Contemporary Media Culture in the Coordinates of Game Principles
Contemporary Media Culture in the Coordinates of Game Principles

Summary/Abstract: The intention of the study is to highlight the interrelationships between the operation of gaming principles and contemporary media culture. The authors analyze game principles as defined and conceptualized by R. Caillois in his work. They formulate a premise according to which individual game principles can also be identified in contemporary media production, especially in cinema and digital games. They are present in the choice of preferred media topics and in the discourse of creative approaches of media creators. Gaming principles are based on fundamental human qualities that dominate during play. That is, they are an anthropological issue and have had a culture-making function. Although mimicry is the most dominant gaming principle within media production, other gaming principles, namely agon, alea, and illinx, are also found in particular genres and formats. The authors argue that contemporary media culture is shaped by the coordinates of game principles as well as by the mental settings of the people existing in the contemporary Euro-Atlantic civilizational circle. This environment creates a person craving for entertaining media genres. These provide them with enormous emotional excitement and transitions into another dimension of life, into a playful media reality.

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