“You Feel Like You’ve Found a Place Where You Belong”: Symbolic Interactionism and Online Social Video Games in the Age of COVID-19
Caitlin Veal,
Matt Coward-Gibbs,
Jack Denham
et al.
Abstract:This paper investigates how players perceive and understand the sociality afforded by online social video games (OSGs), framed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing data from semi-structured interviews ( n = 20), we apply Blumer’s concept of symbolic interactionism to explore the ways in which video games take on new meanings in co-constructed, collaborative and contributory digital spaces. We argue (a) that games offer a meaningful social experience, (b) that this sociality flourishes due to the perceived lack … Show more
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