Throughout this essay, I will be critically analysing the research paper ‘I, Gamer: Gamer Identity in South Africa’ by Bianca Wright. I will analyse the research paper by looking at the main themes of the paper, which are stereotypes and the concept of ‘the other’ and how they were targeted and addressed in the research, the research methods that were used, how appropriate and effective they were and the impact on other gamer identity research papers that this paper has had.
‘I-Gamer: Gamer Identity in South Africa’ is based on gaming in South Africa and the stereotypes it faces, mainly being white males, with the research being a female gamer herself, she has grown up in this culture and experienced breaking that stereotype first hand. In addition, the research explores how the wider access to games through the use of phones and tablets has impacted both the definition of a gamer and their own self-identity. Wright used a series of virtual focus groups and online surveys to collect her research, as online platforms were best suited to her participants. Other research around gamer identity is mainly based on countries like the United States such as Gaming lives in the twenty-first century by Gee (2007), whereas this research is based in South Africa, which both sets it apart and limits it.
The main theme of this research paper is the stereotypes that gamers are subject to; she states that gamers are widely believed to be white males, an issue that is so large within the
Morgan expressed his bias view on the gaming community in his article. He listed off some of the key stereo types you may think of when you envision a “Gamer”. Overweight, lives at home, consumed with games,
Video games have become as pervasive an aspect of our society as television, with many people spending more time playing video games than watching television. There are many perspectives with which to gauge videos games’ effect on society, from a functionalist, conflict or interactionist perspective. (Schaefer, 2011) Each of these sociological theories can provide a different view of video games, how they affect society and the subcultures that develop around them.
As video games become more and more popular, we will inevitably see an increase in amount of video games being produced. The growth in popularity of video games is facilitated by the creation of a website known as Twitch.com. This website allows gamers and content creators to stream themselves playing video games online and interact directly with a live audience via chat. This new platform makes gaming both more accessible and more acceptable. The social stigmas that accompany video games are diminishing; in fact there has been an increase in competitive electronic sports as well. Logically, the growing interest in video games encourages programmers to make more and more games. Melinda Burgess et al presents an interesting perspective about video games. She explores the prevalence of racial stereotypes and how their effects are detrimental to society as a whole. In Burgess’s essay, “Playing with Prejudice: The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video Games”, she provides fantastic commentary on how top selling video games show “overt racial stereotyping” (Lunsford et al 551) and negatively affect how we think. By providing statistics and data about the videogames that she is critiquing, she effectively shows that there is may be a correlation between video games and how we think and interact with the world around us.
Though gaming has its drawbacks, it also has many benefits to cover them. If controlled, gaming is extremely useful and with the amount of gamers in the world today, it proves that it is not just for children or for teenagers. There are millions of adult gamers that understand the importance of gaming in the under the existing circumstances of the world. Individuals that have studied gamers believe that gaming in today’s
Tom Bissell presents an article in 2010, to college students of which is “Why Video Games Matter.” Bissell isn’t intending for the argument to be about video game criticism, the history of the gaming, or an assessment of anything. On the contrary, he wants to articulate his own opinions and thoughts on what playing games feels like, why he plays them, and the questions they make him think about. Being a gamer myself, I have also endured the struggles of what being obsessed with a video game feels like. It is understood that when first purchasing a video game, all one thinks about is getting home and popping it in the console, disregarding everything else that is happening in the vicinity.
This text is published by a media company called Mic. Their target audience is young people and they cover a wide variety of subjects such as News, Arts, and Technology (Mic /about). The author of this article is Sophie Kleeman, who, according to her profile on Mic.com, covers the “intersection of tech and culture” (Mic /profiles/152573/sophie-kleeman)
The findings concluded that female representation in popular games of the time were strongly based on stereotype. Of the few games that contained women, a small fraction were leads while others were found to be standing behind males, as well as being depicted wearing stereotypically feminine colours, princess dresses, or very revealing clothing. Women were commonly portrayed as victims, “Damsels in distress” (Dietz 1998), or evil obstacles to protagonists. Violence and aggression in general and towards others were also noted in the research. A significant portion of this were classified as violence towards female characters. The research suggests that these implications of gender roles and violence could be detrimental towards girls and boys, as they may accept what they see
Stereotypes are qualities assigned to groups of people because of race, nationality, or sexual orientation. Stereotypes of gamers usually portray a fat, unhealthy basement dwellers ridden with acne and living on a diet of burgers and Red Bull. This is, of course, a stereotype many people refer to. Most of the time this stereotype is incorrect
In modern day, there aren’t any slaves and Blacks receive the same treatment as everyone else. But hidden in plain sight, the stereotypes regarding to Blacks still linger and one of them includes video games. Leonard (2006) mention stereotypes based on the race and Blacks were listed “as are the violent and muscular Black athlete” (p. 85). Due to their structure and history, game developers viewed them as a perfect race for enemies within the game. Deskins (2013) gave an example from Devine’s research that each participant was primed with stereotypic words such as “hostile”, “gangster”, and “Black” (p. 2). Although game developers have no ill intent towards Blacks, it was simply because it’s “default” of the discourse in society. According
The author follows up with explaining how his argument will always be stereotyped. That people will always take out the negative aspects of gaming and prevent the positive aspects from being
More statistical evidence is provided to further extend the claim of truth that women are mistreated both in video game magazines and real life; out of 408 articles, 2.9% were written by females, 7.8% had no gender identification, and 89% were written by men. This is left to the reader to imply whether workplace discrimination exists in this field. Maybe hiring managers are specifically employing men. Women could feel too inferior to try writing these articles due to mistreatment in the gaming community. The provided statistical evidence let the reader infer what the case
For this week’s topic, the course begins to explore internet subcultures with a focus on the “gamer.” While video game playing and similar practices have developed into a legitimate entertainment medium with narratives, art design, and addicting gameplay, the industry creates a sense of community. However, continuing similar cases of “trolling” on the internet, gamers are often subject to various forms of harassments such as disruptive gameplay, verbal assaults, and hateful messages.
Traditional views of gamers have been often related with the negative stereotypes as males who are lazy, nerd, geek, fat, socially awkward and time wasters. Even though these stereotypes have been improving with the growing population of eSports athletes and its recognition as a collegiate sport in many campuses, participants shared their thoughts on the stigmas of gaming that are still present in our society and how they respond to these stigmas. Jeffrey, 5th year, majoring in music, shared his story of the stigmas of gaming he heard from his father, They had Street Fighter finals on ESPN 2 this past summer. I was watching it with my dad who knows nothing about the game and competitive play then he’s watching and he is constantly interrupting saying like.. When the winner was announced, this guy is a person who plays video games all day and night so he is kind of odd and dumb and does not know it better.
my group decided to do our documentary on a topic that we are all passionate about. Video games and the stereotypes that we, as gamers, are put into. there's so many: girls can't be hardcore gamers, all gamers are post pubescent teens with extreme social anxiety,gaming is a pointless hobby, all gamers are violent, etc. we have to fight Against how society sees us and slowly we may manage to get the respect and acceptance that we deserve. But the thing many don’t understand is that stereotypes are the minority, not the majority. Whilst some people fit into these categories not all people necessarily must conform or do conform to the misconceptions of outsiders. I myself as a female gamer hate being referred to as a “gamer girl” i'm just a
The portrayal of men and women in video games, as in other media, is a subject of research in gender studies. This topics is discuss in terms of sexism in video gaming. Especially, women are underrepresented or use as objectification in mainstream games. Women in video games are generally, as a rule of thumb, killed, raped, abused or rescued by the male heroes. This is extremely sad to see because the role of women in society is changing compare to ten years ago. Women has been proven themselves to be stronger and tough in different fields such as sports, politics, education but the representation hasn’t change.