Video Games in Russian Federal Media: Discourse Transformation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2025.4.2888Keywords:
video games, media, news media, content analysis, discource frames, import substitution, moral panic, co-optationAbstract
Against the backdrop of the growing popularity of video games, the attitude towards them in the public discourse of the authorities is being transformed ― from criticism and accusations of propaganda of violence to recognition of their usefulness for the education of young people and other socially approved effects. The main signs of this complex transformation include statements from the authorities about the need to financially support the developers of domestic video games to educate young people, the organisation of national and international fijital competitions ‘Games of the Future’, the increasing number of Russian video games, and the emergence of the VK-Play platform. Such phenomena are widely represented in the public agenda of the media.
The article analyses the transformation of the power discourse about video games based on the analysis of federal media publications for 2014―2024 using the Medialogy service. Relevant publications are grouped by latent coding by types and subjects of the message, key thematic blocks, and assessments expressed in the publication.
Based on the results of the content analysis, supplemented with elements of discourse analysis, the dynamics and key trends in the change of the official discourse about the video game industry are reflected and outlined: recognition of the potential of video games as part of social policy and ‘soft power’, narratives about the replacement of existing ‘harmful’ foreign video games with ‘useful’ domestic analogues. Studying the discourse in dynamics allowed us to trace the change from moral panic about video games to a social mechanism of co-optation, implemented through legislative regulation of the industry and government support for its development (despite the persistence and even increase in the number of negative connotations).
Acknowledgments. The article was prepared within the framework of the Basic Research Program at HSE University. The author expresses special gratitude to Prof. E. R. Iarskaya-Smirnova for her scholarly assistance in working on the manuscript.
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