![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In May 2019, the World Health Organization identified “gaming disorder” as a mental illness. The decision followed debate in which the video game industry, gamers, and researchers disagreed over whether sufficient research existed to identify gaming disorder as a mental illness. Informed by framing theory, the present study examined news coverage of the decision in the year leading to and immediately following the controversial classification. The study determined how journalists framed gaming disorder in terms of (a) defining the problem, (b) identifying causes, (c) advancing treatment recommendations, and (d) extending moral evaluations. Results suggest that journalists arguably legitimized the illness classification.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The coding protocol also included a variable for “gaming researchers.” However, intercoder reliability was poor and the variable was pulled from analysis.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Scott Parrott
Scott Parrott (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism & Creative Media at the University of Alabama. His research examines media content and effects, with an emphasis on the stigmatization of mental illness.
Ryan Rogers
Ryan Rogers (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is an associate professor and academic coordinator of esports programs at Butler University. His research interests center on the psychology of human-computer interaction with special attention to video games and esports.
Nathan A. Towery
Nathan A. Towery (MA, University of Mississippi) is a doctoral student in Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama. His research interests include motivations for consumption of sports media as well as strategic communication.
Samuel D. Hakim
Samuel D. Hakim (MA, The University at Buffalo, SUNY) is a doctoral student in Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama. He studies sports communication under the lens of interpersonal communication, specifically the interaction between athletes and fans.