How is exposure to video games associated with political attitude among young adults in Sweden

Sammanfattning

This study examines the relationship between video games exposure and political attitudes among young adults in Sweden. As video games have become one of the most prominent forms of contemporary popular culture and entertainment media, and Sweden ranks as one of Europe’s most founded gaming industries. It is important to understand whether gaming engagement is associated with political socialisation. Adopting a quantitative research analysis design, all data were collected from an online survey improvising a Likert-scale, distributed through university networks and online communities, comprising a sample of 72 respondents who aged around 18 to 35. The analysis used descriptive statistics, Spearman rank-order correlations, and Mann-Whitney U tests to examine associations between gaming exposure which measured from frequency, session duration, and genre. While investigating political attitudes through political interest, political trust, and perception on political influence of gaming. The findings suggest that gaming exposure is selectively associated with political attitudes. Both gaming frequency (r= 0.298, p= 0.011) and hours per session (r= 0.453, p< 0.001) appeared to be significantly and positively correlated with the belief that gaming shapes individuals’ political thinking, and excessive gaming was found negatively associated with political trust (r= 0.264, p= 0.025). There were no significant associations found between gaming exposure and general political interest, freedom of speech attitudes, or political issues priorities. However, a significant gender difference was identified, with male respondents reporting a substantially stronger perception that gaming is more likely to influence their political thinking compared to female respondents’ perspective (M= 3.75 vs F= 2.78, p= 0.001). These findings indicate that video games function as a selective rather than broad site of political meaning-making, especially among young men who generally engage intensively with gaming. The study contributes to intersection of game studies, media studies, and political socialisation research, and highlights the need for further investigation using larger or more diverse samples, and more dynamic or longitudinal designs.