Virtual Game Communication In The Context Of Social Capital

2018 was the year of Chinese e-sports writing history.The Chinese team participated in the Jakarta Asian Games exhibition competition.In the same year,the China Electronic Club IG won the League of Legends S8 global championship.China's e-sports industry is gradually getting on the right track and accepted by more people.However,the social problems arising from the development of e-sports are also exposed.For example,the industry is fiercely competitive,the e-sports talent market is in short supply,and e-sports players are addicted to game fear and reality..Based on Bourdieu's field theory and social capital theory,this paper studies e-sports through in-depth interviews and participatory observations.The study found that there are three kinds of capital in the field of e-sports: economic capital,cultural capital and social capital.Social capital can be divided into condensed social capital,bridging social capital and maintenance social capital.Mutual trust,reciprocity and interaction are prerequisites for the formation of social capital.As one of the important capitals in the field of e-sports,social capital is constructed and transformed by different identities using different strategies.The actors in the e-sports field include e-sports practitioners,e-sports players and e-sports media.These three types of actors use conservative strategies,subversive strategies and inheritance strategies when constructing social capital.In the process of transforming social capital into economic capital and cultural capital,these three types of actors also adopt different transformation methods.This paper hopes to provide a multi-dimensional reference for the development of e-sports industry through the analysis of the construction and transformation of social capital in the field of e-sports.It also provides reference for future scholars to study e-sports and expand the scope of communication studies.