Leyla Dogruel

Gut or Game? The Influence of Moral Intuitions on Decisions in Video Games

Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.

Choosing the right app: An exploratory perspective on heuristic decision processes for smartphone app selection

Decision-making theories have argued that many daily decisions are the result of heuristic rather than systematic processes. Given the ubiquity of smartphones as mobile communication and computing devices along with the vast smartphone app market, our exploratory study aimed to understand how heuristics guide smartphone app selection. Observing 49 smartphone users from the US and Germany viewing 189 total apps from three predetermined categories, the current study identified five decision-making heuristics used to download a variety of smartphone apps. Of these, four were variants of a “Take the First” (TtF) heuristic that allowed smartphone users to quickly navigate the app market, by passing a good deal of other informational cues in order to download apps that were simply highly rated or ranked. Reliance on heuristic processing is useful in helping navigate the app market, but it also results in smartphone users overlooking potentially important app information.

The use and acceptance of new media entertainment technology by elderly users: development of an expanded technology acceptance model

Research on elderly peoples ICT acceptance and use often relies on the technology acceptance model (TAM) framework, but has been mostly limited to task-oriented uses. This article expands approaches in technology acceptance and use by developing a model to explain entertainment-related uses of new media technology by elderly people. On a theoretical level, we expand the TAM perspective by adding concepts that act as barriers and/or facilitators of technology acceptance, namely technophobia, self-efficacy and previous experience and expertise with technology. We develop an expanded TAM by testing the role of these concepts in two studies on entertainment media technology. In Study 1, we investigate behavioural intention to use 3D cinema among N = 125 German elderly media users (Age 50+). In Study 2, we focus the actual use of a computer game simulation by N = 115 German and US elderly media users (Age 50+). Findings in both studies point towards the central role of perceived usefulness, here modelled as enjoyment, as the reason for elderly peoples use and acceptance of entertainment media technology. Perceived ease of use is seen as a precondition for enjoyment, particularly for interactive media.

Elderly people and morality in virtual worlds: A cross-cultural analysis of elderly people’s morality in interactive media

This study examines elderly people’s innate moral foundations in influencing decisions, and their subsequent enjoyment in an interactive media environment. The Moral Foundation Questionnaire was used to distinguish between the moral intuitions of elderly US and German respondents, who were believed to have divergent yet stable moral codes that would be salient in a novel virtual world. In an experimental design, participants (N=116) were confronted with a computer simulation in which they could decide to violate or uphold each of five moral intuitions. Germans and Americans differed in their moral foundations, yet for both groups higher moral salience led to a decrease in decisions to commit moral violations in a virtual world. Results for enjoyment were mixed.

The reliance on recognition and majority vote heuristics over privacy concerns when selecting smartphone apps among German and US consumers

ABSTRACT The smartphone app market is a prime example of a digital market where consumers are tasked with selecting one option among a plethora of alternatives, at times indistinguishable from one another. Building upon findings on information processing and decision-making, we postulate that consumers follow simple (rather than complex) heuristic rules to navigate the app market. In particular, we focus on two such strategies: the recognition heuristic and the majority vote heuristic. App privacy information was also considered as a potentially salient cue in the decision-making process, given the personal data stored on smartphones. Results of a mixed-method design (behavioral analysis and think-aloud protocols) study with German (N = 18) and US (N = 25) students find a dominance of the recognition heuristic. Decisions are further supported by majority vote heuristics. Privacy information is largely disregarded, particularly by US participants. Implications for app market design and engagement are discussed.

Innovation research in media management and economics: an integrative framework

Academics and practitioners observe a growing relevance of media innovation research. Yet theoretical frameworks on how to approach media innovations in media economics and media management research remain underdeveloped. This article adopts a theoretical approach and discusses central theoretical and empirical concepts towards analysing media innovations and media related change processes from a media management and media economics perspective. This review demonstrates an emphasis on product and process innovations and a focus on micro- and meso-level approaches. As a consequence, the article extends these approaches by elaborating on system-oriented and phase-based innovation concepts that allow for studying media innovation as an integrative and multi-level oriented process.

Video game rating systems in the US and Europe

Regulating children’s and adolescents’ access to video games appeared on the agenda of media lawmakers from the 1990s on. Approaches in western democracies have largely followed the approach of industry self-regulation, resulting in a diverse set of different types of self-regulation systems. This study applies a comparative perspective on the actual rating practices, asking how far regulation systems differ systematically and how far these differences might lead to different rating decisions. The study analyzes both the set-up of three major western regulation systems (the German USK, the pan-European PEGI and the US ESRB) and the actual rating decisions in each of the three systems relying on secondary data at the aggregate level, individual rating decisions for 182 top-selling titles and a list of favorite video games of 744 adolescents in the US and Germany. Findings illustrate that each system has a distinct focus, according to which it regulates different video game use more strongly than the other systems.

Wirtschaftsberichterstattung der Boulevardpresse

In einem ersten Schritt sollen die zentralen Befunde der drei empirischen Teilstudien (Strukturanalyse, Kommunikatorstudie, Inhaltsanalyse) unter Berucksichtigung des Forschungsstands zusammengefasst werden.

“The app market has been candy crushed”: Observed and rationalized processes for selecting smartphone games

Abstract Industry estimates suggests that smartphone gaming – playing video games on smartphone device, accessed via the device’s app market – accounts for a growing segment of the entire video game play market. Yet, very little is known about the processes by which smartphone users search for and download these gaming apps. Exploratory data combining behavioral observation with post-behavior talk aloud sessions found that users tended to (1) evaluate only one game, (2) spend little time evaluating that game before downloading it, and (3) based this decision on familiarity or price considerations (with both implicitly based on rating). Privacy concerns were rarely mentioned, and classic motivations for video gameplay (such as challenge, competition, and socialization) were not represented. These data suggest that smartphone gaming might be a qualitatively different experience in terms of its uses and effects than other forms of gaming and mobile entertainment.

The Right Game: Video Game Choice of Children and Adolescents

Children, adolescents and adults may choose from a broad range of different video game titles. Media choice theory has elaborated on the question: Why do gamers choose to play video games? The chapter illustrates four distinct approaches to video game choice theory: the uses-and-gratification approach as a classical approach in media and communication studies, the transfer model by Jurgen Fritz as an approach in media education, integrated action-theory-based approaches as a complex evaluation of media choice, and economic decision-making models based on approaches in consumer research. Building upon these approaches, a framework for a phase-based video game choice model is deduced, identifying three distinct choice phases: the acquisition phase, the intermedia choice phase and the intramedia choice phase. The interdependency of the three phases is outlined. With respect to children and adolescents, three influencing aspects are integrated: developmental status, legal regulations and parental mediation. Impacts of these aspects on media choice are discussed.