Contextualizing
adolescents’ egaming (CAE)
– the regulatory practices of adolescent’s eplaying in everyday life
Paper presentation Media Culture in Change, Bremen May 1st 2009
Ardis Storm-Mathisen
Outline of the presentation
I. Report on and from the project Contextualizing adolescents egaming
(CAE)
II. Present preliminary findings on regulatory practices and logics
surrounding adolescents' egaming in households
III. Outline and discuss social processes and mechanisms involved in the
regulations of egaming in homes
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I. The CAE project
Contextualizing adolescents egaming (CAE) - a project that seeks to map and
contextualize adolescents' egaming activities and problems.
Egaming – a concept referring to both
-‘eplaying’ (egaming without money) and to
-‘egambling’ (egaming with money).
Project period
2007-2010
Designed and conducted
by SIFO (Norwegian National Institute for Consumer Research), Digimedia group
Funded
by the NFR (Norwegian Research Council)
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Aims
CAE - Aims and means
To supplement present gaming research
Develop context-based knowledge about households’ regulation of adolescents’ egaming
Discuss implications for further research, prevention and treatment of adolescents’ egaming
problems, particularly focusing at the household level
Main analytical concepts and theoretical perspectives
Contextualization and regulation:
Domestication theory, the moral economy of the home (Silverstone et al 1992)
Practice theory, language-games (late-Wittgensteinian thinking, Helle-Valle 2007, 2008)
Discipline, governmentality (Foucaultian thinking)
Methodological means
-Survey among all 8th and last secondary class pupils (15 and 18 year olds) in 7 schools (tot. 611)
-Coversational (observational partly videorecorded) interviews with (frequent) eplaying/egaming
adolescents (15 and 18 year olds) in 32 households/families:
a) with identified egaming problems (4-8)
b) without identified/reported egaming problems (eplaying; 20, egambling; 6).
- 32 adolescents were interviewed in 3 different settings -communicative contexts:
i)Individually
ii)with parents
iii)with (gaming) friends
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Some egaming contexts
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CAE - Core research questions
-
-
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How do households domesticate adolescents’ egaming?
What social processes and mechanisms are involved in the
housholds’ regulation of adolescents’ egaming?
What is the structure of authority between the parents and
adolescents, and what impact might it have on adolescents’
egaming and egaming problems?
How do adolescents’ context-specific gender- and peer group
roles affect gaming regulation?
Is the interplay of these factors different, and if so how, in 1)
households a) with and b) without egaming problems, and in 2)
households with c) eplaying and d) egambling adolescents?
What implications do the knowledge of households’ regulations of
adolecents’ egaming have for further research, preventions and
treatment of egaming problems among adolescents?
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II. Preliminary findings on regulatory
practices and logics surrounding
adolescents' egaming
- in households without identified problems
- focussing on the reasoning around eplaying (playing
without money, not egambling)
- how egaming regulation is accounted for by the playing
adolescents, their parents and local peers – large
patterns
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Mediation and regulation
Mediation - three dimensional construct
-active mediation (talking with children about the
media/mediacontent) research suggests positive outcome
-restrictive mediation (setting rules about media use)
research suggests both positive and negative outcome
-co-viewing (watching/playing the media with children)
research suggests both positive and negative outcome
(Nathanson 1999)
Regulation
– observed or accounted attempts to influence the
consumption of digital gaming, either by others on the
adolescents or by the adolescents to themselves
through self-regulations.
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How is egaming regulation accounted for by the playing
adolescents, their parents and local peers?
- large patterns
Gender
– boys play more/girls less, the eplaying of boys is seen to need more
regulation than the eplaying of girls.
Generation
– parents more ambicalent to egaming and more concerned with the
regulation of and problems connected to eplaying than adolescents
themselves.
Age
– more explicit attention to the regulation of 15-year olds than 18-year-olds
Values involved in regulation
- enjoy but behave: prioritize school, out-door physical activities, family
sociality/ temporalities and social activities with friends.
Indicators of successful regulation:
- engagement in other leisure activities, good school performances and
normal body shape
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III. Social processes and mechanisms involved in
regulations of egaming – discussion and preliminary
conclusions
-How to interpret these findings?
-How to explain egaming practices?
Our preliminary suggestions:
- Context specific perspectives
- Ambivalence
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Accounts in different communicative contexts variations
The context specificity of perspectives on egaming
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Case: 15 year old boy
Was interviewed three times in 2008:
a) When playing with friends at their house
- claims self-regulation of egaming is not a problem,
something he is in control of. He is a moderate gamer.
Plays less than his friends
b) When playing alone at home
– claims self-regulation of egaming, how much he plays,
depends on opportunity. He sometimes plays for
whole days but always after homework.
c) When in the livingroom with parents
- the parents claim he plays to much, needs to be
regulated, does not always do homework, stays inside
on sunny days. He says little.
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Egaming and the context-dependency of ambivalence
Ambivalence is the product of a collision between to
different language-games (communicative contexts),
dominated by different values, that must be integrated
into a more complex language-game.
Ambivalence to egaming in homes:
a) arise in situations where there is a tension between
values connected to familism and individualism
b) produce the need for explicit regulation
Some contexts brings this tension more to the fore than
others; e.g dinnertime, the interview, bad school
achievement. They are less at play when homework is
done, dinner is eaten and the children go to their room
to relax with a game. They are less at play when a
parent is playing egames or when adolescents play
with friends
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Ambivalence
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Egaming, regulation and modern diciplination
”The mundane everyday and private uses of digital
games and eplay in livingrooms and bedrooms of
homes represent a technology for modern diciplination
of children and youth. Their wide distribution, their
ability to fascinate the young and the important moral
position of homes, imply that parents, probably without
much lust, uses digital games to socialize – and thus
discipline – their children. Together with a number of
other ways in which ’right’ conduct and attitudes are
mediated, such training creates more or less suitablethat is disciplined – subjects.” (Helle-Valle in press).
Ardis Storm-Mathisen
SIFO DIGIMEDIA
Strategic research Project on Digital Media and ICT
http://www.sifo.no/digimedia/
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