Race, Gender, and Sexuality Representation in Contemporary Triple-A Video Game Narratives

By conducting both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data from interviews and game content, I examine representations of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary video-game narratives. I use data from interviews to show how they view their representations in this medium and to set categorical criteria for an interpretive content analysis. I analyze a sample of top-selling narrative-driven video games in the United States released from 2016-2019. My content coding incorporates aforementioned interview data as well as theoretical-based and intersectional concepts on video game characters and their narratives. The content analysis includes measures of narrative importance, narrative role, positivity of representation, and demographic categories of characters, though the scale of this study may not allow for a full test of intersectional theory of links between demographics and roles. Interview and content analysis results suggest an overrepresentation of white characters and extreme under-representation of non-white women.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Department dc:contributor.department

College of Liberal Arts and Humanities

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Haines, Cory

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• King, Neal M.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Ivory, James Dee
• Roos, Micah J.

• Media Representation
• Inequality
• Mixed Methods
• Intersectionality

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/94573

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/94573