Harald Koberg, Mag.phil.

Dissertation Project

Representations of Digital Gaming
Perceptions of the self and the others in an intergenerational conflict

Digital games have been a highly popular medium of entertainment for several decades. They are the basis not only for a huge industry creating games and hardware, but also for a broad variety of cultural expressions. Still they seem to remain very foreign to large parts of Central European societies with a tendency to problematize these games, connecting them to different forms of juvenile misconduct.

This dissertation project is building up on a master’s thesis that concluded with the assumption, that the lack of knowledge and understanding of digital games, perceived in qualitative interviews with parents and teachers, cannot be explained by the media’s rapid development alone. The way society deals with digital games is rather an indication of the way it deals with youth, as well as with new forms of cultural expression.
Based on a Grounded Theory approach this project is trying to gain a better understanding of the gamer’s approach to the medium that shall then enable a deeper insight into the social impact of digital games and it’s discursive dynamics.

Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johanna Rolshoven