Ce que nous savons sur (les) sciences du jeu : Analyse bibliométrique et lexicométrique des articles de la revue (octobre 2013 - mai 2022)
In Sciences du jeu
Abstract
On its website, Sciences du jeu describes itself as an “international and interdisciplinary journal whose mission is to develop and promote French-speaking researc[h] on play”, “to foster dialogue between social sciences and set off debates on this particular subject” Created in 2013 following a study day in tribute to the work of Jacques Henriot, its scientific program clearly follows in his footsteps. Indeed, Sciences du jeu defines itself not only as “open to all approaches or methods”, but also to “every aspect of play” (including, but not exclusively, video games) and to “researc[h] from various fields related to play in a broad sense (objects, structures, situations, experiences, attitudes)”.. Ten years after the publication of the first issue of the journal, we may well ask to what extent the articles published to date reflect the original approach of play originally promoted by Henriot. What about the references to this author and to the concepts he developed in his work? More generally, what are the bibliographical references most frequently used by the journal’s authors? What do they tell us about their conception of play and how they approach it? On which disciplinary approaches and methods are their analyses most often based? What types of games, themes and/or fields are most frequently studied? What are the gray areas and less visible fields? Finally, who are the authors of these papers (in terms of gender and status), where do they come from (in terms of affiliation and disciplinary roots) and how does this influence their perspective on play? To answer these questions, this paper draws on a bibliometric, lexicometric and sociological analysis based on a corpus comprising all the articles published in the first seventeen issues of the journal.