Synchronizing multi-perspectival data of children’s digital play at home

ABSTRACT

Studying digitally mediated play presents challenges in terms of how to view and record both the on-screen action and player’s bodies in physical space. Carrying out this research in a socially and technologically diverse range of family households poses further challenges, common to ethnographic media research in general. In this paper, we describe a method for generating richly detailed views of 6–8 year old children’s digital play with the game Minecraft, on a range of devices and in a range of household configurations. We explain the process undertaken in our own research, highlighting the need for flexibility and a collaborative approach between participants and researchers. We argue that collecting multi-perspectival recordings of digital play provides data that has the potential to greatly aid understanding of digital playworlds.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital games
• video recording
• children
• methods
• Minecraft

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane Mavoa

Jane Mavoa is a Research Assistant at the University of Melbourne, where she researches children's digital gameplay. She also works on projects researching digital inclusion, household use of location technology, datafication in the home and game studies.

Bjørn Nansen

Bjørn Nansen is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on emerging and marginal forms of digital media use in everyday life, using a mix of ethnographic, participatory and digital methods.

Marcus Carter

Marcus Carter is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures at the University of Sydney, where he researches games, play and mixed reality.

Martin Gibbs

Martin Gibbs is Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at, the University of Melbourne. He is currently investigating how people use a variety of interactive technologies for convivial and sociable purposes in a diverse situations.