Video Games and American Culture
How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds
Seiten
2019
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-7936-0130-8 (ISBN)
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-7936-0130-8 (ISBN)
Going against recent academic trends that analyze video games in a vacuum, this book considers video games as cultural artifacts. Using a cultural studies lens, Toscano addresses common themes in popular video games and identifies ways in which they reflect on the violent, sexist, and chauvinistic culture that produces and enjoys them.
Digital media are immersive technologies reflecting behaviors, attitudes, and values. The engrossing, entertaining virtual worlds video games provide are important sites for 21st century research. This book moves beyond assertions that video games cause violence by analyzing the culture that produces such material. While some popular media reinforce the idea that video games lead to violence, this book uses a cultural studies lens to reveal a more complex situation. Video games do not lead to violence, sexism, and chauvinism. Rather, Toscano argues, a violent, sexist, chauvinistic culture reproduces texts that reflect these values. Although video games have a worldwide audience, this book focuses on American culture and how this multi-billion dollar industry entertains us in our leisure time (and sometimes at work), bringing us into virtual environments where we have fun learning, fighting, discovering, and acquiring bragging rights. When politicians and moral crusaders push agendas that claim video games cause a range of social ills from obesity to mass shooting, these perspectives fail to recognize that video games reproduce hegemonic American values. This book, in contrast, focuses on what these highly entertaining cultural products tell us about who we are.
Digital media are immersive technologies reflecting behaviors, attitudes, and values. The engrossing, entertaining virtual worlds video games provide are important sites for 21st century research. This book moves beyond assertions that video games cause violence by analyzing the culture that produces such material. While some popular media reinforce the idea that video games lead to violence, this book uses a cultural studies lens to reveal a more complex situation. Video games do not lead to violence, sexism, and chauvinism. Rather, Toscano argues, a violent, sexist, chauvinistic culture reproduces texts that reflect these values. Although video games have a worldwide audience, this book focuses on American culture and how this multi-billion dollar industry entertains us in our leisure time (and sometimes at work), bringing us into virtual environments where we have fun learning, fighting, discovering, and acquiring bragging rights. When politicians and moral crusaders push agendas that claim video games cause a range of social ills from obesity to mass shooting, these perspectives fail to recognize that video games reproduce hegemonic American values. This book, in contrast, focuses on what these highly entertaining cultural products tell us about who we are.
Aaron A. Toscano is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Introduction: Video Games and American Ideology
Chapter 1: Approaches to Video Game Studies
Chapter 2: The Specious Link Surrounding Video Games and Violence
Chapter 3: The Video Game as Political Scapegoat: Anxieties, Contradictions, and Hyperbole
Chapter 4: Games of Conquest
Chapter 5: The Male Gaze in Gaming
Chapter 6: Video Games and the Neoliberal Hero
Conclusion: Video Game Studies and Culture
| Erscheinungsdatum | 10.05.2021 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 161 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 440 g |
| Themenwelt | Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeines / Lexika | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-7936-0130-5 / 1793601305 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-7936-0130-8 / 9781793601308 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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