Paper Abstract - Dmitri Williams

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ABSTRACT

The Social Construction of Video Games

Dmitri Williams

Drawing on the tools of both the historian and the sociologist, this project seeks to understand the social construction of video game technology in the United States from the early years of industry to the present. The approach employed in this project is laid out in a series of essays in The Social Construction of Technological Systems by Bijker, Hughes and Pinch (1999), highlighted by Cowan's work on consumers in what she describes as the "consumption junction." The approach emphasizes that technologies do not exist in a sociocultural vacuum: in order for historical sociologists to be "properly constituted," they must put themselves at the point of technological diffusion and ask questions.

Answers to these questions may provide insight into why certain meanings were made from the invention and adoption of gaming technology. A second and equally important element of the social construction approach is to examine the way that the technology has been represented in the popular consciousness. Discourses on games and game players should provide insight into the social hopes and anxieties of the times and vice versa.

The project explores the following questions:

On industry

For background: Beginning with the major events and trends in the industry, what firms and what individuals played important roles?

How has game creation changed over time? Drawing on the work of Frank (1997), has the field professionalized and what are the hallmarks of this socialization process?

On representations in both the media and in academic work

Drawing from the work of Wartella and Reeves (1983; 1985), does the academic construction of video games follow a pattern set by previous media?

How have mainstream and trade media represented games, game companies, and gamers?

Drawing from Czitrom's (1982) work on emerging media, do these representations of video games fit previous patterns of emerging new media in the popular consciousness (Utopian and dystopian discourses vs. later co-optation and cynicism)?

Were there anxieties/hopes for the nation that were projected on the social construction of games, especially in the social control of adolescents?

On users

How has video game use changed over time in terms of age, gender, social class, and taste publics?

Has game use worked as a social badge, and how has that differed by group, over time and for different kinds of games?

Has marketing subdivided groups and constructed/positioned them in advertising and marketing practices?

Drawing on Spigel's (1992) ideas about the space, power and positioning of home media devices, are there changes in the spatial positioning of youth within homes that affects the relationship between youth, electronic media and family dynamics?

Do such spatial divisions influence the "sense of place" that Meyerowitz (1985) suggests?

References

Bijker, W., T. Hughes, & T. Pinch (1999). The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Czitrom, D. (1982) Media and the American Mind, From Morse to McLuhan. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press.
Frank, T. (1997) The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Meyerowitz, J. (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
Spigel, L. (1992) Installing the Television Set: Popular Discourses on Television and Domestic Space, 1948-1955. In L. Spigel & D. Mann (Eds.) Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.
Wartella, E. & B. Reeves (1983) Recurring Issues in research on Children and Media. Educational Technology. (23) June, p. 5-9.
------ (1985). Historical Trends in Research on Children and the Media: 1900-1960. Journal of Communication. (35) Spring, p. 118-135.

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