Exploring ideology in gaming: youth playing “Call of duty: modern warfare 2”

This is a two-part study. The first part is an analysis of a war-themed video game, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, a game combining violent conflict in a contemporary setting of modern technological warfare between the US, Russia, and the Middle East. The second part moves on to analyse ten open-ended interviews, reflecting youth gamers‟ experiences playing the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The aim of the study is to understand how war video games portray certain hegemonic ideologies and how that may be transmitted to youth. A second aim is to analyze how playing these games may affect youth experiences of game play, and their perceptions of war and the military. Methods used include discourse analysis on the narratives and images within the game, a socio-political analysis on events leading to the „War on Terror‟ and an analysis of President Bush‟s speeches during his first term in office (2000-2004) to provide a background to the political and social reality in which the game is based, as well as open-ended interviews with youth gamers. The key findings are reflected in Chapters 3 and 4, which demonstrate a complexity in the representation of hegemonic ideals and experience among youth gamers. Conclusions reflect upon finding alternative views through the use of video games as well as reflections on the research and forward looking statements. The research was intended to provide some insight into a pervasive medium, namely, video games, its construction in terms of narratives and images and the experiences of youth gamers that play them and how they can be used to promote social justice and alternatives to war.