Avatars of Whiteness: Racial Expression in Video Game Characters
Avatars of Whiteness: Racial Expression in Video Game Characters
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DOI：
10.1111/soin.12001
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发表时间：
2013-02-01
影响因子：
1.9
通讯作者：
Dietrich, David R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dietrich, David R.
视频游戏是当今流行媒体的一个巨大部分，可与电视和电影相媲美。此外，视频游戏代表了一种新的媒体形式，由于互动元素，游戏玩家有能力改变和影响游戏世界。本文通过研究种族如何通过化身创造的特征在角色扮演视频游戏中呈现出来，对种族和流行媒体的研究做出了贡献。分析了截至2010年初服务的60多款大型多人在线角色扮演游戏(MMORPG)和过去10年发布的20款离线角色扮演游戏(RPG)的化身创建能力。分析显示，绝大多数游戏，无论是线上还是线下，都不允许创建具有非白人种族外观的头像。强迫玩家在声称代表玩家的化身上出现盎格鲁人形象，可能会加强一种标准的白色感，并将在线世界的社交构成塑造成全白色的虚拟空间，有助于创造一个虚拟的白色习惯。
Video games are an enormous segment of popular media today, comparable to television and movies. Moreover, video games represent a new form of media distinguished from previous forms due to the interactive element, where game players have the ability to change and influence the game world. This paper contributes to the study of race and popular media by examining how race is presented in role-playing video games through the feature of avatar creation. Capabilities for avatar creation are analyzed in over sixty massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) in service as of early 2010 and twenty offline role-playing games (RPGs) published over the past 10 years. The analysis shows that the vast majority of games, both online and offline, do not allow for the creation of avatars with a non-white racial appearance. Forcing an Anglo appearance on avatars that purport to represent the player has the potential to reinforce a sense of normative whiteness as well as shape the social composition of online worlds into all-white virtual spaces, contributing to the creation of a virtual white habitus.