Should I stay or should I… Pokémon Go? : En undersökning av svensk massmedias diskussion om det digitala spelet Pokémon Go

Sammanfattning: Since digital games entered the market they have been classified as a problematic medium, something that makes people aggressive and isolated from their surroundings. A stereotype of a white, adult male, playing alone and killing virtual people started to spread in the public. During the summer and early autumn of 2016, a new game entered the public sphere, which made people all over the world leave their homes to get out and catch virtual creatures using their mobile phones as tools of gameplay. Pokémon Go - a game that made the world go wild. Mass media reported that people started to engage with other persons, who also were playing the game, and some reported that their general health stated to improve. Now gamers also included women, children, and older persons. But the mass media also reported about big issues in the form of accidents, theft and that games destroy our minds. These newsreportings have the possibility to create tendencies to moral panic in the society. Mass media is a big influencer in people's perception of a phenomenon, and digital games are not an exception, it is therefore interesting to study how the press presented Pokémon Go and in relation to research about this. In this work the focus is about mass medias news report about Pokémon Go in Sweden, to identify gaming as a contemporary activity. This makes it possible to see how digital games are presented in people's daily social lives in their interaction with the press, by using an argumentations analysis and the theories telepresence and moral panic.