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Shane Snyder - Full Dissertation.pdf (1.61 MB)

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Dictating the Terms: GamerGate, Democracy, and (In)Equality on Reddit

Snyder, Shane Michael
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1556553179370925

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, American Culture Studies.
In late 2014 the mainstream press reported about a far-right movement that sought to discredit feminist, anti-racist, and trans-inclusive interventions in the video games industry, its products, and its consumer culture. Called GamerGate by its devotees, the movement began when American game designer Zoe Quinn weathered public harassment after her ex-boyfriend published a five-part essay falsely alleging she had sex with a game journalist to collect a positive review for her game Depression Quest. GamerGate activists launched a smear campaign against Quinn but attempted to absolve themselves of harassment by rebranding the movement as a game consumer revolt against unethical journalists and leftist academics. Almost five years later, GamerGate continues to grow in membership on its official subreddit, /r/KotakuInAction, which is a self-governed community hosted on the popular discussion forum-based social media platform Reddit. Shortly after /r/KotakuInAction materialized, a conscientious objector created the pro-feminist /r/GamerGhazi to resist GamerGate. Despite Reddit’s massive user base, its 1.2 million subreddits, and its ubiquity in American culture, it remains an underexplored space in the academic literature. Academics have neither adequately addressed Reddit’s role in promoting far-right communities like /r/KotakuInAction, nor the efficacy of using Reddit as a space for staging feminist resistance to such communities. Drawing from feminist epistemology, intersectionality, and masculinity studies, this dissertation investigates /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi’s use of the Reddit interface—most particularly its upvoting and downvoting mechanic—to shape debates around feminism and critical race issues in American culture. The research is based on data collected over the course of six months from discussion threads on each subreddit, subreddit wiki documents, and the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Using a mixed methods approach defined by textual analysis of site commentary and wiki documents, visual analysis of each subreddit’s aesthetic and a video game text, and an analysis of Reddit’s user interface and algorithm, this dissertation addresses the political tensions and contradictions within and between /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi. This project concludes that Reddit’s design and algorithm make it unlikely for intersectional feminist communities to thrive on the platform.
Radhika Gajjala, Dr. (Committee Chair)
Sandra Faulkner, Dr. (Committee Member)
Timothy Messer-Kruse, Dr. (Committee Member)
Laura Landry-Meyer, Dr. (Other)
230 p.
American Studies
Social Media, Feminism, Critical Race Studies, Politics, Technology, Intersectionality, Masculinity, Video Game Studies, Cultural Studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Snyder, S. M. (2019). Dictating the Terms: GamerGate, Democracy, and (In)Equality on Reddit [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1556553179370925

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Snyder, Shane. Dictating the Terms: GamerGate, Democracy, and (In)Equality on Reddit. 2019. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1556553179370925.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Snyder, Shane. "Dictating the Terms: GamerGate, Democracy, and (In)Equality on Reddit." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1556553179370925

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1556553179370925
8,200
© 2019, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Dictating the Terms: GamerGate, Democracy, and (In)Equality on Reddit by Shane Michael Snyder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.