| A critical and cultural approach to interactive media and how audiences use it is necessary to advance academic understanding. The study specifically focuses on video games, as they are the form of interactive media that offer the most complete and tangible communication loop between users and content creators. This study critically analyzes the rhetoric found in and around the top five best-selling games of 2012 in terms of the race, gender, and violence in the games as well as how players form relationships with the medium and where these discourses fit into the broader culture. Conceptualizing video games as a form of narrative database with paradigmatic options that influence player choice and identity, the study examines four main sources of data - auto-ethnographies of the games themselves, textual analysis of the online communities surrounding games, pentadic rhetorical criticism of the promotional Web sites for the games, and in-depth interviews with experts in the industry. The study finds in-game representations of race are largely marginalized and roles for women are sexualized and limited. Violence is a key part of many game performances and is often decontextualized from real-world consequences. Players use games as a means of constructing identity and socializing but do so through a heavily mediated lens of identity construction. Games fit into the broader culture largely as a means of generating profit and largely do not challenge pre-existing ideology as a result; gamers are unlikely to challenge these notions so long as they feel in control. With this information in mind, the study proposes a new cultural-paradigmatic model of video game discourse and a theory of gamer identity. Implications for the field - and a new way of studying video games and interactive media - are provided. |
