The parents, who are the main target group here, are non-western immigrants in Norway. Our research spanning 3 years had gained us insights into video game habits among the youth in these families highlighting complex issues intersecting Identity, Integration, Religious discourse, Gender, Location, Place and space, Ethnicity and more.
On the other hand, the study unravelled the challenges and tensions surrounding video game regulation. While a few managed to regulate this ‘new’ time and money consuming past-time activity, most felt stressed out not knowing how to go about it. As digital migrant parents raising digital native kids pertaking in this global gaming culture, these parents didn’t have the frame of reference to fall back to nor social networks to lean on.
The parents came from diverse backgrounds and had different capacities, needs and challenges: from illiteracy and semi-literacy, to lack of proficiency in Norwegian, to stressed-out and over worked parents who had no time to peruse ‘through complex texts’, to lack of interest and information on the basics ( like pros and cons) of video games and why these are so popular today.
With this understanding, we went to work, harvesting all these insights which have ended in various ‘user-friendly’ resources for parents in 5 Languages. English version:
Cartoons: ‘Navigating video game regulations in immigrant family contexts’
An infographic booklet: ‘When video games Challenge Family life!’
Video: ‘Video games – Youth speak out’
Brochures: ‘Setting age limits’ and ‘Tips and advice to parents’
For more information and other languages visit the Project website.
A big thank you to the Norwegian Media Authority and Competence Center for Gaming Research, University of Bergen for funding the Project, my fellow researchers; Håkon Repstad (MA), Hilde Corneliussen (PhD) and Gilda Seddighi (PhD) and our partners from the Civil Society Organisations MiR, VI, Spillavhengighet Norge and especially NOMKUS for the amazing work in developing, testing and translating into various Languages. And of course last but not least the parents and youth who took part. I am certainly not forgetting John Cei Douglas for the cool illustrations 🙂 It was a fun process developing these.
Do leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
Carol Azungi Dralega 