Fathers’ Role in Video Gaming in Russia

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of co-use  of video games by children and their parents. The object of our investigation are father’s strategies of mediation of  children video gaming  within culture-historical approach and activity theory ( L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, P.Ya. Galperin). Despite some authors regard fathers as main protagonists of media use among family members,  their role in  co-use  of video games  still requires more through exploration.  We assumed that family structure and relative position of father in it affect the strategies of mediation of children’s video gaming activities. 30 father-child  dyads were chosen for in-depth interviewing.  To evaluate father’s position within family structure we developed and used a graphic method   “Family Model†(Makhovskaya, 2010). Collected data allowed to map out three groups of fathers and corresponding  strategies of mediation of video gaming.