Making up the responsible gambler : Organizing self-control education and responsible gaming equipment in the Swedish gambling market
Year: 2011
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Responsibilization permeates the various corners of society - not least the markets where responsibility is shifted down from states and organizations to individuals in their role as consumers. How then is responsibility (re)constructed and (re)distributed amongst market actors? This empirical paper contributes to our understanding of the ‘preventive turn’ in governance and more specifically the current trend towards self-control, and self-management by an analysis of consumer responsibilization at the market level. The paper is empirically based on interviews with key informants involved in attempts to organize rational, responsible consumers in the contested Swedish gambling market, a dozen participant observations of responsible gaming education (offline) and Internet studies of on-line equipment and education designed to motivate and teach gamblers to assume responsibility for gambling related problems. Drawing on a market constructionist perspective a model of responsibility in the making is presented. The paper then contributes with empirical illustrations of consumer responsibilization practices carried out in the Swedish context. Findings suggest that the responsible gambler is made up both directly and indirectly, both positively and negatively and by employment of a subtle yet powerful discourse of care.
Source: DiVA (Stockholm University)
Author: Susanna Alexius
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W352322733