Preventing Extremism through Storytelling and Gaming
On 2 February 2023, GNET and the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) hosted a webinar on ‘Preventing Extremism through Storytelling and Gaming.’ The panel was hosted by Galen Englund, co-founder of EGRN, alongside Dr. Constance Steinkuehler, George Weiss, and Dr. Jessica White (also an EGRN co-founder). The narratives used within gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces […]
From Atari to Allahu Akbar: Comparing White Supremacist and Jihadist Uses of Gamified Extremism
This new-found interest, however, seems to have overshadowed some of the earlier research into the exploitation of gaming by jihadist actors conducted over twenty years ago beginning with an interest in jihadist-specific gaming research in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. For example, the United States Government 9/11 Commission pointed out how flight simulators and […]
God of Race War: The Utilisation of Viking-Themed Video Games in Far-Right Propaganda
The rise to prominence of the alt-right from technological fringes to the mainstream in 2016 brought with it the emergence of ‘alt-histories’; namely fabrications of alternative timelines that employ both fiction and selective facts to shape narratives that contradict accepted history itself. During the same period, the intersection between violent extremism and video gaming was […]
Extremist Action in Digital Gaming Spaces: The Role of Identity Fusion
Radicalisation, Extremism, and Digital Games Over the last few years, the topics of extremism and radicalisation have reached the forefront of concern in gaming communities. Specifically, this concern has centred around the potential for extremists to leverage the extensive reach of games and gaming cultures for recruitment, propaganda dissemination, signalling, networking, and mobilisation We have […]
Playing Against Radicalisation: Why Extremists are Gaming and How P/CVE Can Leverage the Positive Effects of Video Games to Prevent Radicalisation
The potential nexus between gaming and extremism is an increasingly important concern for researchers, tech companies, policymakers, and practitioners working in preventing and countering (violent) extremism (P/CVE). While the exploitation of gaming content and spaces by extremist actors is a relatively new phenomenon and research in this area is sparse, it has become clear that […]
The Gamification of Violent Extremism: An Empirical Exploration of the Christchurch Attack
Using empirical data taken from the Christchurch attack in New Zealand in March 2019, w provide a summary of how the attack was gamified in nature and how the data is laden with overt and more subtle overlaps with video games more generally.
Understanding the Game: Bridging Research Gaps at the Nexus of Gaming and Extremism
In 2021, we developed a report at Love Frankie (LF) for our community of practice at the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) to understand the state of research into linkages between video games, gaming communities, and extremism. In the State of Play: Reviewing the Literature on Gaming & Extremism, we provide an overview of existing available literature on research and publications on the use of gaming platforms, video games, and related online fora.