Understanding Masculinity in Gaming
Understanding Masculinity in Gaming will investigate male gamer experiences of game culture as a contested space where a hypermasculine subculture is challenged by diversity. With an interdisciplinary team of scholars, the project will break new ground by combining game studies and masculinity studies in offering a new experience-centric theory of the relationship between the gamer identity and masculinity that goes beyond reductionist ideas of toxic masculinity. The project will create insight into experiences of male marginalization in light of the contestation of game culture, and thus provide a new understanding of the relationship between game culture and online movements relating to anti-feminism and the alt-right.
About the research project
Videogames and gameplay have traditionally been seen as a boys’ domain, a situation that is slowly changing as videogames have become a mainstream medium with a large and diverse player base. At the same time, game culture remains a contested space in which gender is taking a central role.
Previous research has been able to have provided valuable insight into problematic gendered practices in game culture, such as misogyny and gendered harassment. However, this research has focused on the experiences of women and there is very little research that has investigated male experiences of game culture as a contested, gendered space. While some researchers have explained the gendered contestation of game culture in light of a masculinity in crisis associated with the challenges to forge new and more flexible masculinities in the rise of a feminist consciousness, what lacks from these discussions is an awareness of how the negotiation of masculinity is connected to social processes of inclusion and exclusion.
In light of this gap in research, the objective of Understanding Masculinity in Gaming is to investigate male gamer experiences of game culture as a contested space, focusing on their subjective, lived experiences. We will study what games and play mean for establishing a masculine identity, including how men experience gender norms in game culture and to what degree they find that the demographic changes in game culture are challenging this.
Prosjektpartnere
People
Project manager
Kristine Jørgensen Professor
Project members
Synnøve Skarsbø Lindtner Assistant professor
Tom Legierse PhD Fellow
Ida Martine Gard Rysjedal PhD Fellow