I will continue to add reviews as I come across them.  And hopefully Hasbro releases B.O. at some point, even if it was only a limited release.

UPDATE: In looking over the official MLP:FIM Facebook page, where Hasbro allows users to post comments, there is nothing really but positive reviews for the movie.  However, there is one person claiming that Hasbro deleted a comment made that was critical about the movie.  I am contacting this user to find out the story.

I was doing a search for a CBR article I am writing on the upcoming My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic movie, Equestria Girls, when I found it will be showing here in Chicago at the Music Box Theatre for three special events.  So, fellow Chicago natives, who wants to join me and crowd out the kids in the theatre!

More importantly, and kinda not to good, is the description the theatre has for the movie’s plot.  Here’s the main part:

When a crown is stolen from the Crystal Empire, Twilight Sparkle pursues the thief into an alternate world where she transforms into a teenage girl who must survive her biggest challenge yet… high school.

So the pony who had to unite her fellow ponies to take down Nightmare Moon and Discord is finding her biggest challenge yet — in high school?

Here is Hasbro, in their attempt to bring in an older (but not the older audience already watching the show) teenage girl audience by trying to identify with what they assume is the biggest challenge those teenage girls face: dealing with the social mores of high school.  As if the biggest challenge a girl has to face in life is to fit in and be liked.  This is blatantly playing up stereotypes of teenage girls that the media and pop culture has been feeding us for decades, and indeed going against the spirit of My Little Pony, which has been rather good at breaking stereotypes, which has led it to have appeal across the genders and generations.

The idea that surviving high school is the biggest challenge a girl can face — just, ugh.  Yes, it was there in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but at least in that series they used the monsters as metaphors for surviving high school, and did not outright call high school itself as Buffy’s greatest challenge.  Hopefully this movie will have the same types of metaphors — but given that there is a “mean girl” rival for Twilight Sparkle in the trailer, along with a competition to be princess of the prom or whatever, I rather doubt they will manage such subtlety.

UPDATE: Also, there is an exclusive look at the movie from Entertainment Weekly.

When a farmer plants a field of corn, he must provide several environmental conditions to ensure it grows. There must be ample sunlight, water, and fertilizer. The temperature should neither be too hot nor too cold, and the soil can neither be too acidic nor too alkaline. Given time, with these influences set at optimum levels, the seed will mature into a successful plant.

It is not a far stretch to apply this same cultivation process to understanding how a child develops into an adolescent, then into full maturity as an adult. An individual will go through a series of cognitive developmental steps over her life, and at each step there are numerous sources of influence that can impact the step’s progress, either helping or hindering the outcome. One of these possible sources, known as socializing agents, is the mass media, with the understanding that socialization is a developmental process by which children learn and internalize a society’s norms. Since the inception of the mass media, researchers have sought to understand the possible socializing effects due to media exposure. One such possible effect is the impetus behind this paper; what is the role the media plays in an adolescent’s development of her identity?

One theory used to explore and explain media effects is George Gerbner’s cultivation theory. Cultivation theory posits that television, as the prevalent medium in society, can foster certain perceptions about the nature of society by repeatedly portraying this society in a certain manner (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Signorielli & Shanahan, 2002). That is to say, the messages on television, such as criminals can strike anywhere and anytime, are pervasive, not varying from program to program. Television viewers, just through their cumulative exposure to this portrayal of reality, and especially if they are not exposed to another depiction of reality, will come to adopt this portrayal as truth. These “heavy viewers” will in turn see the real world in a way that reflects the world “as seen on TV”. Cultivation scholars investigate the prevalence of certain messages in the media, and analyze how these messages interact with the audience to form “an environment within which people live, define themselves and others, and develop and maintain their beliefs and assumptions about social reality.” (Morgan & Signorielli, 1990, p. 18).

According to Gerbner, then, television acts as the conduit through which individuals learn about the values of the culture to which they belong. Thus, his theory is an attempt to explain how culture imparts its norms to its members so that they can function within it. “Culture provides the overall framework in which we imagine that we do not encounter directly, and interpret what we do encounter directly.” (Gerbner, 1990, p. 251). This paper started with an agricultural metaphor because cultivation theory has its roots in agricultural theories. “Thus, cultivation is an agro-aquatic metaphor for the function of television in the construction and maintenance of cultural meaning, and for the way culture works generally.” (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999, p. 12). Television acts as the conduit through which an adolescent, in the process of negotiating a position in said culture and society, can learn and incorporate those norms that would help her development.

A particular developmental challenge adolescents face is the formation of a stable identity. Collapsing across the several distinctions of identity, the term can be defined as a continuous sense of one’s location within a society, wherein this position is shaped and/or defined by one’s concrete presentation of one’s attitudes, values and beliefs (Côté & Levine, 2002). According to Swindler (1986, as cited in Côté & Levine, 2002), a person’s culture aids in this process by providing a ‘tool kit’ of various resources, along with various socializing agents, that one uses to negotiate an identity. An adolescent can rely on the culture’s and society’s various institutions to tell them how to behave in a given situation. These norms can be accepted passively (Côté & Levine, 2002), or an adolescent could engage in active process of exploration and experimentation with the goal of constructing a stable construct of identity (Moshman, 1999). What is in consideration here is the role the media plays in this formation when it acts as a source for socialization. Do adolescents use the media to explore their world, adjusting themselves to find a way to fit into the world?

As a summation of the scope of discussion on this subject, it can be said that there has been much research and speculation as to how the media acts as a socializing agent. Arnett (1995), in a discussion of numerous studies on this topic, reasoned that as adolescents engage in identity formation, and as childhood socialization sources diminish while adult sources are not yet present, adolescents may be more inclined to use the media to understand who they should be (p. 520). Kelly and Donohew (1999), in postulating the primary socialization theory, attempted to incorporate the role of media into the network of socializing agents, calling it a secondary socializer that could exert influence should the primary socializers (e.g., family, school, peers) falter in some way. But this theory was not directly applied to the prospect of identity formation.

Recently, Lloyd (2002) directly addressed media’s influence on identity formation. He proposed that as the media “become increasingly more entertaining and relevant to the targeted audience members, it is much more probable that adolescent audiences will adapt and use this information as a tool for understanding of self and others.” (p. 75). In constructing the AIMSS framework, Lloyd reasoned that an adolescent could engage with the media to “work out” interactions with her peers before employing these interactions. Media use can increase social competence, which would allow the adolescent to compare herself against others, thus fostering a sense of identity. But in the end, this theory appears to be an indirect effect. Media use for the extraction and internalization of norms is not addressed.

Lloyd’s theory appears to have some background in uses and gratifications perspectives, in that adolescents have a need and seek to use media to gratify that need. Boehnke, Münch and Hoffmann (2002), approaching their research from a uses and gratifications perspective, would concur with Lloyd. “Adolescents use the media to accelerate the accomplishment of their developmental goals.” (p. 195). However, if Arnett (1995) is correct, then it is possible cultivation could have an impact on adolescents’ development as well. “Adolescents, who have fewer sources of information and real-world experiences than do adults, are often particularly susceptible to these messages.” (Morgan & Rothschild, 1983, p. 35). Could the proposed cultivation process help us understand how adolescents internalize norms from the media, which in turn would serve as the foundation for identity construction?

The first step in answering this question is to examine research that has specifically looked at cultivation as the reason for media effects in adolescents. There needs to be proof that the media can cultivate adolescents. Typically in these researches, mostly conducted as correlation studies, the researchers were interested in how exposure to the media (i.e. television) is related to certain perceptions and attitudes. Cultivation researchers would imply causality more than just relationship, but because most of these studies were simple survey designs, they cannot totally prove causation. The majority of studies (i.e., Morgan, 1982, 1987; Potter, 1990; Signorielli, 1991, 1993; Cheung & Chan, 1996) were interested in overall exposure without specifying genre or programs, as cultivation theory does not differentiate between overall and specific exposure. However, there were two studies, including the only experiment (Rössler & Brossius, 2001), which did differentiate from overall exposure by examining how watching talk shows could cultivate certain beliefs about sexual norms (Davis & Mares, 1998). Rössler and Brossius reasoned that by selectively choosing to watch talk shows, adolescents may show more of an effect. “We conclude that the two prerequisites of cultivation effects – uniform message and nonselective viewing – might exist within rather than between television genres.” (p. 147). This implies that a more active viewing could have a greater impact on the cultivation process. The implications of this deviation from traditional cultivation theory will be discussed in more detail later in this paper.

For now, it is sufficient to state that the independent variable in these studies was commonly measuring some level of television exposure. The next step was to see how these exposure levels related to some attitude or perception. When first developing the theory, Gerbner was interested in the impact of violence on perceptions of the world as a “bad place”. Accordingly, there has been research conducted to see if this Mean World Syndrome is identifiable in adolescents (Gerbner, Gross, Signorielli, Morgan & Jackson-Beeck, 1979; Cheung & Chan, 1996). Gerbner’s colleagues then moved on to investigate other possible repercussions from watching too much television. The role of television in fostering sex-role stereotypes has been conducted by Morgan alone (1982, 1987) and with Rothschild (1983). The standardization of certain sexual attitudes was studied by Davis and Mares (1998) and Rössler and Brosius (2001). Signorielli studied how television consumption can impact marital attitudes (1991) and attitudes towards different occupations (1993). Finally, Potter (1990) was interested in how television consumption across genres could influence perception of cultural values, such as “good wins over evil” and “honesty is the best policy (p. 848).

However, at the same time as investigating a possible direct link between exposure and effect, some researchers conceptualized this relationship as subject to moderation or mediation by intervening variables. In a longitudinal study, gender and IQ were found by Morgan (1982) to, respectively, moderate the direction of the effect and mediate for whom the effect was noticed. A similar relationship was found in his second study, whereby acting out behavior that was inline with traditional sex-role stereotypes moderated how the exposure would impact attitudes (Morgan, 1987). Then again with Rothschild (1983), the peer network an adolescent has established mediated the impact of television exposure. While this relationship with peers could be informative, especially when combined with the theory postulated by Lloyd (2002), it is the research by Rössler and Brosius (2001), which incorporated the idea that active selection of exposure could be the mediating factor in the cultivation process, that may prove more useful in answering the question of media use and identity formation. This tantalizing possibility will be discussed after a review of the findings.

Like results from cultivation studies conducted on adult samples, there was a general trend, significantly positive yet weak, that television exposure could predict the fostering of perceptions inline with the televised messages. Gerbner et al. (1979) found that heavy viewers were more likely to describe the real world as dangerous, overestimating the number of people involved in violence and the number of criminals walking the street. Cheung and Chan (1996), in studying Hong Kong adolescents whose bulk of television viewing is of Hollywood product, found results reflecting Gerbner et al.’s findings. Signorielli (1991) found that higher television watching was positively related to the adolescent’s desire to be married when older, yet at the same time they indicated that one sees so few good marriages as to question marriage as a way of life (p. 145), which the researcher argued represented the ambivalent nature of marriage on television. Signorielli (1993) found that adolescents who were over-exposed to programs that over-represented adventurous jobs were more likely to desire having a high paying, prestigious job. After collapsing across genres, Potter (1990) found that greater television viewing could substantiate more recall and perception of cultural values. Again, these are all generally direct relationships.

Studies that also analyzed for moderators and mediators still detected the general trend, but this relationship was conditional on some other factor in the adolescent’s environment. Morgan (1982) found that when an adolescent’s IQ was considered, the relationship was still present for girls with IQ’s higher than average, who were described as being “otherwise” the least sexist (p. 952). Additionally, it was found that time-order predicted the relationship only for girls, not boys; in fact, sexism at time one predicted more viewing at time two for boys, the opposite direction from girls. This was explained by the fact that overall boys held more sexist views than girls, so by being heavy viewers, those girls just converged with the boys on their level of sexist stereotypes. A similar situation was found when considering how engaging in behaviors seen as reflecting traditional sex stereotypes could moderate cultivation (Morgan, 1987). Again, if a boy did not engage in stereotypical behavior, and was a heavy viewer, he was more likely to develop sexist attitudes than a boy already engaging in stereotypical behaviors. This pattern could again be explained by a convergence effect. But for girls, those already engaging in stereotypical behavior, while also being heavy viewers, were more likely to cultivate sexist attitudes. Gerbner would account for these results as a mainstreaming effect occurring for boys, and a reinforcing impact for girls (Gerbner et al. 2002).

Morgan and Rothschild (1983) were interested in how peer networks could impact cultivation. Socialization theory predicts that peers form a way for adolescents to learn about the world. If an adolescent lacks a good peer network, then she would have to turn to other sources, such as the media, to know about the real world. Thus, the argument is that “the effects of television should be more pronounced for those who tend to be less socially integrated.” (p. 37). In the end, the results refuted this claim. As the number of friends went down, and the amount of television consumed increased, then incorporation of sexist attitudes likewise increased. The researchers reasoned that the effects of television could be mitigated and suppressed by alternate information sources (p. 48). Relating this finding to the Lloyd (2002) theory, there is evidence that, at least compared to his conceptualization, cultivation theory is not a process related to identity formation. If Lloyd is correct and adolescents use the media for social competence, than higher exposure and having more friends would be related to more incorporation of sexist attitudes, because one would be integrating these norms to conform to friends. While this could still be happening, the findings of Morgan and Rothschild did not support the claim. However, as mentioned before, the Rössler and Brosius (2001) study could aid the answering of the question.

Rössler and Brosius (2001) studied exposure, but it was mediated by being selective exposure. Preceding them, Davis and Mares (1998) found that exposure to talk shows was related to overestimation, but not attitude endorsements. However, Rössler and Brosius found that exposure to talk shows on homosexuality lead to overestimating the prevalence of homosexuality in society as well as generating less restrictive attitudes towards homosexuals. The difference may lie in how the studies measured exposure. Davis and Mares asked for the frequency of watching talk shows, while Rössler and Brosius showed the adolescents talk shows chosen for specific content, such as homosexuality, and then measured for attitudes based on this selective exposure. Thus, Rössler and Brosius took Davis and Mares concept of audience activity one step further. And although the adolescents were shown the television clips in an experiment setting, the study presupposes that viewers actively select what television they want to be exposed to. This presupposition touches upon one of the most vocal critiques on cultivation theory, that it perceives the audience as passively watching and accepting television’s messages. However, research has shown that adolescents are particularly active consumers of “identity-related content” (Levy & Windahl, 1985, p. 120). If this is true, then there could be a spanner in the works; if cultivation theory presupposes passivity, but adolescents are more active media users than either children or adults, how then could cultivation apply to identity formation?

As it turns out, this activity-passivity dichotomy has received, and is still receiving, much discussion amongst those interested in cultivation research. Signorielli (1986) does not see any need for a distinction, because different genres and programs will portray the same issues, themes and values in the same manner. Thus, no matter what program a person chooses, they will still be exposed to the same messages. “In this sense, television programming is necessarily a relatively non-selective activity.” (p. 75). However, research has been done to show that activity can both decrease and increase the effect of cultivation. Reimer and Rosengren (1990) reasoned that active persons would be more susceptible to cultivation effects because, by selectively choosing which messages to expose themselves to, they would undergo a conscious cultivation. In other words, “active subjects using the media consciously may be more sensitive to a message or a system of messages than a passive viewer/reader would be.” (p. 187).

In support of this assertion, Kim and Rubin (1997) found that an increase in fear of victimization, a cultivation effect, was positively correlated with content involvement and selective perception of program content, but there was no direct link with instrumental viewing methods and selective exposure. Thus, certain aspects of audience activity were shown to increase the amount of the cultivation effect. However, at the same time, Rouner (1984) found a negative relationship between active television watching and the cultivation of a mean world perception. Thus, the debate goes on. What is known for certain is that in the studies conducted on adolescents and included in this report, none directly measured how active an adolescent is in media consumption, and what this activity could do to the cultivation of certain attitudes. But at the same time, it has been discussed that adolescents are typically active media users (Levy & Windahl, 1985) and could be active selectors when it comes to identity formation (Arnett, 1995; Moshman, 1999).

So where does this leave us in our understanding of whether or not cultivation theory could be a viable explanation for how adolescents use the media in developing their identity?

The point has been reached to determine that there is some preliminary support to say that cultivation could be applied to identity formation, but such an application at this time would be tentative for several reasons. First, cultivation has yet to be proven as a causal relationship when it comes to adolescents. Of the studies discussed in this report, only one was an experiment, where cumulative exposure was substituted for prolonged-exposure (Rössler & Brosius, 2001). But is watching a series of television clips over a five-day span truly equitable to weeks, months, years of constant exposure, such as an adolescent performs in her daily life? The longitudinal studies of Morgan (1982, 1987) do better to address this factor, but then they don’t address activity, which is the second reason.

Activity is important when discussing adolescents because numerous studies have indicated that adolescents seek out the media as a new form of socializing agent (Arnett, 1995). They tend to seek out media that give them greater autonomy from their families and more integration with their peers (Larson, Kubey & Colletti, 1989), which leads them away from television consumption (the “family” room) and towards music consumption (the bedroom). In support, Boehnke, Münch and Hoffmann (2002) found that adolescents seeking autonomy turned to the radio to fulfill this developmental need. In fact, research has indicated that heavy television viewers, those cultivation theorists say are most susceptible to television, spent more time with their family and less time with friends (Larson et al., 1989). Is it possible that the cultivation effects found in the studies discussed were due more to the socialization impact of the families and not the television? Yet another aspect for future investigation, but it touches on a problem of integrating cultivation theory into understanding a process of media’s impact on identity formation.

Cultivation theory predicts that television exposure would cause the internalization of a culture’s norms. But what if an adolescent is not watching as much television as they are listening to the radio, reading magazines or going on the Internet? Can it be said that cultivation effects are occurring when an adolescent chooses to consume media other than television at levels equal to or greater than her consumption of television? This is a question I have not yet seen an answer for in research, although much has been speculated on how newer media technologies, such as the Internet, would impact cultivation effects.

Shanahan and Morgan (1999) argue that history has shown that a new media, when introduced into a culture or society, will adopt the patterns of message content the dominant media had been employing. The impact on cultivation is not so much from the medium, but from the content that medium contains, because cultivation theory is a theory of storytelling. Gerbner et al. (2002) argued that the predominant online sites are all linked with some dominant television producer, such as Disney and Time-Warner. The question of higher consumption of the Internet displacing time spent with television is likewise dismissed. “Rather, the emerging evidence indicates that audience members add online time on to other previously existing media use patterns, extending (not redistributing) the overall amount of time spent with media.” (Morgan & Shanahan, 1990, p. 214). Thus, cultivationists argue the Internet is no treat to television, not only because it is falling under the control of mainstream Hollywood, but also because there is no strong indication it detracts from time spent with television.

While this may be true for adults, how true is it for adolescents? Larson et al. (1989) found that as adolescents grow older, they spend less time watching television. A study conducted by the National Science Foundation (Papadakis, 2001) found that the greatest predictor of Internet use was generational differences, with teens more likely to use the Internet than adults. Also, the NSF report cited studies indicating that households with the Internet tended to watch less television (p. 21). Stranger (1998) found that if children had computers in their home, they would spend less time in front of the television. Woodard and Gridina (2000), in looking specifically at children, found that adolescents spend the most time using the Internet; however, television use remained stable for children. At the same time, though, the study did not differentiate Internet use and displacement per age group, but instead lumped all ages into one group and found no change in television use. This raises a flag in the face of other research, saying that adolescents watch less television than younger children. Is it possible then that adolescents, just as they listen to music more, are going online more than they are watching television?

Ah, yet another question that does not yet have a satisfactory answer. And the answer could be changing as more and more young people are growing up with computer and digital technologies when compared to older generations, especially when considering how online services like Napster, Kazaa and Apple Music could be fulfilling their need for music.

So what is the current tally? Could cultivation be applicable to identity formation? As said before, several conditions need to be meet for Gerbner’s theory to apply. First, cultivation needs to be proven causally. Second, active media use and its relationship with identity formation needs to be explored. “Unfortunately, this model of active development is still missing from much of the research and theory on adolescents and media.” (Arnett, Larson & Offer, 1995, p. 514). If it is proven that adolescents actively seek out media to aid in this developmental challenge, then for cultivation to apply, it has to be shown that active media use is not detrimental to the cultivation process. Third, cultivation effects need to be shown to still have an effect even if television viewing is displaced by other media consumption, such as radio, magazines and the Internet.

All three of these conditioning statements need further study before it can be concluded that an adolescent can internalize a culture’s norms from media consumption, in a manner predicted by cultivation theory, with the goal of forming a sense of identity and a sense of place and purpose within that culture.

DISCUSSION

            In undertaking this study, our purpose was to address several questions in regards to our understanding of players’ engagement with digital games.  First, as with other media channels, we sought to understand what compels people to engage with digital games; what are the underlying elements that influence starting, continuing, or stopping this engagement?  Two decades of research has been conducted on this topic, with two mostly separate emphases: one from U&G research focusing on gratifications sought and/or obtained; the second from the communication technology fields focusing on game features, as anchored in technology and content.  In this study, instead of conflating these elements, we wanted to see how these conceptualizations would differ depending on two additional elements: gender and situation.  In terms of gender differences, there has likewise been a long emphasis in digital games studies focused on understanding the often observed gender discrepancy in amount and type of games played.  Gender differences have focused on both preferences for gratifications and game features in the hope that understanding each gender’s preferences could explain this gender gap.

While the present study replicated the emphasis in past work on examining how men and women players differ in their evaluations of gratifications and game features, we added an additional element to the equation by considering the role of situation.  The idea of viewing situation as itself a variable when considering media use has only recently begun being discussed (Denham, 2004; Dervin & Song, 2005).  Its application here is one such step in interrogating how a player’s engagement with a medium may be different across a number of situations that vary based on some characteristic.  In this study, we held this variability to an admittedly simple level by having players evaluate their game playing gratifications and game feature preferences for a game they liked to play, a game they disliked playing, and a game they wished was created for them to play.

The results of this foray into understanding the situationality of players’ engaging with digital games indicated that this introduction did indeed interrupt much repeated results on how the genders differ in their evaluations of digital games.  This result adds to our understanding of why men and women differ in not only the hows but the whys of their engagement with digital games and the observed gender gap in reported playing of digital games.

Conclusions

In general, as confirmed by the fact that 100% of the gender comparisons on all the gratifications and game features were significant across the three game playing situations, men were once again shown as being more engaged with digital games.  Men consistently evaluated all the preferences as being better provided for by games than women did.   Even when comparing within each of the three specified game playing situations, this pattern largely held.  This was especially true when players were rating a game they liked playing.  However, in the other two situations, the gap did narrow in such a way that there was no significant difference found between them for four game playing gratifications and three game feature preferences.

In considering how the players’ evaluations compared across the game playing situations, regardless of the player’s gender, we find that all differences were significant.  For thirteen of these fourteen preferences, the pattern was exactly the same.  Evaluations in relation to desired games were the highest, followed by the evaluations for liked games, with evaluations for disliked games being the lowest.  Only the game playing gratification Diversion had a slight deviation from this pattern, in that the players’ liked game was not significantly different from their desired game, while both remained higher than the disliked game.  Overall, then, we see a tendency for players to prefer imaginary games gratifications and game features that are indeed better than those offered even by the games they said they liked playing.  Common sense alone suggests this is reasonable; while we may like what we have, we always want something more, something better.

This picture became very interesting when we investigated the interactions between the player’s gender and the three game playing situations.  In total, 9 of 14 (64.3%) gratifications and game features had significant interactions with one additional game feature showing a near significant tendency.  This large number of interactions shows a definite pattern for both gratifications and game features.  Men were evaluating their game playing situations in such a way that both their liked and desired games were typically higher than how they evaluated their disliked games.  The pattern mimicked the overall pattern found for situation differences.  Women, on the other hand, did not rate their liked games so highly.  In fact, the interactions showed that they were more likely to evaluate the gratifications and game features lower for both their liked and disliked games when compared to the men, with the games they desired to play being higher than either.

Implications

The results as found in this study point to at least two major implications.  First, while overall the gender differences found were as commonly reported in previous literature, the fact that we saw a break from the overall pattern when examining gender differences on a situational-level indicates that prior research that has defined digital game playing as aggregate behavior does not provide a full picture.  When men and women have been asked to consider the entirety of their experiences playing digital games without differentiating for specific engagements, they seem to have been reporting the expected, stereotypical responses that highlight how men are more favorable towards digital games overall.  However, when male and female players’ preferences for their games were considered on a level that asked them to address specific games of their own choosing, we see a more truthful accounting of how they see their engagements with these games.  Such a finding would be expected, given research on situationality in the field of library information sciences.  Allowing the player to describe their media use in terms of their recalled life allows them to articulate thoughts that, not based on generalizations or hypotheticals, are closer to their lives as experienced (Dervin & Foreman-Werner, 2003).

The second major implication we see in these results comes from the interactions between players’ gender and game playing situations.  For men, these results suggest that their preferences for how the digital games should be designed and the gratifications they have sought from these games are being largely provided for.  Men indicated that if they were to design a game they really wanted to play, then this desired game would be similar to the games they already like playing.  Women, on the other hand, do not appear to be so well provided for.  Their evaluations of games they said they actually liked playing were closer to how they saw games they did not like playing and not as close to games they would design to play — and this pattern became clearer when comparing it to the men’s pattern.  Their evaluations for desired games indicates that there is still a dearth between what games are being offer to them and what they want out of their games.

Of course, this last implication brings back the fundamental question of this gender gap.  Is it that women evaluate their games differently, such that they want different gratifications or game features than men?  Not necessarily.  As the within situation gender differences indicated, there were certain times when men and women were evaluating games the same way for a specific gratification or game feature.  If it is not an issue with the player, then is it an issue with the game’s design?  Are there simply not enough games out there marketed towards women, or are women not familiar with the array of possible games to play?  Unfortunately, answering these questions is beyond the scope of this study.  It is hoped that the results obtained, with the application of situationality to gender differences, may inspire others to take up the call for a new way to investigate the question of why players engage with this new media.

Limitations

Indeed, this was only an initial step in a new way of understanding this engagement.  As it is only the beginning, future studies may want to address the questions raised by this study, and to expand upon the conceptualizations discussed in this study.  There are a number of possible avenues for further pursuit indicated by the admitted limitations of the study, but we would like to highlight two here.

First, the measurements of the game playing gratifications and the game feature preferences relied only on the conceptualization of these categories.  The items intended to measure each category was averaged with its brethren, with no attempt to conduct a statistical factor analysis to verify that these scale items were indeed measuring the categories as we defined them.  Our reasoning for not conducting such a test was to remain as close as possible to what we saw as being the extant categories as described in previous literature.  Conducting a factor analysis to validate these items may have ended up creating another layer of categorizations that would only complicate what had been found in the literature to date.  As we were already imposing categories across the various previous findings, we did not want to start this initial interrogation of situationality by possibly further distancing ourselves from the literature as it stood.  Further studies should attempt to prove the validity of the scale used to measure the gratifications and game features, even to the point of seeing how these two separate conceptual sets overlap in how they are preferred by players.

However, before such a factor analysis is conducted, it may be judicious to conduct a qualitative study of these conceptual sets along the same lines as this study; that is, to ask men and women to discuss their engagement with different types of games in different situations in their own words.  It is possible that by allowing players to use their own words to express their interpretations of their engagements, the results seen for gender differences within situations may further disappear.  The case may be that women would evaluate as highly the same preferences that men did if they could use their own words and not terminology imposed upon them by scale items; or it may be the reverse, that men would evaluate the same as women.  Funk (2001) indicated a potential occurrence of this when boys and girls both described liking the same content of games, only boys called it “violence” while girls called it “action, adventure”.  The researcher surmised that this was because it was more socially acceptable for girls to describe such content this way.  Perhaps women would describe competition differently than “bragging rights,” or men might describe the importance of their characters in terms other than the character’s appearance or the idea of socializing in terms that do not emphasize sharing.  Until a more phenomenological and situationally based investigation of how men and women are actually interpreting their game playing engagements is conducted, these possibilities remain tantalizing.

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