[Air-L] CfP: “Concerns about Video Games and the Video Games of Concern”, January 20 – 22, 2016

Rune Kristian Nielsen rkln at itu.dk
Mon Oct 19 10:00:58 PDT 2015


Hello everyone


Please disseminate this CfP.


Warm regards, Rune.


Rune Kristian Lundedal Nielsen

Center for Computer Games Research

IT University of Copenhagen

T: +45 7218 5154

M: +45 3117 5655

@: rkln at itu.dk

W: http://itu.dk/people/rkln/


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Call for papers

“Concerns about Video Games and the Video Games of Concern”

January 20 – 22, 2016

Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen


Conference Topic
This conference brings together academics whose research in

one way or another deals with the myriad concerns that exist in and around video
games: addiction, violence, misuse in online games and how to moderate, filter,
block, and report misuse, how to adapt current laws to video games, how to
measure and describe game concerns, how to communicate worries and desires
about video games, etc. Through such concerns video games are embedded in
diverse societal practices. The conference aims to provide a platform for
researchers from games studies, social sciences, law, psychology, education, etc.,
as well as games industry affiliates, members of media regulation agencies and
researchers from related fields to discuss the multiplicity of video game
concerns. Such discussions might include concerns about the circumstances under
which video games are designed, marketed, consumed and researched. The
conference welcomes and encourages a diversity of perspectives including
researchers, parents, children, designers, lawmakers etc.

Concerns about video games are, like the games themselves, a
global phenomenon. The most prolific concerns revolve around violence and
addiction, and have done so for as long as video games have been around. The
current conference can be seen as a timely (or perhaps long overdue) attempt at
promoting and encouraging research on the concerns about video games
themselves. How and why do these concerns come into being and how do they
influence the players, researchers, parents, legislators, game designers,
educators and healthcare professionals?


Concerns about video games are not uniform, however; they
are entangled in a myriad of social practices, which give shape to the concerns.
In some practices the aesthetics of video games are of concern. In others,
video games are of concern as manufactured objects that have to earn money for investors.
In some practices video games are a simple pastime and leisure. In others they
are the fields on which e-sport play out in front of thousands of spectators. Some
practices are concerned with educating children or caring for seniors. Some
practices are concerned with the population’s well-being and the negative
effect that games might have. Yet other practices are concerned with how video
games should be labeled.


Contemplating the variety of video game concerns reveals how
video games do not represent just one type of object, or even one unified
category of objects. It draws attention to how media-technological objects of
contemporary culture evoke myriads of different engagements. It provides us
with insights into contemporary society and how a media-technology such as
video games activates specific practices, provokes certain reactions, allows
special ways of thinking, and mobilizes particular concerns whereby its
ontology varies or changes. So not only do the things we call games vary
significantly from each other, they also change according to the practices in
which they are considered.



 Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:
Video game concerns in the family
Video game controversies and debates
Concerns of the video games industry
Minority concerns in video games
Video game concerns in science
Legal concerns surrounding video games
Video game concerns in and across cultures



Conference registration will be free of charge.



Confirmed Speakers
Isabel Otto, University of Konstanz
Christopher Ferguson, Stetson University.
Henrike Lode, CEO and game designer at Lohika



Submission and Presentation format


Send paper abstracts to concernsconf at itu.dk.


Abstracts should be minimum 800 words excluding references, and will be peer-reviewed (double blind). Abstracts without references will not be considered.


Abstract Deadline: 1 December 2015

Notification of acceptance: 15 December 2015
















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