This book examines the politics of being a gamer in the digital age with
an in-depth study of the communities of gamers who populate live-video
streaming sites.
This text offers an innovative theoretical and methodological study of
gamers in their community. It explores gamers as citizens and asks how gamers
are political in view of their activities on stream. Ilya Brookwell examines
how gamers live out their daily lives on live-video streams and how they use
their associated new platforms and tools, including live-video streams such as
Twitch.tv and online web fora, to engage with “live-video politics”. It explores
the relationship between gamers, gaming, and streaming, highlighting how
gamers develop a notion of self that is fundamentally located in community.
Gamers consequently create, inhabit, as well as inherit a political world. With
streaming communities offering unique insights into what it means to live in
a digital age, the book explores how gamers find hopeful openings, as well as
limits, through streaming. The book highlights how gamers can take an active
role in politics and democracy in a digital age.
Interesting reading for undergraduate students, postgraduate researchers,
and academics of media, cultural and communication studies, video game
studies, and digital media studies.
1. A Politics of Being Gamers 2. Encountering Gamer Citizens 3. Not a Game 4. Ludic Divides Conclusion: Live Video Politics
Biography
Ilya Brookwell is Assistant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California Riverside, USA. His research centers on video gamers, live-streaming, virtual reality (VR), and online community, particularly as these intersect with politics. His current research focuses on the emergent technologies of VR and asks how we find social immersion in a digital age. His series of published articles includes work on gamer citizens, emojis as civic duty, and virtual reality community.
“Brookwell cuts to the core of what it means to deeply engage with gaming as a whole in the modern moment, showing games as a means of engaging with the world instead of simply a retreat from it. Using this lens, we finally get to see the Gamer Citizens: people building communities and shaping society through games in what can be some amazing ways.” – Josh Boykin, Founder, Intelligame
