Presentation at multi.player 2011 by Lina Eklund (Stockholm University). Full title: "Family and games: digital game playing in the social context of the family."
Previous research shows that the social aspects of playing games are important to people, so this study was looking at digital game play within the family (including partners, siblings and parents) and how important it is to young people. Gaming can be both a source of conflict (between gamers and non-gamers) and of bonding (sharing the game experience).
I hadn't come across the idea of bonding social capital vs bridging social capital before, so that was interesting - although I'm sure it was presented as bonding capital being 'deep' relationships vs. bridging being rather shallow, as opposed to being between homogenous (bonding) and heterogeneous (bridging) groups.
One thing that did come through was again the definition of gamer was self-selected. She said the study subjects were very 'reflexive' - and kept trying to use terms like hobby which have a more positive connotations than gamer. This would fit with social identity theory, and self-selecting a minority group that has a less positive self-image.
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