One of the core debates in social science research centres around the classic battle between agency and structure. An article by DavidBuckingham and Julian Sefton-Green written in 2003 examines the agency/structure divide within the frame of the Pokemon phenomenon that took off in the late 1990’s. Gotta catch 'em all: structure, agency and pedagogy in children's media culture is an attempt to transcend the gap in understanding created by the binary poles of this tired debate. According to the authors, quote we want to suggest that the frequent opposition between structure and agency is mistaken; and we want to propose a rather different formulation of the relationship, based around the notion of pedagogy unquote.
The authors point out that, on the one hand, Pokemon as a phenomenon is a controlled and calculated commercial strategy aimed manipulatively at the children’s market.
On the other hand, it can be argued that playing pokemon encourages children to engage in activities that develop agency. The creator of Pokemon, Satoshi Tajiri, was an avid beetle collector as a child. This same sense of adventure can be said to inhabit the multifaceted and complex world of pokemon. Instead of beetles, players of the game collect fictitious pocket monsters. Pokemon as a phenomonon necessarily involves elements of corporate control at the same time as it forms a platform for children to exercise their agency. Rather than simply seeing the structure/agency dichotomy as a balancing act, or simply ‘two sides of the same coin’, the authors
Point out that playing pokemon requires and depends on activity more so than other forms of media consumption.
Seen in this way the texts of pokemon are not intended to be consumed passively, instead they are designed to encourage activity and social interaction.
Most debates around structure and agency necessarily presume a fundamental opposition between these two poles. The authors suggest that Anthony Gidden’s theory of structuration provides a starting point for moving beyond the limitation of this binary opposition. Giddens theory states, essentially, that structure and agency are interrelated and mutually interdependent. Agency requires and works through structure and vice versa. It could be said, however, that Gidden’s work suffers from a lack of empirical specification of how this actually occurs. See for example Parker, 2000. The core of Buckingham and Sefton-Green’s piece is built around the idea that theorizations around the notion of pedagogy could potentially be useful in terms of acquiring a different kind of understanding of the structure/agency debate.
Building a theory of pedagogy requires paying attention to the dynamic between teaching and learning. Buckingham and Sefton-Green conclude that pedagogy centres on not only passive transmissions of knowledge or experience but also on the active process of learners as they move through educational structures.
The authors’ analysis of the way that players of Pokemon might develop agency by navigating through and around a set gaming structure provides its own structure as a text through which a greater sense of agency, pedogagy and children’s culture can be explored.