The World Hobbit Project in Finland : Audience responses and transmedial user practices

This article examines audience engagement with The Hobbit fantasy film trilogy as a participatory and transmedial experience. To do so, we use the data collected by The World Hobbit Project in order to investigate the transmedial user practices of the Finnish audience of the trilogy. We will, firstly, look at what kinds of transmedial user practices – and transmedia users – emerge from our data. Secondly, we will ask the following questions: How do transmedia users receive and experience the films? What are the meanings assigned to The Hobbit films and the fantasy texts and user practices related to them, and what do these meanings tell of the broader meanings and uses of fantasy? Doing so,…

“Cute Goddess is Actually an Aunty”: The Evasive Middle-Aged Woman Streamer and Normative Performances of Femininity in Video Game Streaming

In this paper the focus is on the representations of “middle-aged” or “aging” women streamers in western media. I analyze discussions in Western online media around a case of Chinese DouYu live-streamer. “Qiaobiluo Dianxia,” as her streamer name goes, became a topic in Western media after a glitch in her live stream revealed her to be a middle-aged woman, rather than young woman she was assumed to be. The discussions are analyzed with critical discourse analysis. It is argued that the aging bodies of women, both their presence and absence, should be read and understood through toxic gaming culture and geek masculinity and the hegemonic discourse they constitute.

Discursive Constructions of White Nordic Masculinities in Right-wing Populist Media

Using superordinate intersectionality as a theoretical framework, this article explores notions of men and masculinities within right wing populism. It is attentive to how the right-wing populist media in Finland and Sweden construct white Nordic masculinities through discursive interactions across several axes of difference: gender (masculinities); sexuality (heterosexuality); social class (elites); and race (whitenesses). Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as methodological approach, we show how the discursive constructions of white Nordic masculinities are context contingent, rendering them subject to constant reinterpretation and repositioning, at times privileging some axes of…

"I never gave up"

Esports phenomena have grown rapidly in recent years, and so has research on the topic. Some of the research has also addressed esports fandom (see e.g. Taylor 2012). Nevertheless, studies comparing and contrasting how players and fans engage with the game and the esports based on that game are scarce. This study compares and contrasts how players and fans engage with playable game characters and esports players. The paper draws on previous research in fan studies, sports fandom and esports to examine the relationships of players and fans of the videogame Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016) with the fictional heroes of the game as well as with their favorite professional players in the …

Turvetta tupaan: faktat, valheet ja affektiivinen vastaanotto Turveinfo-mainoskampanjassa

Turpeen energiakäyttöä lobannut Turveinfo-kampanja näkyi laajasti eri medioissa alkuvuodesta 2017. Se herätti kiivaan ja tunnepitoisen vastareaktion. Kampanjan väitteitä pidettiin yksinkertaistavina, valheellisina ja joiltain osin myös loukkaavina. Tässä artikkelissa analysoimme mainoskampanjan sisältöä ja vastaanottoa sekä sen aiheuttamia reaktioita. Tarkastelemme erityisesti affektiivisuuden ja faktuaalisuuden suhdetta kampanjassa. Miten nykykulttuurissa käyty keskustelu vaihtoehtoisista totuuksista näkyy median moninaista kenttää hyväkseen käyttävän, lobbaajien tilaaman mainoskampanjan tulkinnoissa ja ehkä laajemminkin median tulkitsemisessa? Analyysimme viitekehyksenä toimivat affektite…

Overwatch-e-urheilu ja sukupuolen ja kansallisuuden (uudelleen)muotoutumiset

Lektio 23.8.2022 Jyväskylän yliopistossa nonPeerReviewed

Player Reception of Change and Stability in Character Mechanics

AbstractChange is a constant element of online games, and Overwatch as well as its playable characters have been through multiple changes since the launch of the game in 2016. In this chapter, we examine the relationships players have with the playable characters of Overwatch and specifically the role that character mechanics have in these relationships. Changes to game characters are a topic of avid discussion in Overwatch communities and evoke articulations of the meaning of game characters for the players.

Nyrkit turpeessa : Turveinfo-mainoskampanja ja sen aiheuttama kohu yhteiskunnallisena dialogina

“Overwatch is anime” : Exploring an alternative interpretational framework for competitive gaming

Esports has often been likened and compared to traditional sports. This paper suggests an alternative interpretative framework for competitive gaming by focusing on the team-based first-person shooter game Overwatch. We explore Overwatch esports using multi-sited ethnography and demonstrate how the fans and viewers use a rich spectrum of cultural products to enrich and explain their relationship with esports. In the case of Overwatch, anime is particularly prominent, used not only to enrich and explain, but also to challenge ‘sports normativity’, which is visible in the media discussions on Overwatch as well as in the production choices of the esports tournament organizer. This also has con…

"There Are No Women and They All Play Mercy" : Understanding and Explaining (the Lack of) Women’s Presence in Esports and Competitive Gaming

In this paper, we explore women’s participation in esports and competitive gaming. We will analyze two different types of research material: online questionnaire responses by women explaining their reluctance to participate in esports, and online forum discussions regarding women’s participation in competitive Overwatch. We will examine the ways in which women’s participation – its conditions, limits and possibilities – are constructed in the discussions concerning women gamers, how women are negotiating their participation in their own words, and in what ways gender may affect these processes. Our findings support those made in previous studies concerning esports and competitive gaming as …

The light, the dark, and everything else : making sense of young people's digital gaming

Whether gaming has a beneficial or detrimental effect on young people's lives is a defining feature in both the research and the public discussion of youth digital gaming. In this qualitative study, we draw from a thematic analysis of the experiences of 180 game players in Finland, aged 15–25 years. Utilizing the digital gaming relationship (DGR) theory, we explore how different aspects of gaming actualize in their lives, and how different features of gaming culture participation come together to form their experience. We contend that framing gaming as a balancing act between beneficial and detrimental obscures much of the complexity of young people's gaming, reinforces a partially false di…

Performing ‘us’ and ‘other’ : Intersectional analyses of right-wing populist media

Finland and Sweden share the ideal of a Nordic welfare state, with gender equality as a central tenet. In both countries, right-wing populist parties have gained prominence in mainstream politics. Despite similar political agendas at the moment, these parties have different political histories, and different modes of expressing their anti-immigration pleas. In this comparative study, we examine how the distinction between ‘us’ and the ‘other’ is performed intersectionally in terms of gender, social class, ethnicity and ‘race’, and sexuality. For this purpose, we examine empirical material collected from the party newspapers of the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats, because their content…

“Sexuality does not belong to the game” : Discourses in Overwatch Community and the Privilege of Belonging

Players can experience a sense of belonging to videogames and the transmedial worlds surrounding them. There nevertheless exist ongoing negotiations over who has the right to belong to these spaces. Multiple works addressing related issues have highlighted that white heterosexual men still maintain the position of power in the majority of game communities (e.g., Consalvo, 2012; Paul, 2018). This position can translate into an ease of belonging while others can find themselves struggling for the right to belong. We examine the transmedial world of Overwatch, an online game, as a place of belonging and non-belonging. Since the game’s launch, two characters have been revealed as queer. In cont…

Gender and Toxic Meritocracy in Competitive Overwatch: Case “Ellie”

AbstractThis chapter examines toxic meritocracy in relation to gender in competitive Overwatch, asking how gender affects a player’s opportunities for engagement in that scene. It analyzes online news stories and community discussions concerning “Ellie” – a fabricated competitive woman gamer created as a “social experiment” by a man player. The confluences between gender and toxic meritocracy become visible in the assumption there must be an experienced man gamer behind the battletag, the gender-based harassment targeted at Ellie, and the reflections on the importance of setting an example as the first team taking a woman player for Contenders. The analysis shows that despite a strong belie…

Sanailua, suunsoittoa ja syrjintää : Nuorten kokemuksia pelikäytöksestä

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan laadullisen kyselyaineiston (N=180) avulla suomenkielisten, 15–25-vuotiaiden nuorten kokemuksia pelikäytöksestä digitaalisten pelien parissa. Teema-analyysin avulla rakennetut teemat valottavat epäasiallisen pelikäytöksen syitä ja seurauksia, kilpailullisten pelien suunsoittokulttuuria, pelikulttuureissa esiintyvää rakenteellista syrjintää, sekä myönteistä pelikäytöstä. Pelikäytös näyttäytyy artikkelissa monipuolisena ja monimutkaisena kokonaisuutena, johon vaikuttavat niin yksilöiden ominaisuudet ja mieltymykset kuin pelikulttuurien ja yhteiskunnan rakenteet. Artikkelin lopussa esitetään ehdotuksia keinoista vähentää asiatonta pelikäytöstä. This article explores …

Introduction

A decade ago, it was still somewhat conventional to start a study by writing how “esports is a novel phenomenon.” As we write this introduction in 2021, that is no longer true. Today, more than a thousand studies have been published on esports, including several books and special issues. Moreover, the work is no longer conducted purely in the “game studies” related fields, but across numerous domains from medical and health sciences to economics and sports. Esports is no longer a novel phenomenon, not even for researchers. As both the industry and academia of esports progress—with hundreds of digital (and some analog) game titles being played as “esports”—it is more and more difficult to ad…

Esports fandom in the age of transmedia: the reception of the overwatch league

In our article, we analyse the ways audiences engage with Overwatch esports and construct their fan relationships. We situate our research into several intersecting theoretical frames. To understand how Overwatch esports audiences engage with the esports through different media and media related practices we apply the framework of transmedia studies in our examination. To better understand how meanings related to esports are constructed through these practices we also draw from research on fandom and fan engagement. We reflect these findings on earlier research on sports fandom and esports viewership, enabling us to identify how Overwatch esports communities relate to traditional sports com…

“Not Only for a Celebration of Competitive Overwatch but Also for National Pride”: Sportificating the Overwatch World Cup 2016

While the most popular forms of organized competitive digital gaming, also known as eSports, have begun finding their place within and in relation to both mainstream entertainment culture and the field of traditional sports, their history is one of struggling to be accepted as “true sports.” Partly because of this history, great effort has been put into the sportification of eSports by presenting competitions in familiar ways adapted from traditional sports. In this article, we examine the process of sportification of eSports in the context of tournament broadcasts. We analyze the Overwatch World Cup 2016 tournament, comparing its final broadcast to the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s final broadcast…

Vanhempien odotusten ja uskomusten yhteys lapsen varhaisen kouluvaiheen suoritusmotivaatioon ja lukutaitoon

Tracing the concept of hate speech in Finland

Construction of a playspace : autoethnographical inquiry to temporal and spatial frames of the play experience of World of Warcraft

Tämä tutkimus käsittelee massiivisesti monipelattavan netti rooli-peli World of Warcratin pelaamisen ajallisia ja paikallisia rajoja fenomenologisella ja autoetnografisella lähestymistavalla. Tutkimus selvittää tapahtuuko pelaaminen taikapiirin sisällä ja voidaanko taikapiirin rajojen katsoa olevan samat kuin itse digitaalisen pelin. Taikapiiri on Johan Huizingan (1938) määrittämä konsepti ja sen mukaan pelin ja leikin kokemus on ajallisesti ja tilallisesti muusta ympäristöstä rajattua aktiviteettia. Tutkimuksessa tutkijan oma pelaamisen kokemus on otettu autoetnografisen analyysin lähtöpisteeksi ja pelaamisen kokemuksen kautta arvioidaan onko pelaaminen suljettua pelin sisään vai ylittääkö…

Patterns of reception in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden : In search of interpretive communities

This paper focuses on the search of interpretative communities across and amongst the Nordics. First the idea of shared ‘Nordic mode of reception’ between the three Nordic countries which participated to the World Hobbit Research project is presented and investigated, after which the focus is shifted towards the examination of the possibility of the ‘country-specific profiles’. Finally it is questioned if any other background variable than nationality could explain the finding which emerge when examining the data at the level of nationalities. peerReviewed

Esports Transmedia Universes

Fantasian vastaanoton tutkimus

“KKona where’s your sense of patriotism?” : Positioning Nationality in the Spectatorship of Competitive Overwatch Play

AbstractThis chapter analyzes the discursive construction of nationality and ethnicity in the context of the Overwatch World Cup 2019 and especially among the discussions of the world cup’s spectators on the live-streaming platform Twitch. Drawing on the positioning theory and the concept of banal nationalism, our study demonstrates how esports fans are active negotiators and co-creators of the esports discourse. The analysis illustrates what kind of role nationality and ethnicity take in this environment, in other words what they come to mean for those participating in the discourses defining them.