Item Details

title

VIDEO GAMES DO KILL: WHITE SUPREMACIST ABEYANCE AND #GAMERGATE

author

Walrath, Caitlin

abstract

The Internet has been rife with white supremacist activity since the late 1980s. Much of their presence has centered around online gaming spaces and mobilization of gamers to fulfill the political aims of white supremacists. However, scholarship on why and how the relationship between white supremacists and online gaming spaces developed is incredibly new. This thesis locates its inquiry within the aftermath of #GamerGate and the consequences for mass rhetorical mobilization of thousands of gamers in service of white supremacist movements. In this thesis, I will argue that harmonious relationship between gaming and white supremacist online spaces is a deliberate strategy of jumping in and out of social movement abeyance by white supremacists to sustain their rhetorical presence as a foundation for Internet discourse. Using a combination of Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification through the “Four Master Tropes” and Christian Lundberg’s psychoanalytic theory of “tropological economies”, this thesis explains why gamers desire participation in white supremacist rhetorical spaces and how their compulsion for agential expression sustains recruitment.

subject

abeyance

identification

tropes

video games

white supremacy

contributor

Watts, Eric K (advisor)

Cunningham, Phillip (committee member)

Marwick, Alice (committee member)

date

2024-05-23T08:35:53Z (accessioned)

2024-05-23T08:35:53Z (available)

2024 (issued)

degree

Communication (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/109400 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

type

Thesis