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This article outlines how gaming and video gameplay among Danish youth can be integral parts of everyday practices. The article is based on a mixed-methods study of video gameplay patterns among Danish children and young people aged 10–18 years. The study included a survey with a stratified random sample ( N = 1560), follow-up in-depth interviews using purposive sampling from the survey respondents ( N = 19) and focus group interviews with boys and girls ( N = 2). We argue that pronounced differences in boys’ and girls’ gameplay patterns and preferences can be explained by the different ways in which gameplay is embedded into the social patterns of everyday life with family and friends. We identify two predominant gaming practices, one organised around competitive social play in teams and another around non-competitive solo play. These findings are discussed in the context of practice theory and existing work on gender and video games.

Through guidelines, terms of service and algorithmic curation, digital platforms such as YouTube encourage creators to produce content that fits with the commercial goals of the platform. Scholars have argued that this pressure to conform might lead to uniformity, or isomorphism, in the ways organizations manage their presence on platforms. This article contributes to the debate on isomorphism by taking a bottom-up approach and ask to which extent creators on YouTube pursue similar, or different, strategies for uploading and monetizing content. Through quantitative and qualitative analyses of a sample of YouTube channels, we show how content creators adapt to, negotiate with, and defy institutional pressures. In the end, we find greater support for diversification, that is, polymorphism, than concentration in the ways organizations manage their presence on the platform. This has implications for how we understand platform power and integrate institutional theories in communication research.

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