Gender identities at play : children's digital gaming in two settings in Cape Town.

This thesis investigates children's gaming relationships with peers in out-of-school settings, and explores their interpretation of digital games as gendered media texts. As an interdisciplinary study, it combines insights from Childhood Studies, Cultural Studies, Game Studies, domestication and performance theory. The concept ludic gendering is developed in order to explain how gender "works" in games, as designed semiotic and ludic artefacts. Ludic gendering also helps to explain the appropriation of games through gameplay, and the interpretation of gendered rules and representations. The study expands on audience reception research to account for children's "readings" of digital games. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is used to study gaming relationships. Combining SNA with broadly ethnographic methods provided a systematic way of investigating children's peer relationships and gendered play.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Centre for Film and Media Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Pallitt, Nicola

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Walton, Marion
• Prinsloo, Mastin

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10635

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/10635