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that space could be envisioned as geographic space fairly easily – the playground, the boxing ring, the hopscotch outline».421

M. Consalvo emphasizes that «[o]f course Huizinga (1950) could also have been referring to mental spaces in addition to geographic spaces. Turner’s (1969) conception of liminal spaces, 422 the interstitial boundaries between the sacred and the profane, are also spaces ‘‘set apart’’ from the everyday – they are changes in mind or attitude which occur while we inhabit the same geographic places. Likewise, with events such as carnival, we are in the same location (a town) yet attitudes and behaviors, as well as ornamentation, change, for a particular time period».423

The author stresses that modern games are surrounded by a large number of paratexts. For example, before we start to play a complex game, we study the information necessary for the game (say, about the professions of game characters or optimal strategies), and it is difficult to separate it from the game process itself, which was previously assumed to be isolated. Moreover, the conditional gaming space itself, which protects e.g. E. Castronova as a means of reconciliation with the reality in which there is pain and death, is not static, it cannot be fully controlled even by the game company – players within a multiplayer game can change the general parameters of the object.

«So, is the concept of the magic circle useful? – asks the author, – Arguably, it upholds structuralist definitions or conceptualizations of games. It emphasizes form at the cost of function, without attention to the context of actual gameplay. With contemporary games, and multiplayer games and MMOs in particular, context is key».424

The key example of M. Consalvo herself – unfair play – is considered as a clear example of practice, which is not taken into account in the structuralist understanding of

421Ibid.

422“Liminal”, i.e. – in this context – related to certain limit.

423Ibid.

424Ibid. P. 411.

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the game, but is a serious part of the overall context, which makes us think that the actual strict game mechanics, conceived by the creator of the game, the conditional “game world” is not limited to. Instead of a rigid structuralist definition in which any additional practices are ignored or classified as secondary, M. Consalvo suggests that the games should be seen as a contextual dynamic activity in which meaning is reconstructed in the process of practice.425 One of the key examples of the author is a well-known lawsuit against the developer of a program that modifies the game client World of Warcraft in order to obtain game benefits that do not comply with the rules laid down by the developers.426 According to the author, this is not a pure example of spielbrechers’ activity, but another phenomenon that corresponds to the dynamics of the game world in the broad sense of the word. It is difficult to separate the game from the non-game practices – it is all part of a single integrated process. The author departs from the structuralist topology of the game and offers a deconstruction of the concept of a separate game space. As an alternative, M. Consalvo proposes to turn to the concept of “frames” and “keys” based on the works of E. Hoffmann427 and G.A. Fine.428 Using the “keys” (a way of interpreting and differentiating aspects of social reality), we can dynamically switch between different “frames” of social reality, some of which are “obligatory” (what we call “serious” in the context of our research), some are “voluntary” (actually, games or – sic! – virtual reality). For example, a person can play on a mobile phone, but when they see a call from the boss, immediately postpone the game and answer it, and then return to the game. But the reverse is also possible: by playing, you can intentionally switch together with other participants of the

425By the way, we do not see a direct contradiction between J. Huizinga’s views and his ideas about the “magic circle”, which, in the original text, in fact, are set out in a rather general and brief form, allowing the version that it is only a situational metaphor.

426MDY INDUSTRIES, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, 629 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2010) [Electronic resource] //

CourtListener. – [Site]. – URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/181055/mdy-industries-llc-v-blizzard-entertainment/ (accessed: 24.02.2019).

427See: Goffman E. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. – Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1974. – 586 p.

428See: Fine G.A. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. – Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. – 298 p.

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game, using different “keys”, between the real world and the virtual world; consider, for example, a joke about real events in the game world.

Summing up the approach proposed by M. Consalvo, we can draw the following conclusions for the main objective of this study – the search for the semantic limits of law in the conditions of the medial turn. First, the topological concept of the game, formed before the medial and, specifically, the digital turns, is no longer relevant. Both modern games in themselves, as technological artefacts, and virtual reality as a whole (and in the broad sense of the word, including the entire field of unserious and artistic), cannot be explained topologically. Second, methodologically promising is the development of approaches to determining at what point in time serious elements that allow us to speak about the possibility of using real law in light of the objectives of our work are included in an unserious practice. It should be noted, however, that the concept of “frames” and “keys” describes well what is happening and, perhaps, solves scientific tasks of interdisciplinary game studies, but is clearly not specific enough to form the principle of legal interpretation we are looking for.

Legal critique of the topological interpretation of the magic circle is also indirectly confirmed by the obvious fact that nowadays the entire complex of norms of “real world law” is actually applied to the relations on the Internet that were previously considered by the “cyberseparatists” (in the terminology of J. Fairfield) to belong to a separate principally new jurisdiction.

As for the “object” interpretation of the third legal approach to the magic circle, the situation is very interesting for the purposes, focus and prospects of this study. Let us be direct: although the hint of such an interpretation was contained in the work of J. Stenros, who was rethinking his previous experience, it has not yet been developed within the framework of either game or legal research. Perhaps here we are talking about the fact that J. Stenros did not mean it – in the framework of the present study, a hypothesis of a

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“object approach” was first formed, and then something similar to it was found in the works of the said researcher. One way or another, it seems to us that it is the most promising one. The reason is that the first two approaches are not universal for legal science and practice. The criteria based only on the autonomous legal communication of subjects cannot claim to be of general importance. It is necessary to search for an approach that will respond to contemporary notions of social reality as an objective-subjective (intersubjective) phenomenon, and in this sense, we see the greatest methodological potential in the interdisciplinary analysis of possible legally significant qualities of the object of social relations that arise and develop in the conditions of the medial turn. The interdisciplinary concept of the magic circle, its criticism and subsequent rethinking in law did not solve our problem, but pointed to a landmark. It is necessary to move in the direction in which modern sociological research is developing.

§ 6. The concept of generalized symbolic media in theoretical sociology

Ex abrupto, the concept of generalized symbolic media, which is being developed in sociology, is of fundamental importance for the development of the methodology of this study. Largely, its modern interpretation in the direction that is important for this work began with T. Parsons, one of the creators of modern theoretical sociology, whose views have influenced the development of many areas of social and humanitarian knowledge. The concept of generalized symbolic media, which complements his approach to social subsystems, makes it possible to justify the criterion of the “seriousness” (or “unseriousness”) of the object of a relationship, as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3 of this study. This is only confirmed by subsequent discussions about this phenomenon in sociology, which we will also discuss later.

Social constructionism as such, in a methodological direction outlined by P. Berger and T. Luckmann, allows us to formulate a hypothesis that when interpreting the law we

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reach the “point of absurdity” in the event that the meaning of the legal text is not related to one or another social institution. Potential objections can be presented at once. First, with regard to the many examples considered in this paper, it would be acceptable to argue that there is a social institution (or social institutions), but an appropriate interpretation of the law would still be absurd. For example, a circle of critics and admirers is naturally formed around the works of talented authors, and if it is a classical author who has significantly influenced the national or world culture – even research directions (for example, Pushkin studies) may be formed. It is obvious that in this case we are talking about those social institutions as a whole that are somehow related to the subject of discussion. Second, if we look at the concept of the magic circle and specifically at the problem of the relationship between the virtual and the real, it is difficult to argue with the same sociological approach that the separation of the virtual from the “real” is a delusion. The virtual is also being reconstructed in the process of communication and as such can hardly be rigidly separated from the same “real”.

At the same time, it seems that an “institutional explanation” of the semantic limits of the law is quite possible.429 Let us try to justify the possibility of applying the concept of social system by T. Parsons to determine the qualitative criterion of absurdity, outlining the following thesis.

According to the American sociologist, the social system consists of four subsystems: political, economic, legal and cultural. Each of these social systems has its own “symbolic medium”, which can be considered as a kind of convertible currency. Thus,

429 It should be noted at once that the mere absence of a social institution, which is the subject of the legal text (in the example of the blocking of the Eve Online players’ forum by Roskomnadzor according to the decision of the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) – the absence of a drug subculture among players) does not mean that such an interpretation would be absurd. Thus, there may be a lack of a social institution, but there may be an indirect intersection of the subject matter of the legal text with another socially significant institution of social life (such as drug use in real life). Since one of the objectives of restricting the dissemination of information under this criterion is to combat the propaganda of imaginary attractiveness of the practices in question, there is no second necessary criterion of absurdity, which means that interpretation may be “on the verge”, but not unambiguously absurd, and therefore it may become a subject of meaningful discussion about the “weighing” of constitutional values – freedom of creation and freedom of dissemination of information, on the one hand, and health – on the other.

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for example, power, understood as the right (and later – the monopoly) to physical violence, is a “symbolic medium” for the political system. Power can be acquired through money, and money is a “symbolic medium” of the economic system. This, according to T. Parsons, is an example of the conversion of “currencies”, but for this study, it is important to do different things: what is valuable in society is what has such an “exchange value” within the social system. The most obvious (and probably the most familiar) example for jurisprudence, thus, will be related to the power understood as a “symbolic medium” for physical violence. A social group with direct or indirect access to power will be a pressure group in the meaning of political science. It should be noted that three other subsystems of the social system have functional analogues of pressure groups of the political system.430 The main idea here is that the criterion of “seriousness” is not satisfied if the relevant social institution is reproduced by a social group (or social groups) that do not have any type of “currencies” corresponding to the subsystems of the social system.

Sociologist Brian Stanley Turner (b. 1945) explains the main content of the approach under study in the preface to the new edition of T. Parsons’ book “The Social System”431 as follows:

«The second form in which economics influenced Parsons’ thought was as a model of social exchange in general. Conventional demand-and-supply economics has been concerned to comprehend the nature of maximizing behaviour in the exchange of commodities between individuals in a market. These exchange relations are typically undertaken, not in terms of a material exchange of commodities, but symbolically in terms of money as a medium of exchange. The capitalist buys labour power, not by providing the worker directly with the means of existence (clothing and food), but in terms of a wage in the form of money. However, money is itself only a symbol of value,

430For context, as T. Parsons pointed out, it is necessary to pay attention that, while the generalized media of exchange are used in routine exchange between different parts of the social system (he means money, influence, political power and value commitments, they also may increase creative level and scope of activities within social systems. See: Parsons T. System of Modern Societies (in Russian). Transl. by L.A. Sedova and A.D. Kovalev. – M., 1998 [Electronic resource] // Electronic Publication: Center of Humanitarian Technologies. 09.09.2012. – [Site]. – URL: https://gtmarket.ru/laboratory/basis/5395 (accessed: 03.02.2019).

431Parsons T., The Social System. – London: Routledge, 1991. – 404 p.

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because in principle the worker could be paid in terms of precious shells, postage stamps, a cheque, or other tokens (compare with the context of the discussion of cryptocurrencies and distributed registries; this term is used in almost the same sense – V.A.)… Parsons took money to be a generalized medium of exchange and by analogy argued that there may be a number of such media in society. In particular, he looked at power, influence, and commitment as circulating media of exchange which permit social actors to achieve desirable objectives. These media of exchange relate back to Parsons’ model of the four sub-systems (GAIL). Money is the medium of exchange between the adaptive sub-system and its boundaries; power is the generalized medium of the polity; influence of the integrative subsystem; and commitment of the latency sub-system».432

The approach presented by the author’s team of the MGIMO textbook of political science under the guidance of A.Yu. Melville looks quite appropriate. The authors apply the concept of T. Parsons to resolve the contradictions between the approaches to the definition of the nature of political power, which come from either coercion433 (the extreme form of which is violence), or, on the contrary, only from the understanding of the nature of political power as a communicative phenomenon (T. Ball).434 Political power, however, should be seen as a “medium binding people’s actions and obligations, which can represent them in different ways”.435 Like the economic system, the political system requires stability and sustainability, which are achievable through the use of a generalized symbolic medium. If for the economy it is a symbol expressed in gold, then in law, in the language of M. Weber, it is a symbol of “monopoly of legitimate physical violence”.436

The authors note:

432Turner B.S., Preface to the New Edition // Parsons T., The Social System. – London: Routledge, 1991. – p. 19.

433Plato, Aristotle, T. Hobbes, G. Hegel etc.

434156. Political Science: Textbook / A.Yu. Melville [and others]. – M.: Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, TC Velbi, Prospekt Publishing House, 2008. PP. 75–76.

435Ibid. PP. 76–77.

436“The modern state is an institutionalized alliance of domination that, within a certain sphere, has succeeded in monopolizing legitimate physical violence as a means of domination and, to that end, has combined the physical assets of the enterprise in the hands of its leaders”. See: Weber M. Politics as a Vocation and Profession (in Russian) [Electronic resource] / Weber M. Selected essays. M., 1990 // Open University. - [Site]. - URL: https://openuni.io/course/11-course-7- 4/lesson/2/material/855/ (address: 02.09.2019).

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«According to Parsons, power, is understood as a symbolic medium similar to money, circulating within the political system, but able to move from there to all three neighboring functional subsystems of society – economic (“converting” (emphasized by me – V.A.) into the same money), integrative (a set of social communities with the medium in the form of influence) and integrative (cultural with the medium in the form of values). Thus, power is understood as the ability to ensure the fulfillment of binding obligations by the elements of the political system, when these obligations are recognized as corresponding to collective goals, and in case of disobedience of anybody coercion is provided for. According to Parsons’ definition, making it possible to fulfill a certain desire, even if it is a threat of superior force, does not mean to use power. The ability to achieve obedience in order to call it power must be a generalized function, not just a function of any single impact».437

The path of the economic system – from barter to abstract financial instruments, while the path of the political system is from physical violence to political power.

T. Parsons’ ideas turned out to be in great demand in the theoretical sociology of the XXth century. The complex of ideas of P. Bourdieu about social (symbolic) capital also echoes them in many ways.438 However, the approach of the latter does not contain a comprehensive reflection of the idea of mutually convertible generalized symbolic media, in the interpretation whereunder, according to our fundamental methodological hypothesis, contains special value for jurisprudence. This, however, does not mean that such an idea in his conception is absent. For instance, P. Bourdieu wrote in respect of gift that:

“We understand how, through much more conventional forms of exchange and generosity, social agents can accumulate a form of capital that can be called “prestige”, “recognition”, and that is translated into economic consequences. In other words, if the gift is an invasion, and if, as Larochefoucauld reminds us, people are in a hurry to gift back, the reason, and this is a paradox, is precisely what giving means to possess. Whoever gives to me potentially takes possession of myself, either because I can’t give, or even because I give, but I still owe the debt of recognition. In the economy of honor, the gift is mandatory: there is no choice,

437Ibid. P. 77.

438See e.g.: Demidova M.V. «Symbolic Capital» of P. Bourdieu and «Capital» of K. Marx // Proceedings of Vyatka State University. – 2014. – No. 11. – P. 27–32. And source works by P. Bourdieu: Bourdieu P. Practical Reason (1980) (in Russian) / Transl. from French: A.T. Bikbov, K.L. Voznesenskaya, S.N. Zenkin, N.A. Shmatko; Editing and Afterword by N.A. Shmatko. – Saint Petersburg: Aletea, 2011. – 562 p.; Bourdieu P. Sociology of Social Space (in Russian) / Transl. from French; General Editing of the Translation by N.A. Shmatko. – Moscow: Institute of Experimental Sociology; Saint Petersburg: Aletea, 2007. – 288 p.

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because you are in a universe where you have to be given. He obliges, and he creates a duty”.439

Nevertheless, the idea of mutually-convertible generalized symbolic media is contained in explicit and concise form in the research of S. Abrutyn, an American sociologist who develops this very complex of ideas based on rethinking the works of T. Parsons, as well as other authors, whose texts can be directly or indirectly correlated with the concept of generalized symbolic media. In addition, S. Abrutyn’s works are the last ones in which this very concept is currently being developed in a substantive and consistent manner.

In his article «Money, Love and Sacredness: Generalised Symbolic Media and the Production of Instrumental, Affectual, and Moral Reality»440 The author considers the generalized symbolic media as a phenomenon ensuring the integration of various social units – in this context, this problem is characteristic, first of all, of the theoretical and sociological discourse. As the author himself notes, he uses the interpretation of generalized symbolic media both in the direction of G. Simmel’s views,441 and within the functionalist approach. S. Abrutyn seeks to define precisely the concept of these media, to study their general forms (specialized institutional language and external referent of value), to highlight three modes of orientation that can be created by different media. The author develops an understanding of the role of the media outside of social exchange to include other institutional processes, such as communication, performance and ritualized interaction.442 We must admit that the subject of S. Abrutyn’s research is primarily related

439P. Bourdieu. Economic Anthropology: a Course of Lectures at College de France (1992 – 1993) / Transl. from French by D. Kralechkin. – Moscow: Delo Publishing House, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 2019 – P. 130.

440Abrutyn S. Money, Love and Sacredness: Generalised Symbolic Media and the Production of Instrumental, Affectual, and Moral Reality // Czech Sociological Review. 2015. Vol. 51. No. 3. PP. 445–471.

441It should be noted that in law L. Fuller also addressed the works of this sociologist in the context of his legal

conception.

442Ibid. P. 445.

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to theoretical sociology. The problems of theoretical sociology as such do not seem to us to be related to the problem of the semantic limits of law, at least, directly. However, the part of the views developed by the American sociologist that deals specifically with the rethinking of convertible generalized symbolic media which can be related to the external referent of value, is definitely of fundamental importance for the development of one of the criteria of the semantic limits of law – the criterion of “seriousness”.

There is also a need to explicitly identify the linguistic (but perhaps also ontological

– in the context of the language turn) problem associated with the key problem of the theory of generalized symbolic media. In the Russian version of the text of the theoretical and sociological part of this study, we use the translation similar to “intermediary”, while in the English version, and in the work of T. Parsons, too, the term “media” (in plural) and “medium” (in singular) is used. Unfortunately, it is difficult to preserve the unity and diversity of connotations in the Russian language: the translation of “intermediary” is successful in emphasizing convertibility and “socio-currency value”,443 while the translation as “media” accurately conveys the fact that the concept of generalized symbolic media is fully in line with the concept of the medial turn. The concept of the medial turn reflects not only a shift in the focus of attention of social and humanitarian disciplines to various “media” in the narrow sense of the word, understood as a means of mass communication, but also to the consideration of the fabric of social reality through the prism of generalized symbolic media, which can equally be called “media”. The language game is preserved in English, lost in the variety of translations into Russian, but should always be taken into account.

443 In this aspect, one should always keep in mind another connotation and possible translation: generalized symbolic media are also tokens in the same sense, in which the term “token” is used in the context of cryptocurrencies, and ICO (initial coin offering – the analogue of the term “IPO” from the financial markets, which implies a public offer to purchase cryptocurrencies for the purpose of financing a project, the value of which tokens are thus expressed).