games, vast digital spaces are created and experienced. These digital spaces—often oriented to “real” spaces—are created by designers/programmers based on different motives, values, prior knowledge domains, abilities, emotions, and worldviews, and in turn, are received/played by players through these same filters. Thus, when playing and producing/programming games, constructions of (digital) spaces are created, negotiated, and interpreted. Players and designers communicate about spaces and what they experience, thus successively influencing their view of spaces. Based on this argumentation, this contribution wants to initiate more intensively the discourse to recognize video games as a medium in geography and hence wants to integrate itself into the relevant discourses of the disciplines of geography and geography education. In the following article, the main aim is to theoretically develop and present a model of reflexive spatial analysis in video games based on discourses of the digital turn and (digital) spatial reflexivity in geography (education). This model is then, secondarily, used to theoretically justify the concept of a lesson design, which applies the model and is used in a bilingual geography classroom with the goal of promoting pupils’ reflexive competencies of spatial perceptions and constructions of digital space in video games. The empirical analysis of the lesson and its processing of digital spatial reflexivity is based on the qualitative analysis of transcripts of 51 students (Most of the time, if not separately explained/defined with students, pupils at high school are meant.) and three teachers (think aloud protocols). It reflects upon the subjective construction and perception of digital spaces with reference to the generated emotions—as an example of spatial reflexivity—of the recipients, using the game That Dragon, Cancer. The results show that students can actively and critically relate gameplay and spatial constructs and certainly reflect on the emotional impact of digital spaces.