Playful Trajectories and Experimentations

Abstract The main goal of this work is to discuss the place and role of video games in contemporary societies and their impact on individual relationships. It analyses how the development of video games is a sign of and a factor in the democratization of modern societies. It explores how video games contribute to the moral and political socialization of children and teenagers. The work is structured into two parts. The first explores the methodological, ethical and epistemological implications of Games Studies, and shows how the development of an independent field of research on video games can be analyzed as a sign of democratization. The second part focuses on youth identity experimentations and how video games can contribute to the democratization of social relations. Play inequalities are discussed, but it is also shown how video games are reconfiguring family and peer relationships, thereby influencing the movement of democratization of societies.

Download Full-text

The Role of Misattribution in the Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior

10.32469/10355/43319 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Christopher Robert Engelhardt

Keyword(s):

Video Games ◽

Aggressive Behavior ◽

Violent Video Games

Download Full-text

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽

10.3366/soma.2017.0223 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 288-303

Author(s):

Michael Connors Jackman

Keyword(s):

Critical Point ◽

Social Relations ◽

White Privilege ◽

Body Politic ◽

The Body ◽

Race And Racism ◽

Lesbian And Gay ◽

The Past ◽

History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

Download Full-text

The Impact of COVID-19 Quarantine on Children‘s Behaviors and Language

International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences ◽

10.26452/ijrps.v11ispl1.3085 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽

pp. 796-806

Author(s):

Sana M Kamal ◽

Ali Al-Samydai ◽

Rudaina Othman Yousif ◽

Talal Aburjai

Keyword(s):

Social Relations ◽

Child Psychology ◽

Simple Random Sample ◽

Community Pharmacies ◽

The World ◽

Female Children ◽

And Behavior ◽

The Impact ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the world, which considered a relative of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), with possibility of transmission from animals to human and effect each of health and economic. Several preventative strategies and non-pharmaceutical interventions have been used to slow down the spread of COVID-19. The questionnaire contained 36 questions regarding the impact of COVID-19 quarantine on children`s behaviors and language have been distributed online (Google form). Data collected after asking parents about their children behavior during quarantine, among the survey completers (n=469), 42.3% were female children, and 57.7 were male children. Results showed that quarantine has an impact on children`s behaviors and language, where stress and isolationism has a higher effect, while social relations had no impact. The majority of the respondents (75.0%) had confidence that community pharmacies can play an important role in helping families in protection their children`s behaviors and language as they made the highest contact with pharmacists during quarantine. One of the main recommendations that could be applied to help parents protection and improvement their children`s behaviors and language in quarantine condition base on simple random sample opinion is increasing the role of community pharmacies inpatient counseling and especially towards children after giving courses to pharmacists in child psychology and behavior. This could be helpful to family to protect their children, from any changing in them behaviors and language in such conditions in the future if the world reface such the same problem.

Download Full-text

Perfection Makes Practice

American Journal of Islam and Society ◽

10.35632/ajis.v23i3.1600 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 98-100

Author(s):

Muhamad Ali

Keyword(s):

Social Relations ◽

Muslim Community ◽

Beliefs And Practices ◽

Psychological Dimension ◽

South Sulawesi ◽

Complex Dimensions ◽

History Of Religions ◽

History Of

Studies of Islam in Southeast Asia have sought to better understand its multifacetedand complex dimensions, although one may make a generalizedcategorization of Muslim beliefs and practices based on a fundamental differencein ideologies and strategies, such as cultural and political Islam.Anna M. Gade’s Perfection Makes Practice stresses the cultural aspect ofIndonesian Muslim practices by analyzing the practices of reciting andmemorizing the Qur’an, as well as the annual competition.Muslim engagement with the Qur’an has tended to emphasize the cognitiveover the psychological dimension. Perfection Makes Practice analyzesthe role of emotion in these undertakings through a combination ofapproaches, particularly the history of religions, ethnography, psychology,and anthropology. By investigating Qur’anic practitioners in Makassar,South Sulawesi, during the 1990s, Gade argues that the perfection of theQur’an as a perceived, learned, and performed text has made and remade thepractitioners, as well as other members of the Muslim community, to renewor increase their engagement with the holy text. In this process, she suggests,moods and motivation are crucial to preserving the recited Qur’an and revitalizingthe Muslim community.In chapter 1, Gade begins with a theoretical consideration for her casestudy. Drawing from concepts that emphasize the importance of feeling andemotion in ritual and religious experience, she develops a conceptualizationof this engagement. In chapter 2, Gade explains memorization within thecontext of the self and social relations. She argues that Qur’anic memorizershave a special relationship with its style and structure, as well as with thesocial milieu. Although Qur’anic memorization is a normal practice for mostMuslims, its practitioners have learned how to memorize and recite beautifullysome or all of the Qur’an’s verses, a process that requires emotion ...

Download Full-text

“Crazy Jack” and the “Gay CEO”: Visions, Entrepreneurship, and the Chinese State in the New Digital Economy

Journal of Current Chinese Affairs ◽

10.1177/1868102621991558 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 63-85

Author(s):

Marina Svensson

Keyword(s):

Social Relations ◽

Personal Narratives ◽

Digital Economy ◽

The State ◽

Business Leader ◽

Online Spaces ◽

Chinese State ◽

To Receive

This article analyses the visions, careers, and companies of Jack Ma of Alibaba and Geng Le of Blue City. Jack Ma is a well-known business leader and visionary, whereas the less well-known Geng Le only began to receive more attention since launching a successful gay dating app in 2012. The article focuses on the personal narratives and visions of these two IT entrepreneurs. It provides new perspectives on the role of individual entrepreneurs in relation to the Chinese state’s global ambitions and vision of creating a “strong internet country.” It argues that the commercialisation and platformisation of the Chinese internet, and the growing transnational nature of Chinese IT companies, serve to make them more, not less, co-dependent of the state and its visions. The internet’s emancipatory potential is today increasingly conflated with consumption, and online spaces and social relations are subject to both commodification and datafication.

Download Full-text

Debt and Sacrifice: The Role of Scapegoats in the Economic Crises

Religions ◽

10.3390/rel12020128 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 128

Author(s):

Luis Enrique Alonso ◽

Carlos J. Fernández Rodríguez

Keyword(s):

Financial Markets ◽

Social Relations ◽

Critical Role ◽

Social Groups ◽

Symbolic Violence ◽

Personal Bankruptcy ◽

Economic Relations ◽

Modern Economy ◽

Standards Of Living

Despite the process of secularization and modernization, in contemporary societies, the role of sacrifice is still relevant. One of the spaces where sacrifice actually performs a critical role is the realm of modern economy, particularly in the event of a financial crisis. Such crises represent situations defined by an outrageous symbolic violence in which social and economic relations experience drastic transformations, and their victims end up suffering personal bankruptcy, indebtedness, lower standards of living or poverty. Crises show the flagrant domination present in social relations: this is proven in the way crises evolve, when more and more social groups marred by a growing vulnerability are sacrificed to appease financial markets. Inspired by the theoretical framework of the French anthropologist René Girard, our intention is to explore how the hegemonic narrative about the crisis has been developed, highlighting its sacrificial aspects.

Download Full-text

Play! A Special Issue

Sexualities ◽

10.1177/13634607211013662 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136346072110136

Author(s):

Caroline Bem ◽

Susanna Paasonen

Keyword(s):

Video Games ◽

Sexual Pleasure ◽

Special Issue ◽

Sexuality Studies ◽

The Past ◽

Sexual Representation ◽

The Social ◽

Sexual Play ◽

Sex Toys

Sexuality, as it relates to video games in particular, has received increasing attention over the past decade in studies of games and play, even as the notion of play remains relatively underexplored within sexuality studies. This special issue asks what shift is effected when sexual representation, networked forms of connecting and relating, and the experimentation with sexual likes are approached through the notion of play. Bringing together the notions of sex and play, it both foregrounds the role of experimentation and improvisation in sexual pleasure practices and inquires after the rules and norms that these are embedded in. Contributors to this special issue combine the study of sexuality with diverse theoretical conceptions of play in order to explore the entanglements of affect, cognition, and the somatic in sexual lives, broadening current understandings of how these are lived through repetitive routines and improvisational sprees alike. In so doing, they focus on the specific sites and scenes where sexual play unfolds (from constantly morphing online pornographic archives to on- and offline party spaces, dungeons, and saunas), while also attending to the props and objects of play (from sex toys and orgasmic vocalizations to sensation-enhancing chemicals and pornographic imageries), as well as the social and technological settings where these activities occur. This introduction offers a brief overview of the rationale of thinking sex in and as play, before presenting the articles that make up this special issue.

Download Full-text

Gaming the gamer? – The ethics of exploiting psychological research in video games

Journal of Information Communication and Ethics in Society ◽

10.1108/jices-02-2015-0003 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 106-123 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Johnny Hartz Søraker

Keyword(s):

Video Games ◽

Social Relations ◽

Video Game ◽

Game Design ◽

User Behavior ◽

Well Being ◽

Psychological Research ◽

Rating Systems ◽

Content Type ◽

Ethical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ethical implications of video game companies employing psychologists and using psychological research in game design. Design/methodology/approach The author first argues that exploiting psychology in video games may be more ethically problematic than familiar application domains like advertising, gambling and political rhetoric. Then an overview of the effects particular types of game design may have on user behavior is provided, taking into account various findings and phenomena from behavioral psychology and behavioral economics. Findings Finally, the author concludes that the corresponding ethical problems cannot – and should not – be addressed by means of regulation or rating systems. The author argues instead that a more promising countermeasure lies in using the same psychological research to educate gamers (children in particular) and thereby increase their capacity for meta-cognition. Originality/value The importance of this lies in the tremendous effect these behavior-modifying technologies may have upon our self-determination, well-being and social relations, as well as corresponding implications for the society.

Download Full-text