Why gaming is good nonetheless – strategies of neutralization among video game addicts and researchers in the social sciences

Im folgenden Text werden zunächst verschiedene wissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf das Phänomen der Computerspielabhängigkeit vorgestellt und die Position der Autorinnen, die Computerspielabhängigkeit in der Tradition sozialwissenschaftlicher Suchtforschung als virtuelle (Schein-)Lösung verschiedener biografischer Problemkonstellationen sowie als unwahrscheinlichen Prozess verstehen, hiervon abgegrenzt. Zweitens werden innerhalb des als «unwahrscheinliche Karriere» verstanden Prozesses verschiedene hier als Neutralisierungsstrategien bezeichnete Deutungsmuster in den Fokus genommen, die zu einem Nichtergreifen von Karriereabbruchmöglichkeiten führen. Es sind vielfältige Neutralisierungsstrategien aus dem Material rekonstruierbar, mit denen Spieler/innen plausibilisieren, «warum Computerspielen trotzdem gut ist», trotz der Konflikte also, die sich zunehmend mit Normen und Werten des sozialen Umfelds oder der Gesellschaft ergeben. Dabei ist zwischen offensiveren und defensiveren, wie auch zwischen jene Normen aushebelnden oder aber diese anerkennenden Strategien zu unterscheiden, wobei verschiedene Strategien auch zugleich von ein und derselben Person eingesetzt werden. Drittens wird die Frage aufgeworfen, inwieweit die Argumentationslinien der durch Kommerzialisierungsinteressen getriebenen Medienanbieter, wie auch der Medienpädagogik und ihrer Nachbardisziplinen Parallelen zu diesen Neutralisierungsstrategien aufweisen. Kann diese gewagte Parallelisierung die Medienpädagogik zu einer kritischen Selbstreflexion anregen, um sich in einem Diskurs um Medienrisiken reflektierter positionieren zu können, statt Hinweise zu Risiken der Bildschirmmediennutzung, die vorwiegend aus anderen Disziplinen stammen, entweder zu ignorieren oder aber reflexartig zu neutralisieren, indem begründet wird, «warum Computerspielen trotzdem gut» sei?In a first step, different current approaches toward describing the phenomenon of video game addiction are briefly characterized, including the authors´ own position: Understanding it, in the tradition of socio-scientific addiction research, as a virtual (mock) solution for different biographical problem constellations and an unlikely outcome in a process model. Secondly, we describe how a certain type of attribution pattern, which we call strategies of neutralization, contributes to the non-exploitation of chances to abandon the unlikely addiction career. A multitude of different strategies of neutralization can be reconstructed from interviews with (addicted) gamers which corroborate the attribution that «gaming is good nonetheless», i. e. in spite of the increasing conflicts with norms and values of their immediate social and larger societal environment. The strategies can be classified according to whether they are more aggressive or defensive, whether they tend to accept or lever out these norms and values. One interviewee is often found to use several strategies in parallel. Thirdly, we investigate to what extent parallels to these strategies of neutralizing can be found in the structure of arguments used by media providers driven by commercial interests, but also by media education research and practice and its neighbouring disciplines. Can this daring comparison assist a critical self-reflection within the media education scene and lead to a more reflected self-positioning in the face of concerns about screen media risks which mainly originate from other disciplines, instead of ignoring or rejecting them in a knee-jerk impulse to argue «why gaming is good nonetheless»

Session B9: How Fish Use and Process Flow Information

Abstract: Fish use the mechanosensory lateral line and the acoustic system for the processing of hydrodynamic information. With their lateral line fish perceive the amplitude, direction and frequency content of water motions relative to their body and tail fin surface as well as local pressure gradients across their head and trunk. With the acoustic system fish detect the particle displacement component and the pressure amplitude of a sound wave. Both, the lateral line and acoustic system, play an important role in many fish behaviors, including schooling, predator avoidance, intraspecific communication and prey detection. With the acoustic system fish not only can discriminate multiple sound sources but in addition can determine the direction and distance to these sources. Rheophilic fish even use lateral line (and acoustic?) information to save energy while swimming in turbulent flow. The smallest sensory unit of the lateral line is the neuromast. The lateral line neuromasts occur freestanding on the surface of a fish or they are embedded in lateral line canals. Inner ear receptors relevant for the processing of sound information are the hair cells of the utricle, sacculus and lagena. Hydrodynamic stimuli are received and transduced into neuronal signals by the lateral line neuromasts and the inner ear receptors. Lateral line and acoustic information is conveyed by afferent nerve fibres to the fish’s brain and processed by higher order neurons in distinct nuclei. In my talk I will introduce the peripheral morphology of the lateral line and acoustic system of fish, describe behavioral and physiological work, thereby focusing on recent studies that have investigated how fish behave in unsteady flow, what kind of sensory information is provided by the flow and how fish use and process this information

Artificial lateral line canal for hydrodynamic detection

Fish use their lateral line system to detect minute water motions. The lateral line consists of superficial neuromasts and canal neuromasts. The response properties of canal neuromasts differ from those of superficial ones. Here, we report the design, fabrication, and characterization of an artificial lateral line canal system. The characterization was done under various fluid conditions, including dipolar excitation and turbulent flow. The experimental results with dipole excitation match well with a mathematical model. Canal sensors also demonstrate significantly better noise immunity compared with superficial ones. Canal-type artificial lateral lines may become important for underwater flow sensing

The responses of central octavolateralis cells to moving sources

Müller HM, Fleck A, Bleckmann H. The responses of central octavolateralis cells to moving sources. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. 1996;179:455-471

Artificial lateral line canal for hydrodynamic detection

Fish use their lateral line system to detect minute water motions. The lateral line consists of superficial neuromasts and canal neuromasts. The response properties of canal neuromasts differ from those of superficial ones. Here, we report the design, fabrication, and characterization of an artificial lateral line canal system. The characterization was done under various fluid conditions, including dipolar excitation and turbulent flow. The experimental results with dipole excitation match well with a mathematical model. Canal sensors also demonstrate significantly better noise immunity compared with superficial ones. Canal-type artificial lateral lines may become important for underwater flow sensing

Untersuchungen zur Funktion von cAMP Response Element Binding Protein (CREB) und Activating Transcription Factor 1 (ATF1) während der Embryonalentwicklung der Maus

Die Transkriptionsfaktoren cAMP Response Element Binding Protein (CREB), cAMP Response Modulatory Protein (CREM) und Activating Transcription Factor 1 (ATF1) werden innerhalb der Leucinzipperproteine in der CREB/ATF-Unterfamilie zusammengefaßt. Verschiedene Hormone, Wachstumsfaktoren und Neurotransmitter vermitteln über sekundäre Botenstoffe wie beispielsweise cAMP und Ca2+ eine Aktivierung der CREB/ATF-Proteine. Diese Aktivierung erfolgt mittels Phosphorylierung durch unterschiedliche Kinasen wie Proteinkinase A, Calmodulin-dependent Kinase II und IV oder auch ras-abhängigen Kinasen. Anschließend binden die CREB/ATF-Transkriptionsfaktoren als Dimere an das cAMP Response Element (CRE) in den regulatorischen Regionen zahlreicher Gene. Mäuse, die kein funktionelles CREB-Protein bilden können, sterben kurz nach der Geburt an einer Atelektase der Lunge. Zusätzlich zeigen sie einen Defekt in der T-Zellentwicklung und eine Reduktion bestimmter Hirnstrukturen. Mäusen ohne funktionelles ATF1-Protein dagegen, erscheinen gesund, sind fertil und zeigen auch keine histologischen Veränderungen. Um gegenseitige kompensatorische Effekte des jeweils anderen Proteins auszuschließen, wurden Doppelverpaarungen von Mäusen des Genotyps ATF1+/- CREB+/- vorgenommen. Die daraus resultierenden Tiere ohne funktionelles ATF1- und CREB-Protein sterben noch vor der Implantation in den Uterus. Im Vergleich zu Wildtyp-Embryonen gleichen Alters weisen die Doppelmutanten eine verminderte Zellzahl auf und sind in ihrer Entwicklung zurückgeblieben. Embryonen des Genotyps ATF1+/- CREB-/- können in den Uterus implantieren, weisen allerdings auffallende strukturelle Abnormalitäten auf und sterben nach wenigen Tagen. CREB und ATF1 sind somit in wichtige Prozesse der Embryonalentwicklung involviert. Sowohl CREB als auch ATF1 können das Fehlen der Funktion des anderen während der frühen Embryonalentwicklung kompensieren. Allerdings ist Kompensation durch ATF1 dosisabhängig

Detection of Simultaneous Group Effects in MicroRNA Expression and Related Target Gene Sets

Expression levels of mRNAs are among other factors regulated by microRNAs. A particular microRNA can bind specifically to several target mRNAs and lead to their degradation. Expression levels of both, mRNAs and microRNAs, can be obtained by microarray experiments. In order to increase the power of detecting microRNAs that are differentially expressed between two different groups of samples, we incorporate expression levels of their related target gene sets. Group effects are determined individually for each microRNA, and by enrichment tests and global tests for target gene sets. The resulting lists of p-values from individual and set-wise testing are combined by means of meta analysis. We propose a new approach to connect microRNA-wise and gene set-wise information by means of p-value combination as often used in meta-analysis. In this context, we evaluate the usefulness of different approaches of gene set tests. In a simulation study we reveal that our combination approach is more powerful than microRNA-wise testing alone. Furthermore, we show that combining microRNA-wise results with ‘competitive’ gene set tests maintains a pre-specified false discovery rate. In contrast, a combination with ‘self-contained’ gene set tests can harm the false discovery rate, particularly when gene sets are not disjunct

Manipulation of Airy surface plasmon beams

We demonstrate experimentally the manipulation of Airy surface plasmon beams in a linear potential. For this purpose, we fabricate dielectric-loaded plasmonic structures with a graded refractive index by negative-tone gray-scale electron beam lithography. Using such carefully engineered potentials, we show that the bending of an Airy surface plasmon beam can be fully reversed by the potential.We acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council and the Australian National Computational Infrastructure