My doctoral dissertation on women’s game cultural agency is now openly available

Usva Friman's doctoral dissertation cover
~ Usva Friman ~ Leave a comment

I’m happy to announce that my doctoral dissertation (2022) on Finnish women’s gaming practices, game cultural participation, relationship to gamer identity, and game cultural agency is now openly available through University of Turku’s repository: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2024031210910

Building up on this dissertation project, I’m currently working on the topic of game cultural agency in various contexts, and am looking forward to sharing further insights on this topic in the future!

Dissertation abstract

This doctoral dissertation study, positioned in the field of game culture studies, seeks to understand women’s game cultural agency by examining the various aspects of gaming practices, game cultural participation, and gamer identity, as well as effects of gender in Finnish women’s digital gaming. Its main research question is: How can women’s game cultural agency be understood beyond the gamer identity? This main research question is divided into three sub research questions:

1. What are women players’ gaming practices like?
2. How does gender affect women players’ game cultural participation?
3. How do women players construct the idea and identity of a gamer?

The theoretical framework of the study is built upon the concepts of game culture, game cultural participation, gamer identity, and gender. In the study, game culture is understood as a Bourdieusian field of culture, hierarchical in its nature. Within this cultural field, an individual’s position is defined by her game cultural capital, based on consumption of game cultural products, participation in game cultural activities, gaming skill, and game cultural expertise. Game cultural participation refers to both participating in game cultural activities and the feeling of belonging in game culture. Gamer identity is seen as a cultural identity – experienced and performed within a specific game cultural context – that requires both identification (from the person seeing herself as a gamer) and validation (from other members of game culture). A person’s gamer identity is performed through the gamer habitus: embodied dispositions and displays of game cultural capital. Gender is understood as embodied performance, set in specific game cultural contexts and against the expectations of hegemonic gamer masculinity.

The primary research material of this study consists of semi-structured theme interviews with 20 interviewees and an online questionnaire with 737 respondents, both collected from Finnish adult women who play digital games. Both the interviews and the online questionnaire report women’s current gaming practices and gaming histories, participation in gaming events, production and consumption of game media, following of and participation in electronic sports, gamer definitions and gamer identity, how gender affects their gaming, and the meanings of gaming in the women’s lives. The material is analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Additionally, narrative literature reviews are conducted to provide theoretical context for the analysis.

The analysis shows that women are active players and game cultural participants (albeit more as consumers than as producers) who display significant game cultural expertise. Importantly, women define their game cultural agency on their own terms, affected by but standing against the gendered norms and expectations of the hegemonic game culture. However, women also encounter significant gender-based barriers to their game cultural participation and agency, leading them to suffer from misogynistic discrimination and harassment, limit their participation for their safety, or even opt out entirely from certain game cultural activities. Most women participating in the study reported their gender having affected their gaming, mostly in negative ways. Supportive social environments appear central to women’s gaming.

The main contribution of this study is providing understanding of how game cultural agency is constructed beyond the idea and identity of a gamer and the gender-specific issues affecting women’s game cultural agency. The results offer valuable insight into gaming practices, game cultural participation, and (rejection of) gamer identities of women players, as well as into women players’ game cultural position as a group that is simultaneously actively participating in and being rejected from game culture. The study increases our understanding of the structures of marginalisation within game culture, which do not only affect women but many other player groups as well.

The results of the study can be applied in efforts to increase the cultural accessibility, inclusivity, and equity of game culture by a variety of game cultural agents, including gaming event and esports tournament organisers, gaming community managers, gaming education and youth workers, and game journalists. Even though the material is focused on Finnish women players, these results can also be applied to other player groups as well as international contexts.

Pelit kulttuurina -kirjan luvut avoimesti saatavilla

~ Usva Friman ~ Leave a comment

Jaan erittäin mielelläni ilouutisen, että toimittamamme Pelit kulttuurina -kirjan kaikki luvut ovat nyt avoimesti saatavilla yliopistojen julkaisujärjestelmissä! Kirjan voi myös lainata useimmista kirjastoista (paperisena tai digitaalisena) tai ostaa kustantamolta tai kirjakaupoista.

Pelit kulttuurina (Vastapaino 2022) on suomenkielinen, vertaisarvioitu pelitutkimusartikkelikokoelma, joka tarkastelee pelejä monipuolisesti pelikulttuurintutkimuksellisesta näkökulmasta. Kirjan luvut kuvaavat, miten pelejä tehdään, pelataan ja tutkitaan, millaisia yhteisöjä niiden ympärille rakentuu ja millaisiin yhteiskunnallisiin ilmiöihin ne liittyvät. Digitaalisten viihdepelien lisäksi kirja käsittelee urheilua, rahapelejä ja pelien suhdetta taiteeseen ja leikkiin.

Viittaustiedot: Friman, U., Arjoranta, J., Kinnunen, J., Heljakka, K. & Stenros, J. (2022). Pelit kulttuurina. Vastapaino.

Kirja kustantamon sivuilla: https://vastapaino.fi/sivu/tuote/pelit-kulttuurina/4048063

Kirjan kansi ja ulkoasu: Mirkka Hietanen

Linkit kirjan lukuihin:

  1. Johdanto: Pelit kulttuurina ja kulttuurissa (Usva Friman, Jonne Arjoranta, Jani Kinnunen, Katriina Heljakka & Jaakko Stenros)
  2. Pelikulttuurien tutkimuksen historiaa (Frans Mäyrä)
  3. Pelit kulttuurina ja taiteena (Jaakko Stenros)
  4. Pelintekemisen kulttuurit (Olli Sotamaa)
  5. Vuorovaikutus pelaajayhteisöissä (Marko Siitonen)
  6. Sukupuoli, pelaajaidentiteetti ja pelikulttuurinen osallisuus (Usva Friman)
  7. Digitaalisen pelaamisen tiloja ja vaiheita (Jaakko Suominen)
  8. Pelit ja transmediaalisuus (Tanja Välisalo & Raine Koskimaa)
  9. Liikunta, urheilu ja pelaaminen (Riikka Turtiainen)
  10. Raha, pelit ja rahapelit (Jani Kinnunen)
  11. Kulttuurin leikillistyminen ja pelillistyminen (Raine Koskimaa & Tanja Välisalo)
  12. Aikuisten leikki leikillisen käänteen aikakaudella (Katriina Heljakka)
  13. Pelien yhteiskunnalliset uhkakuvat (Tero Pasanen & Mikko Meriläinen)
  14. Mitä pelit merkitsevät? (Jonne Arjoranta)

New publication: Communicating and Practicing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Finnish Esports Organizations: Challenges and Opportunities

~ Usva Friman ~ Leave a comment

I’m very proud and happy to share the first publication of my post-doc project focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in esports! In this article, co-authored with Maria Ruotsalainen (University of Jyväskylä) and Matilda Ståhl (Åbo Akademi/Tampere University), we describe how Finnish esports organisations are and aren’t communicating and practising DEI in their operations. We also define three key areas for future DEI improvements in esports organisations: communication, recruitment, and guidelines.

Friman, U., Ruotsalainen, M., & Ståhl, M. (2023). Communicating and Practicing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Finnish Esports Organizations: Challenges and Opportunities. Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports, 1(1). Open access: https://doi.org/10.1123/jege.2022-0040

Abstract: In this study, we explore how Finnish esports organizations are communicating and aiming to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in their activities. The study is based on a qualitative analysis on two sets of research material: public websites of 53 esports organizations and interviews with representatives of five esports organizations. We have analyzed the textual and visual contents on these websites to see how Finnish esports organizations communicate diversity, equity, and inclusion—or exclusion—to their audiences. Analyzing the interview material, we have examined how Finnish esports organizations understand equity, what kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices they have applied in their operations, and what kind of challenges they have experienced in this area. Overall, this study describes how Finnish esports organizations do and do not present and experience themselves as diverse, equal, and inclusive environments, and what measures could be taken to increase these aspects in the Finnish esports scene in the future. The results of the study can be applied to various gaming and esports organizations and cultural contexts globally.

We will also discuss this study tomorrow at the Understanding local esports cultures and ecosystems seminar at the University of Jyväskylä!

New publication: Strength Over Gender? Discussing and Presenting the Ambivalent Female Strength in the CrossFit Games 2019

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Today, as the individual competitions are beginning at the CrossFit Games 2023, I’m happy to announce the publication of this book chapter co-authored with Riikka Turtiainen:

Turtiainen, R. & Friman, U. (2023). Strength Over Gender? Discussing and Presenting the Ambivalent Female Strength in the CrossFit Games 2019. In N. K. Brigden, K. R. Hejtmanek, M. M. & Forbis (Eds.), Gender and Power in Strength Sports: Strong As Feminist (pp. 29–53). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003370925-4

Abstract: In this chapter, we pay attention to the ambivalence of the CrossFit culture, which both resists and reinforces hegemonic femininity by expanding the possibilities of the strong female body. CrossFit seems to emphasize physical capabilities over gender, and in its world championship competition the CrossFit Games, female and male athletes are given similar attention. As a fitness regimen and a brand CrossFit is also actively promoting its ethos of equality. However, hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity are both enforced and challenged within the CrossFit community. Our analysis focuses on the Rogue Iron Game live stream broadcast of the individual women athlete’s events in the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games competition, published as eleven separate YouTube videos. Through a close reading of this audiovisual material, we interpret the representations and discourses concerning female athlete’s strength in the context of this sporting event. We utilize feminist thematic analysis and combine this approach with a critical understanding of CrossFit as a neoliberal and postfeminist manifestation. As a result, we present three essential themes discussed and presented in the context of female strength: (1) looking strong, (2) strong and dominating performance, and (3) women’s strength versus men.

This one has been long in the making, as we wrote the first draft in the autumn 2019, soon after the Games, and the book was finally published this spring. I’m very happy to see it included in this wonderful collection: Gender and Power in Strength Sports: Strong As Feminist (Routledge), edited by Noelle K. Brigden, Katie Rose Hejtmanek, and Melissa M. Forbis.

Author’s copy of this chapter will be openly available at: https://researchportal.tuni.fi/en/persons/usva-friman/publications

I will defend my doctoral dissertation this Friday 3 June 2022

Usva Friman's doctoral dissertation cover
~ Usva Friman ~ Leave a comment

I will present my doctoral dissertation Gender and game cultural agency in the post-gamer era: Finnish women players’ gaming practices, game cultural participation, and rejected gamer identity for a public examination at the University of Turku. Senior Lecturer Emma Witkowski (RMIT University) will act as the opponent and University Lecturer Riikka Turtiainen (University of Turku) will act as the custos at the defence.

The doctoral defence will take place in Tampere on Friday the 3rd of June 2022 at 12:00 in the Kuusi lecture hall of Tampere Main Library Metso (Pirkankatu 2, bottom floor, entrance from Hämeenpuisto).

You can also follow the dissertation defence remotely at: https://youtu.be/ZgdfYAT4YcE

Dissertation abstract

This doctoral dissertation study, positioned in the field of game culture studies, seeks to understand women’s game cultural agency by examining the various aspects of gaming practices, game cultural participation, and gamer identity, as well as effects of gender in Finnish women’s digital gaming. Its main research question is: How can women’s game cultural agency be understood beyond the gamer identity? This main research question is divided into three sub research questions:

1. What are women players’ gaming practices like?
2. How does gender affect women players’ game cultural participation?
3. How do women players construct the idea and identity of a gamer?

The theoretical framework of the study is built upon the concepts of game culture, game cultural participation, gamer identity, and gender. In the study, game culture is understood as a Bourdieusian field of culture, hierarchical in its nature. Within this cultural field, an individual’s position is defined by her game cultural capital, based on consumption of game cultural products, participation in game cultural activities, gaming skill, and game cultural expertise. Game cultural participation refers to both participating in game cultural activities and the feeling of belonging in game culture. Gamer identity is seen as a cultural identity – experienced and performed within a specific game cultural context – that requires both identification (from the person seeing herself as a gamer) and validation (from other members of game culture). A person’s gamer identity is performed through the gamer habitus: embodied dispositions and displays of game cultural capital. Gender is understood as embodied performance, set in specific game cultural contexts and against the expectations of hegemonic gamer masculinity.

The primary research material of this study consists of semi-structured theme interviews with 20 interviewees and an online questionnaire with 737 respondents, both collected from Finnish adult women who play digital games. Both the interviews and the online questionnaire report women’s current gaming practices and gaming histories, participation in gaming events, production and consumption of game media, following of and participation in electronic sports, gamer definitions and gamer identity, how gender affects their gaming, and the meanings of gaming in the women’s lives. The material is analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Additionally, narrative literature reviews are conducted to provide theoretical context for the analysis.

The analysis shows that women are active players and game cultural participants (albeit more as consumers than as producers) who display significant game cultural expertise. Importantly, women define their game cultural agency on their own terms, affected by but standing against the gendered norms and expectations of the hegemonic game culture. However, women also encounter significant gender-based barriers to their game cultural participation and agency, leading them to suffer from misogynistic discrimination and harassment, limit their participation for their safety, or even opt out entirely from certain game cultural activities. Most women participating in the study reported their gender having affected their gaming, mostly in negative ways. Supportive social environments appear central to women’s gaming.

The main contribution of this study is providing understanding of how game cultural agency is constructed beyond the idea and identity of a gamer and the gender-specific issues affecting women’s game cultural agency. The results offer valuable insight into gaming practices, game cultural participation, and (rejection of) gamer identities of women players, as well as into women players’ game cultural position as a group that is simultaneously actively participating in and being rejected from game culture. The study increases our understanding of the structures of marginalisation within game culture, which do not only affect women but many other player groups as well.

The results of the study can be applied in efforts to increase the cultural accessibility, inclusivity, and equity of game culture by a variety of game cultural agents, including gaming event and esports tournament organisers, gaming community managers, gaming education and youth workers, and game journalists. Even though the material is focused on Finnish women players, these results can also be applied to other player groups as well as international contexts.

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

~ Usva Friman ~ Leave a comment

I am extremely happy to share my newest publication with you! This study is a collaboration with Maria Ruotsalainen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland) and it’s published as a book chapter titled Gender and Toxic Meritocracy in Competitive Overwatch: Case “Ellie” (click the title for open access publication!).

In our chapter, we examine toxic meritocracy in relation to gender in competitive Overwatch, asking how gender affects a player’s opportunities for engagement in that scene. We analyze 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. Our analysis shows that despite a strong belief in meritocracy upheld within the community, there are many barriers limiting the participation of those entering competitive Overwatch as women. As we know from earlier research and experiences shared by women involved in competitive gaming and esports, our reading of this individual case also has wider applicability far beyond a single game and its community.

Our chapter is a contribution to the wonderful, fully open access book titled Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch (Palgrave Macmillan 2022), edited by Maria Ruotsalainen, Maria Törhönen, and Veli-Matti Karhulahti.

M. Ruotsalainen, M. Törhönen, & V. Karhulahti (Eds., 2022) Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch. Palgrave Macmillan.

The book is filled with interesting perspectives into Overwatch esports, and it’s fully open access, so please take a look at the other contributions as well! The entire book is openly available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0