University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations Fall 2010 Identity, Identification, and Media Representation in Video Game Play: An audience reception study Adrienne Shaw University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons Recommended Citation Shaw, Adrienne, "Identity, Identification, and Media Representation in Video Game Play: An audience reception study" (2010). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 286. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/286 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/286 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Identity, Identification, and Media Representation in Video Game Play: An audience reception study Abstract ABSTRACT IDENTITY, IDENTIFICATION AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION IN VIDEO GAME PLAY: AN AUDIENCE RECEPTION STUDY Adrienne Shaw Supervisor: Dr. Katherine Sender Research on minority representation in video games usually asserts: 1. the industry excludes certain audiences by not representing them; 2. everyone should be provided with characters they can identify with; and 3. media representation has knowable effects. In contrast, this dissertation engages with audiences’ relationship to gamer identity, how players interact with game texts (identification and interaction), and their thoughts about media representation. This dissertation uses interviews and participant observation to investigate why, when and how representation is important to individuals who are members of marginalized groups, focusing on sexuality, gender and race, in the U.S. The data demonstrate that video games may offer players the chance to create representations of people “like them” (pluralism), but games do not necessarily force players to engage with texts that offer representation of marginalized groups (diversity), with some rare and problematic exceptions. The focus on identity-based marketing and audience demand, as well as over-simplistic conceptualizations of identification with media characters, as the basis of arguments for minority media representation encourage pluralism. Representation is available, but only to those who seek it out. Diversity, however, is necessary for the political and educative goals of representation. It requires that players are actively confronted with diverse content. Diversity is not the result of demand by audiences, but is rather the social responsibility of media producers. Media producers, however, can take advantage of the fact that identities are complex, that identification does not only require shared identifiers, and that diversity in a non-tokenistic sense can appeal to a much wider audience than pluralistic, niche marketing. In sum, diversity can address both the market logic and educative goals of media representation. I conclude by offering three suggestions bred from this analysis. First, researchers should be critical of this emphasis on pluralism rather than diversity. Second, rather than argue video games should include more diversity because it matters, producers should include it precisely because representation does not matter in many games. Finally, those invested in diversity in games should not be to prove the importance of representation in games, but rather argue for it without dismissing playfulness. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Communication First Advisor Dr. Katherine Sender Keywords Video games, identity, representation, diversity, identification, and audiences Subject Categories Communication Technology and New Media | Critical and Cultural Studies | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication | Race, Ethnicity and Post- Colonial Studies This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/286 IDENTITY, IDENTIFICATION AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION IN VIDEO GAME PLAY: AN AUDIENCE RECEPTION STUDY Adrienne Shaw A DISSERTATION in Communication Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Supervisor of Dissertation Signature___________________________________ Katherine Sender, PhD. Associate Professor of Communication Graduate Group Chairperson Signature___________________________________ Katherine Sender, PhD. Associate Professor of Communication Dissertation Committee: Katherine Sender, PhD., Associate Professor of Communication John L. Jackson, Jr., PhD. Richard Perry University Professor of Communication and Anthropology Marwan Kraidy, PhD. Associate Professor of Communication Identity, Identification and Media Representation in Video Game Play: An audience reception study COPYRIGHT 2010 Adrienne Shaw ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There is a long list of people, without whom I would never have completed this project. First and foremost, I would like to thank my participants for sharing their stories, their thoughts, and, in some cases, their homes and dinner tables with me. There would be no project to speak of, were it not for them. I would also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Katherine Sender, who has been amazingly supportive of all of my endeavors and is perhaps the best editor I have ever had. She is as a good a teacher as she is a friend, and by direction and by example reminds me that working hard does not have to mean never taking time off. That I defended this on a Tuesday, is in part a tribute to our friendship and an inside joke both of us probably barely remember the origins of. I am also thankful to my other committee members, Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Marwan Kraidy who have been as excited and interested in my work as I am. I cannot imagine a more thoughtful, supportive, and critical group of scholars to have assessing the merits of my research. In addition, many other faculty members and visiting scholars have helped shape the scholarship contained herein, and I am grateful to have gone to the Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Pennsylvania, where interactions with such people is possible. The non-exhaustive list includes: Dr. S. Elizabeth Bird, Dr. Nick Couldry, Dr. Barbie Zelizer, Dr. Sharrona Pearl, Dr. Monroe Price, Dr. Joseph Capella, Dr. Klaus Krippendorff, Dr. Carolyn Marvin, and Dr. Ritty Lukose. I am also thankful to the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee English department, scholars at several conferences, and former students for their insights and questions, and regret that I iii cannot thank them all individually. The Annenberg staff was also instrumental in the completion of the work herein. I am especially grateful to Brendan Keegan, Donna Edwards, Gavin McFeeters, Yogi Sukawa, and Joanne Murray for helping me navigate the nuts-and-bolts aspects of this project. I am forever grateful to my student colleagues and friends. In no particular order, those who have had an influence (sometimes dubious) on my productivity include: Michael Serazio, Josh Lauer, Deb Lubken, Moira O‘Keeffe, Seth Goldman, Deb Wainwright, Rebekah Nagler, Brook Duffy, Angel Bourgoin, Mario Rodriguez, Emily Thorson, Piotr Szpunar, Matt Lapierre, Cabral Bigman, Lee Shaker, Jason Tocci, Maggie Sullivan, Caralyn Green, Ali Perelman, Andrew Crocco, Oren Livio, and Keren Teneboim. I am especially grateful to Tara Liss-Marino, Sarah Vaala, and Sarah Paravanta for their hospitality during my returns to Philadelphia for the defense and deposit of the dissertation. I am grateful for the ―culture club,‖ coffee breaks, office dance parties, gym sessions, running like muppets, laughing, late nights (in the office and on the town), and walks home— without which I would never have made it through. I would like to offer a special thanks to Shawnika Hull, with whom I discovered the important overlaps of our very disparate dissertation topics. She helped me see the way my work could matter to others and forced me to explain it until it made sense to someone who did not know what the hell it was I was talking about. I also offer my most sincere and eternal thanks to Dr. Rosa Mikeal Martey who, even when she knew what I was talking about, forced me to explain it in new ways. Her constant problematization of iv and enthusiasm for this project helped make it what it finally became. She has been the best kind of pain in the ass. Finally, I am grateful for a family who has supported me, even when they aren‘t quite sure what it is that I do or why I do it. I am particularly thankful to my mother; first for buying us that Nintendo back in 1987 and, more importantly, for helping me become the person I always wanted to be. I am where I am today, entirely because of her. v ABSTRACT IDENTITY, IDENTIFICATION AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION IN VIDEO GAME PLAY: AN AUDIENCE RECEPTION STUDY Adrienne Shaw Supervisor: Dr. Katherine Sender Research on minority representation in video games usually asserts: 1. the industry excludes certain audiences by not representing them; 2. everyone should be provided with characters they can identify with; and 3. media representation has knowable effects. In contrast, this dissertation engages with audiences‘ relationship to gamer identity, how