Hateful Games

Condis, Megan

doi:10.4324/9780429266140-9

Cited by 4 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Broader Twitch norms interact with channel-specific cultures (Mihailova, 2022), leaving streamers in a position where they must sometimes choose between monetary support (Johnson and Woodcock, 2019;Wohn et al, 2018) or protecting themselves. This may also link to larger issues found on the platform beyond algorithmic discoverability that emphasizes racialized and gendered results (Chan and Gray, 2020), including the proliferation of far-right radicalizing information (O'Connor, 2021) that has also been observed in gaming more generally (Condis, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, right-wing extremist views, trolling, and the expansion of these behaviorsincluding in gaming communitieshave become an ever-present backdrop to the discussion of toxicity online. Race is heavily linked to trolling behaviors and can be used to implement boundaries through reactions to perceived cultural threats (Ortiz, 2020) and recruitment into these causes is common online and frequently targets video game players (Condis, 2019). Gender also comes into play, with elements of geek masculinity driving and defining many of these behaviors and the gatekeeping linked to them (Massanari, 2017;Salter, 2018).…”

Section: Toxicity Online and In Video Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Community Grievances, personal responsibility, and DIY protection: Frustrations and solution-seeking among marginalized Twitch streamers

Tomlinson

2023

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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Online spaces offer fan communities and content creators many outlets for expressing their interests, but they also tend to place users in positions where they encounter hostility, toxicity, and gatekeeping. In the case of online streaming on Twitch, users frequently encounter hostility based on identity and seek assistance from fellow users via social media. In this project, I highlight the ways that social media is used to try to organize against discriminatory cultures toward marginalized streamers. Ultimately, I find that much of the onus is placed directly on streamers themselves to circumvent, address, and keep themselves safe despite harassment. In this paper, I will argue that this feeds into the structures and cultures that allow racist and sexist hostilities in online and gaming spaces by placing responsibility – and blame – on individual users from marginalized backgrounds. Although the community is frequently supportive of users who seek advice for addressing hostility and there are attempts at raising awareness through collective online action, the lack of apparent resolution leaves many feeling that these experiences are inevitable, immutable, and within the realm of individual responsibility.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Toxicity Online and In Video Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Grievances, personal responsibility, and DIY protection: Frustrations and solution-seeking among marginalized Twitch streamers

Tomlinson

2023

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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“…Hardcore gamers blaming women and minorities for their perceived loss of status align with far-right extremists seeking to normalize their fringe worldviews and expand their membership. That alignment is their means to advance a shared narrative of disempowerment in relation to not only videogames but to broader social, cultural, and political life (Condis, 2019a(Condis, , 2019bHansson & Keck, 2019;Kamenetz, 2018).…”

Section: Enabling Conditions In the Game Industry And Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Apolitical is Political. While game companies often claim an apolitical stance (Pfister, 2018), their silence on the misogyny in the industry and market, the targeted harassment of marginalized communities, and the alarming presence and promotion of extremist ideologies arguably reflects the opposite (Aghazadeh et al, 2018;Anti-Defamation League, 2019;Condis, 2019a). Their refusal to take action against white supremacy allows extremist groups to openly normalize and inculcate players into their ideologies (Condis, 2019a;D'Anastasio, 2021;Makuch, 2019).…”

Section: Insufficient Response From Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Right-Wing Extremism in Mainstream Games: A Review of the Literature

et al. 2023

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Hate speech, harassment, and an increasing prevalence of right-wing extremism in online game spaces are of growing concern in the United States. Understanding trends in how and to what extent extremist groups utilize online gaming spaces is vital in taking action to protect players. To synthesize the current state of extant research and suggest future directions, we conduct a systematic review of the literature on right-wing extremism in videogames. We detail our search protocol, selection criteria, and analysis of the collected work, and then summarize the findings. Important themes include how and why extremists’ targeting of online game communities began, the role of Gamergate in this process, and the industry and market context in which such activities emerged. We describe the current nature of the problem, with extremist language and ideology providing a kind of on-ramp for radicalizing disenfranchised gamers. We conclude with a summary of responses from industry and legislators.

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“…Alphabet/Google has faced similar criticisms with respect to their algorithmic filtering and ranking of ads, search results, and content on their main platform as well as on YouTube (Bryant, 2020). Bandy and Diakopolous’ audit of Apple News showed that when the service relies on algorithmic curation of news stories, the ‘source diversity’ and ‘evenness’ suffer (2020: 45), and Microsoft and Amazon have both been criticized for hosting and algorithmically promoting extreme and anti-democratic content on their content platforms, including Minecraft and Twitch (Condis, 2019). In 2017, Just and Latzer convincingly argued that ‘shared social reality in societies… is increasingly being co-constructed by automated algorithmic selection’ (2017: 254) and that ‘algorithmic reality construction tends to increase individualization’ (2017: 1).…”

Section: Main Argument and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Arendt in the Metaverse: Four properties of eXtended Reality that imperil factual truth and democracy

Bay

2023

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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This article explores the democratic implications of the wide adoption of XR (eXtended Reality) technologies, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s political theory and her concept of common reality. Arendt argues that the intersubjective construction of a common reality is what enables the establishment of factual truth and that both are prerequisites for a functional democracy. Without them, ideology can be established as truth by anti-democratic forces with power over media outlets, paving a path toward totalitarianism. This article argues that XR technologies can be used to inhibit the construction of a common reality through the same individualization of media experiences that has been shown to impede democratic processes in the social media context. The companies generating increased revenue through individualized micro-segmentation are now also vying for dominance in the XR media arena. It is argued in this article that such individualization can impede the co-construction of a common reality and a factual truth because XR media are hyper-persuasive and capable of altering an individual’s overall perception of reality. The viability of such platform-controlled individualization in XR is demonstrated through an Arendt-based critique of four properties related to XR technologies: Hypertargeted personalization, false memory creation, reality indistinguishability, and predictive processing theory. Based on these analyses, the article concludes that XR policy and regulation must consider how XR gives platforms unprecedented persuasive powers as they become capable of altering a user’s reality perception remotely and how, per Arendt, this may threaten democracy.

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Hateful Games

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Community Grievances, personal responsibility, and DIY protection: Frustrations and solution-seeking among marginalized Twitch streamers

Community Grievances, personal responsibility, and DIY protection: Frustrations and solution-seeking among marginalized Twitch streamers

Right-Wing Extremism in Mainstream Games: A Review of the Literature

Arendt in the Metaverse: Four properties of eXtended Reality that imperil factual truth and democracy

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