Thesis
Arab gamers: an identity inclusivity study
Master of Science (M.S.), Drexel University
Sep 2016
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/etd-7119
Abstract
Playing video games is an activity that is partaken by people worldwide. Main- stream video game developers specically in North America and Japan have produced a multitude of video games that that are popular among a global audience, with genres ranging from shooter games, adventure and role-playing games. Despite the copious amount of video games that have been distributed around the world to be played by diverse people, gamers who come from minority or underrepresented backgrounds may not encounter many representations of that aspect of their respective identi- ties. In the rare instances when these underrepresented identities are represented in video games, they are often reduced to stereotypes that clash against more complex representations of other identities in the game. Among these underrepresented and stereotypical representations are depictions of Arabs and Arab culture in mainstream video games, the most common depiction being of Arabs as terrorists in mainstream shooter games. In addition to the limited representations of Arabs in video games, there is not enough empirical data on how Arab gamers feel about the current state of how video games portray their culture. This thesis aims to collect data from Arab gamers to learn how they make sense of ethnic representations of their culture in video games, and will analyze the data through an intersectional lens to understand how identity complexity applies to the perceptions of individual participants in the study and how they tie in with other underrepresented identity groups.
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Details
- Title
- Arab gamers
- Creators
- Bushra Alfaraj - DU
- Contributors
- Jichen Zhu (Advisor) - Drexel University (1970-)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Science (M.S.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- vi, 120 pages
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Digital Media; Drexel University; Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design
- Other Identifier
- 7119; 991014632542604721