CULTURAL ASPECTS OF VIDEO GAMES IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze the cultural aspects of video games in a social context, focusing on their role as a tool for sociocultural interaction, symbolic communication, and personal involvement. The paper will explore how video games not only reflect modern social trends, but also actively shape them, acting as a full-fledged space for the formation of new patterns of behavior, understanding of community, identity, and values. Special emphasis is placed on studying the mechanisms of cultural transmission through gaming practices, analyzing ways to build virtual communities, and investigating the processes of symbolic exchange in digital gaming spaces. The research methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach that combines cultural, socio-philosophical, media-analytic, and game analysis.Methods of structural-semiotic analysis were used to study the symbolic systems of video games, a phenomenological approach to study the experience of gamers, and tools of digital anthropology to analyze online communities. Particular attention is paid to the elements of ritualization, narrative structure, emotional involvement and interface design as factors that determine the features of the gaming experience. The study also includes an analysis of specific gaming projects that demonstrate various models of cultural interaction and social influence. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the cultural rethinking of video games as an independent phenomenon of digital culture, which has its own logic, semiotics and social power. It is emphasized that the video game ceases to be just a means of entertainment and turns into a form of cultural expression and a platform for social modeling. For the first time, a comprehensive typology of the cultural functions of video games is proposed, which includes educational, socialization, therapeutic and creative components. The conclusions emphasize that video games act as a new type of cultural code that encompasses both aesthetic and social components, allowing the player not only to consume content, but also to participate in the process of creating meanings and interaction in the digital environment. The need to develop a new methodological paradigm for studying interactive media as full-fledged cultural phenomena capable of influencing the formation of a modern civilization model and changing traditional forms of socio-cultural organization is substantiated.