Children's Video Games as Interactive Racialization (original) (raw)
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The Impact of Video Games on Identity Construction
Pennsylvania Communication Annual
As a planet we spend three billion hours a week playing video games . Individuals from all walks of life are participating in some sort of gaming activity on a daily basis, whether it is for five minutes or five hours. Studies suggest that a player spends, on average, 13 hours a week playing video games . That is 13 hours a week that a player can take the role of a superhero, a soldier, a spy, or even create their own virtual identity.
Impossible Identities: The Limitations of Character Creation Systems
Exposure to representations of diverse characters in media—including videogames—can positively impact identity formation, and foster empathy (Athanases 1998: 292). Videogames present a unique opportunity for audiences to create their own characters, which are canvases for them to project their own or another’s identity (Papale 2014: n.p.). [continued...]
International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning, 2019
The authors conducted an experiment to determine the effects of gender, race, online video gaming experience, and the experimental context in which participants played the videogame (online vs. offline vs. no information control) on avatar selection. The qualities of the avatar compared were based on eight objective differences between avatars and individuals: attractiveness, skin tone, height, girth chest size, waist size, hip size, and height. As predicted, those with online gaming experience selected avatars that were taller, thinner, and more attractive relative to their real selves than did participants with no prior online game experience. Non-white participants selected avatars with lighter skin-tones, whereas white participants selected avatars with darker skin-tones. Surprisingly, male participants selected shorter avatars than female counterparts did.
2009
Who do people want to be in virtual worlds? Video game players can create their avatars with characteristics similar to themselves, create a superhero that is predominantly designed to win, or chose an in-between strategy. In a quasi-experimental study, players’ strategies of avatar choice were investigated. Participants created an avatar they would like to play with for five game descriptions and two gaming scenarios by choosing from a list of (pre-tested) masculine and feminine avatar features. Additionally, participants chose their avatars’ biological sex. The results reveal a mixed strategy: On the one hand, the avatar’s features were chosen in accordance with the game’s demands to facilitate mastery of the game. On the other hand, players strived for identification with their avatar and thus preferred avatars of their own sex. Participants rated those game descriptions and gaming scenarios more entertaining which required avatar features in line with their own sex role.
games The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video
2010
A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions about their representations of gender, race and age in comparison to the US population. The sample included 150 games from a year across nine platforms, with the results weighted according to game sales. This innovation enabled the results to be analyzed in proportion to the games that were actually played by the public, and thus allowed the first statements able to be generalized about the content of popular video games. The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly. Overall, the results are similar to those found in television research. The implications for identity, cognitive models, cultivation and game research are discussed.
Identity Performance in Roleplaying Games
Computers and Composition, 2015
This article argues that roleplaying games have the potential to challenge, encourage, and subsume the privilege of the stereotypical gamer, one who is white, male, and heterosexual. Though roleplaying games as they are currently designed are neither ideal nor perfect, the article contends they embrace feminist programming strategies and offer those who do not want to play a straight male avatar the opportunity to develop and explore identities through characters in ways that other genres do not. Roleplaying games extend the privilege of representation to other gaming demographics, giving players the opportunity to "play who they are" in the digital world, whether they are able to, or even desire to, explore this identity offline. Without the diversity of representation found in roleplaying games, players would be unable to participate in the potentially fruitful criticism of stereotypes and the ability to interact with players and characters different from themselves.
Virtual Avatars: Trans Experiences of Ideal Selves Through Gaming
Markets, Globalization & Development Review, 2018
This article aims to explore the experiences transgender gamers have with avatars. Building on a foundation of identity construction theories from both media studies and queer studies, this study theorizes that these gamers will use their virtual world avatars to experiment with gender performance and ideal selves. These theories of identity construction are explored and examined through digital ethnography, by using the participant observation method, in which trans gamers are interviewed about their experiences with avatar creation and use. Based on the evidence gathered from those interviews, this study concludes that trans gamers in general tend to create avatars who reflect their ideal selves, especially early in their transitions. Thus, the game worlds function as contested spaces where gamers experiment with the performance of alternative, fluid identities. Those identities can then cross the border from virtual to physical, affecting people's lives and corporeal bodies.