Answering the Call of Duty: the Popular Geopolitics of Military-Themed Videogames
Answering the Call of Duty: The popular geopolitics of military-themed videogames Daniel Bos A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University December 2015 Abstract This research is based on a detailed empirical case study of the popular videogame series Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Drawing primarily on the field of popular geopolitics, the analysis reveals how imaginations of global politics are represented, consumed and enacted through the virtual worlds of the Modern Warfare series. In noting the fixation within popular geopolitics on representation and discourse, however, I argue that popular geopolitics needs to attend to the complex relationships between text, audience, and production, what I define as popular geopolitics 3.0. This approach directly responds to calls to examine the connections between popular geopolitics and everyday life, whilst maintaining an understanding of the importance of analysing the visual and discursive ways in which dominant geopolitical imaginaries are constructed and articulated. The thesis proceeds in three sections. First, by focusing on the videogames themselves I demonstrate the ways the virtual landscapes mirror and reflect contemporary geopolitics and the geographies of military violence. The research thesis reveals the techniques and specificities of the Modern Warfare series, in articulating geopolitical discourses. Second, the thesis adopts a ‘player-based’ approach which explores the often prosaic ways in which these geopolitical and militaristic virtual worlds are interacted with, understood, and experienced. I draw on in-depth qualitative data, including interviews and video ethnography, and show how cultural and (geo) political attitudes, subjectivities, and identities are shaped through the act of playing Modern Warfare.
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