DDRIG: The Impact of Video Games, Identity, and Narrative on Understandings of Mental Health

该项目旨在了解视频游戏如何传达心理健康故事。它将深入了解数字技术和新媒体如何重新定义有关心理健康的知识和经验。这项研究将支持医疗保健专业人员，球员和学者了解技术与心理健康之间的关系。它将拓宽心理健康的讨论，包括由数字技术和讲故事结构的新空间。本论文研究项目旨在：（1）探索心理健康是如何表现和传达的有意义的视频游戏;（2）了解是否以及如何心理健康的故事是采取，接受，并解释了那些谁从事这些游戏;以及（3）阐明叙事和讲故事如何在视频游戏和心理健康空间中充当权力、不平等和阻力的场所。通过对玩电子游戏的人进行定性访谈和观察，以及对电子游戏文本的批判性分析，本研究将探讨个人对心理健康的理解和关系如何塑造以及如何通过电子游戏叙事和体验塑造。这项研究将有助于拓宽人们对数字技术日常互动如何参与知识生产的理解，特别是围绕健康和心理健康的知识生产。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to understand how video games communicate mental health narratives. It will provide insight into how digital technologies and new media are re-defining knowledge about and experiences of mental health. This study will support health care professionals, players and scholars understanding of the relationship between technology and mental health. It will broaden mental health discussions to include new spaces structured by digital technology and storytelling.This dissertation research project aims to: (1) explore how mental health is represented and conveyed as meaningful within video games; (2) understand whether and how stories about mental health are taken up, received, and interpreted by those who engage with these games; and (3) articulate how narratives and storytelling may act as sites of power, inequality, and resistance within video game and mental health spaces. Using qualitative interviews and observations with people who play video games, in addition to critical analyses of video game texts, this study will examine how individuals’ understanding of and relationship to mental health shape and are shaped by video game narratives and experiences. This study will contribute to broadened understandings of how everyday interactions with digital technologies participate in knowledge production, specifically around health and mental health.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.