ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the risks involved with playing video games, including both short- and long-term studies along with the extensive discussion on the methodological challenges in the area. We look through two lenses: (1) The Active Media perspective is based on medical and psychological traditions. The researchers usually try to study the question with the help of specially staged experiments, in which people are exposed to different types of games under controlled (but not very realistic) conditions. (2) The Active User perspective, which derives inspiration from ethnography and culturally oriented media studies. Researchers in this paradigm stress the fact that the user constructs meaning from each piece of media, and the process is always dependent on the context. According to this perspective, it is not possible to study the potentially adverse effect of violent video games in artificial settings or without attempting to understand the player’s own perspective.
