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Contextualizing adolescents’ egaming (CAE)

– the regulatory practices of adolescent’s eplaying in everyday life

Paper presentation Media Culture in Change, Bremen May 1st 2009

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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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CAE - Aims and meansAimsTo 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 - 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 regulationMediation - 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 patternsGender

– 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 boyWas 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 individualismb) 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 suitable- that is disciplined – subjects.” (Helle-Valle in press).

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SIFO DIGIMEDIAStrategic research Project on Digital Media and ICT

http://www.sifo.no/digimedia/

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