What matters in understanding digital media? Is looking at the externalappearance and audience experience of software enough--or should we look further? In" Expressive Processing," Noah Wardrip-Fruin argues thatunderstanding what goes on beneath the surface, the computational processes thatmake digital media function, is essential.

Wardrip-Fruin looks at"expressive processing" by examining specific works of digital mediaranging from the simulated therapist "Eliza" to the complexcity-planning game "SimCity." Digital media, he contends, offerparticularly intelligible examples of things we need to understand about software ingeneral; if we understand, for instance, the capabilities and histories ofartificial intelligence techniques in the context of a computer game, we can usethat understanding to judge the use of similar techniques in such higher-stakessocial contexts as surveillance.

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