This study examines how professional social workers relate to problematic computer and video gaming as an addiction. It is a qualitative interview study aimed to describe and analyze how professional social workers, who in some way work with problematic computer gaming, relate to the player’s problems in terms of a concept of dependency. The theoretical approach is based on social constructivist theories of discourses, normality, the definition of dependency and diagnoses. The study was conducted through five qualitative half structured definition interviews with professional social workers that work directly or comes in contact with problematic computer gaming. The results portray a consistent, yet fragmented understanding of the problem. Daily life is described as "reality" and the problematic computer gaming as "escapism". The player can’t meet the normative requirements of its surroundings and is classified as addicted. The informants describe similar problems related to computer gaming, but have different ideas on how the problems arise. The study concludes that professionals specifically describing problematic gaming as an addiction explain their clients in terminology comparable to substance abuse. Those who don’t relate to the concept of dependence as firmly describe the problematic gaming as more of a consequence of the interaction between the player and its surroundings.

This dissertation is an exploration of the practice of social digital gaming, using a mixed methods approach with complementary data and analytical methods. The main themes are the prevalence and meaning of gamers’ experiences of social gaming and the underlying structures limiting or assisting social gaming, both material and social. Applying an everyday perspective, focus is on gamers’ day-to-day practices and experiences. Studies I and II enquire into relational aspects of social gaming based on interviews and survey data. Study III investigates the relationship between game design and gamer agency and its importance for social interaction with strangers, using in-game participant observation. Lastly in Study IV, building on interviews, female gamers come to the fore as their gender construction in an online game is examined with the aim of understanding the connection between online and offline. The main result concerns how social gaming takes place in various social relations. How gaming comes to be―what it means―is dependent on the relations between gamers, be they family members, real life friends, Internet friends or strangers. In these interactions, gender and sexual identity are realized; in the relations between gamers, physical proximate or online. Finally, virtuality is shown to be a social accomplishment of the people engaging in games rather than a property of the games themselves. Focus on the relational unveils how gaming comes to be in the process of interaction, a process at the same time dependent on underlying structures, i.e. games as designed platforms with certain affordances for social behaviour. We are able, thus, to reconcile the social constructivist position that (social) gaming is created in the relations between gamers engaging in games with the more formalist approach that games are rule based structures. Games create a foundation for interaction that can further develop into the creation/maintenance of relationships and identity. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

<p>The growing role of communication using computers in people’s everyday lives is reflected by the debates about massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft and the Internet as a whole. While people may be driven by the same psychological drives that have spurred interaction between people in the past, this interaction is increasingly facilitated with the use of computer mediated communication (CMC). Can strong relations form between people that are separated by great distances in space using CMC? The presence of strong relations in MMOs could open the possibility for MMO communities to thrive.</p><p>A social network analysis of a MMO guild with 50 members was conducted using an online survey, which produced a non-response rate of 50 percent. Participants were asked about their age, the time they had spent in the guild and their gender in order to explain the social structure of the networks. They were then asked to state the strength of their relations with each of the other members of the guild on a scale from ―one, neutral‖ to ―five, strong friendship‖. The social network analysis program Pajek was used to investigate the characteristics of the social network using so called sociograms.</p><p>The essay concludes that numerous strong relations exist within the guild and that a long time spent in the guild increases the number of strong relations a guild member has. The results show that guilds may form the cohesive backbone of MMO communities and proposes that future research be conducted on the brokerage between guilds in MMO communities in order to produce a comprehensive view of the social structure of MMO communities.</p>

The growing role of communication using computers in people’s everyday lives is reflected by the debates about massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft and the Internet as a whole. While people may be driven by the same psychological drives that have spurred interaction between people in the past, this interaction is increasingly facilitated with the use of computer mediated communication (CMC). Can strong relations form between people that are separated by great distances in space using CMC? The presence of strong relations in MMOs could open the possibility for MMO communities to thrive. A social network analysis of a MMO guild with 50 members was conducted using an online survey, which produced a non-response rate of 50 percent. Participants were asked about their age, the time they had spent in the guild and their gender in order to explain the social structure of the networks. They were then asked to state the strength of their relations with each of the other members of the guild on a scale from ―one, neutral‖ to ―five, strong friendship‖. The social network analysis program Pajek was used to investigate the characteristics of the social network using so called sociograms. The essay concludes that numerous strong relations exist within the guild and that a long time spent in the guild increases the number of strong relations a guild member has. The results show that guilds may form the cohesive backbone of MMO communities and proposes that future research be conducted on the brokerage between guilds in MMO communities in order to produce a comprehensive view of the social structure of MMO communities.

This essay will focus on video and computer game violence. We hope to uncover, with the help of semiotics, according to Barthes design, if this kind of violence can have a negative effect on youth and adolescents. How intense is the violence and how graphic is it?. PEGI is the European measurement for game age limits. In our essay we will analyze five different games, each game in its own PEGI-value, except two games that share the limit of 18+ were we instead will try to uncover what differences in the two games that puts them on the same age limit. The games we will be investigating are “Pokemon Black Version”, “Megaman X: Command Missions”, “World of Warcraft Cataclysm”, “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and “Gears of War 2”, “Gears of War 2” and “Call of Duty: Black Ops” are the games which shares the age limit of 18+. With the help of our semiotic findings and various studies from researchers C A. Anderson, Jesper Juul and Clive Thompson we hope to be able to categorize the different types of violence in said games, according to the amount of violence, how intense it is, the amount of blood and death, how realistic the violence is and what kind of messages the different games contains and compare our findings to PEGI´s own guidelines.

This paper seeks to investigate leading global brands‘ social media presence. The analysis of the Interbrand’s 100 Best Global Brands (2010) social media pages was conducted in the current study. Based on Kaplan & Haenlein‘s classification of social media, seven social media application cases were examined. The findings suggest that there are differences in global brands‘ social media presence by brand categories and social media applications. The findings also suggest that there are different levels of global brands‘ social media control. Managerial implications and guidelines for social media marketing are also provided. / text

Allmänheten verkar ha en del förutfattade meningar om onlinespel och hur dessa influerar barn och ungdomar. Dessutom finns det lite forskning gjord inom området onlinespel och engelsk språkutveckling. I ämnesplanen för engelska i Lgy 11 går det att urskilja att det engelska språket omger ungdomar dagligen inom olika kulturella områden, som i detta arbete är onlinespel. Syftet med detta examensarbete är därför att undersöka hur ungdomars engelska språkutveckling influeras av att spela onlinespel, som World of Warcraft, och hur de upplever dessa influenser. Detta för att förhoppningsvis skapa större förståelse för lärandets villkor utanför skolans undervisning utifrån onlinespel. Arbetet utgår från det sociokulturella perspektivet där interaktion och samspel anses utgöra en del i onlinespel. Ungdomars perspektiv kring ämnet i fråga kommer till uttryck utifrån en kvalitativ intervjumetod i form av tre fokusgrupper. Fokusgrupper fokuserar samtal där informanterna interagerar med varandra och uppmuntras att utveckla sina tankar och erfarenheter genom att författarna ställer frågor utifrån en frågeguide. Fokusgrupperna bestod av 12 manliga informanter i åldern 16-17 år. Samtalen skedde på ett spelcenter, i en gymnasieskola samt på ett LAN i Stockholms län. Resultatet visar att onlinespel kan ses ha både positiva och negativa influenser på ungdomars engelska språkutveckling. Dock är de positiva influenserna övervägande. Det synliggörs bland annat att ungdomar verkar uppleva den engelska språkanvändningen i onlinespel i interaktion med modersmålstalare vara meningsfull och stimulerande vilken leder till att de kan tillämpa språket utanför spelandet. Det påvisas dock att grunderna i språket införskaffas i skolan, vilka ungdomar finner vara en nödvändighet för kommunikationen med andra spelare i onlinespel vilket visar att skolan likaså har en bidragande influens på ungdomars engelska språkutveckling i onlinespel.

This essay is predominantly a qualitative piece of research by which I mean it is mainly based on my own observations and analysis of the material. To do this I will cover the theories of communities of practice together with gendered language and apply it to the community and language of the online game World of Warcraft. Through using collected chat logs, I will analyse conversations held in World of Warcraft with a specific focus on gender and identity, I will then compare these to examples of face-to-face conversations. My analysis will draw on the works of theorists such as Holmes (2006), Sunderland and Litosseliti (2002), Eckert and McConnel-Ginet (1992) amongst others. This study will show that although Netspeak within World of Warcraft is written and not spoken, the strategies for creating gendered identities are not very different from real life discourse. The essay will be a general study of gendered language in a virtual community and will discover that there is an extremely nuanced language within the limited communication medium of chat, and lays the ground for more extensive research on the subject.

When discussing games and the experience of gamers those with disabilities are often overlooked. This has left a gap in our understanding of the experience of players with disabilities in virtual game worlds. However there are examples of players with disabilities being very successful in the virtual world video game World of Warcraft, suggesting that there is an opportunity to study the game for usability insight in creating other virtual world environments. This study surveyed World of Warcraft players with disabilities online for insight into how they used interface addons to manage their experience and identity performance in the game. A rubric was also created to study a selection of addons for evidence of the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The study found that World of Warcraft players with disabilities do not use addons more than able-bodied players, but some of the most popular addons do exhibit many or most of the principles of UDL. UDL principles appear to have emerged organically from addon iterations over time. The study concludes by suggesting that the same approach to user-generated content for the game interface taken by the creators of World of Warcraft, as well as high user investment in the environment, can lead to more accessible virtual world learning environments in the future.

Nyckeln i att utveckla ett bra flerspelar-spel ligger i spelets möjlighet till samarbete. Det är därför viktigt att veta hur olika spelsätt skiljer sig åt ur ett samarbetsperspektiv. Tidigare forskning har endast studerat samarbete för en given spelstil, till exempel spelare som möter andra spelare eller spelare som möter datorstyrda spelare, och har inte gjort någon direkt jämförelse mellan dessa. Bristen kring detta område har inspirerat till den aktuella undersökningen, som ämnat att undersöka eventuella skillnader på samarbete i spelet World of Warcraft. Det har utförts ett antal experiment, där deltagare fått möjligheten att spela World of Warcraft i slumpmässiga grupper. Dessa experiment har observerats för att analysera olika utslag som uppstått i samarbetet gentemot bestämda bedömningskriterier. Undersökningen har visat på stora skillnader i samarbete och har även visat vikten av social kompetens när det kommer till att interagera med sina medspelare. / The key to developing a good multiplayer game lies in the possibilities for cooperation. Therefore it is important to know how different playstyles differ from a collaborative perspective. Previous research has only studied cooperation within a given playstyle, such as player versus player or player versus environment and has not made a direct comparison between different playstyles. The lack of information about this topic is the inspiration for this study, which examines the difference in collaboration between the aforementioned playstyles in the game World of Warcraft. A number of experiments were carried out in which randomized groups of participants played the game World of Warcraft. The results of these experiments have been analyzed according to specific criteria and show large differences in cooperation as well as the importance of players’ social skills when interacting with other members of a team.