How cultural representation in games makes meaning

Cultural representation in games is how games use signs to stand for things. This path helps you understand how games communicate cultural meaning and how people's backgrounds can shape what signs mean, while exploring representation through themes such as aesthetics, semiotics and gender.

1 article, 1 book · about 2 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   

   Women in Video Games: A Critique - JSTOR Daily · JSTOR Daily · 2 min read

   Feminist Frequency, a video series produced by media critic Anita Sarkeesian, focuses on harmful stereotypes and tropes in women's representation in video games. It asks: if women are increasingly the majority of gamers, why are games overwhelmingly packed with sexualized female bodies? Researchers in the past documented video games with "females in submissive, sexually exploitive roles, as busty, brainless, victims of aggression (Provenzo 2000)," and some games "portray and even reward sexualized violence towards women without emphasizing any negative consequences to the perpetrator." Social psychologists say stereotypes about adult gender roles and sexuality are formed during adolescence.

2. Book
   How to Talk About Videogames · Bookshop.org

   Ian Bogost's How to Talk About Videogames (University of Minnesota Press, 2015) treats games as both consumer products and art, and argues that criticizing them is serious cultural work. Its case studies include Mario Kart and Mirror's Edge, and each reads a single game closely.

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