Violent computer games in the German press

• Published in: New media & society Vol. 15; no. 6; pp. 963 - 981
• Main Author: Sorensen, Estrid
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.09.2013
• Subjects: Actor-network theory; Conceptualization; Debate; Discourse; Federal Republic of Germany; Germany; Media; Moral Panic; Press; Public Schools; Schools; Social Conflict; Social conflicts; Video games; school shootings; moral panic; mass media; violent computer games; press; Actor-network theory; Germany
• ISSN: 1461-4448; 1461-7315
• DOI: 10.1177/1461444812460976

The most heated public debates on the subject of violent computer games in Germany take place following incidents of school shootings. Such reactions are often conceptualized as moral panics and signs of underlying social conflict. Focus is rarely on the violent computer games themselves. Actor-network theory allows for an analysis of how phenomena are sequentially drawn together, contingent upon the material available for the press at specific times, to which violent computer games can be related. Six months of press coverage following the 2006 school shooting in the German town of Emsdetten were not a continuous narrative of violent computer games, but divided into six distinct phases. In these, violent computer games achieved several different identities. Both the way the material was brought together in the press and the contingent events beyond the context of publishing houses were decisive for which identities were generated in the press, and which of these became the most enduring.