Introduction
The specific scholarly article that was selected for the analysis and research is called “Deviant Bodies, Stigmatized Identities, and racist acts: Examining the Experiences of African-American Gamers in Xbox Live.” The study was issued by Taylor & Francis and subsequently published in the scientific journal New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia in 2013. According to the research, the patterns of questioning, prodding, inciting, and eventually discriminating lead to instances of racism (Gray, 2012). Numerous black gamers have embraced the stigma attached to their physicality as deviants and normalized the racist encounters.
Method
Concerning a concrete research methodology that was used by the authors, it is feasible to emphasize the utilization of virtual ethnography as the general structure. The writers introduced virtual ethnography to pinpoint a mechanism that fosters prejudice depending on how a black gamer is perceived in the environment (Gray, 2012). This approach was evaluated as effective as it provided the researcher the chance to engage with the population both as an observer and a member (Gray, 2012). These insights prompted a more descriptive, open-ended interview structure where respondents could share their experiences and offer actual examples of when the act of labeling, prejudice, and misbehavior would take place (Gray, 2012). The three main data sources used to create the comprehensive description of social norms in this study are participant observations, surveys, and monitoring. In general, the research is strictly descriptive and theoretical, incorporating respondents’ and participants’ answers and dialogues as main measurements and instrumentation. The major research question is related to the illustration of how minority gamers are impacted by racist influences, whereas the hypothesis highlights provoking, agitating, and questioning as racism manifestations.
Results
Xbox Live’s terms and conditions forbid the solicitation of players for any purpose therefore the researcher had to concentrate on snowball sampling to find gamers willing to participate in the research survey. The writer defined various factors that contributed to the emergence of racism from the measurements and initial interviews, and the subjects were able to predict when it would happen (Gray, 2012). The racism that was recognized and documented followed the standard pattern of questioning, agitating, inciting, racist remarks, and either dispersion or a fictitious racial war (Gray, 2012). The rapidity with which racist incidents emerge and vanish is a problem connected to their frequency (Gray, 2012). The prejudiced instances have become commonplace among gamers, and they hardly ever report them to the Xbox Live network (Gray, 2012). The author mainly learned from the research that one of the essential issues is related to the absence of a well-developed communication and reporting channel between the users and moderators.
Considering the outcomes of the efforts, emphasizing that the study is a descriptive and partly theoretical one, no specific and universal framework for evaluating racist impacts was provided. The hypothesis was supported by the collection of evidence and documented responses of the gamers regarding racist behaviors and inappropriate, discriminatory conduct. A list of notes and abbreviations is proposed by the author, as well as various theoretical terms are described in the paper.
Strengths
The first strength of the selected article is connected to the fact that the author clearly identifies the issue related to the topic and describes it within a concrete context with potential consequences. In this case, the factor of content validity is positively influenced by encompassing various definitions and examples. For instance, the problem of certain demographic beliefs is dangerous since computer games have the ability to spread dominant beliefs and stereotyped images (Gray, 2012). The second strength, which is a part of construct validity, is the illustration of transparency of the deviant characteristics, which implies that observable deviant traits provide evidence about a person’s social authenticity.
Limitations
The first limitation is the number of participants in the study, which appears to be relatively low when compared to the hundreds of thousands of Xbox Live subscribers who have registered. This limitation is connected to statistical conclusion validity and a specific threat to that validity is selection bias. When people, groups, or information are chosen for study in a biased manner that prevents effective randomization, this is known as selection bias. In this instance, this aspect represents a threat since there is a probability of not ensuring that the sample is adequate. The second limitation of the paper is the absence of quantitative data interpretation and analysis since the article is a descriptive one. This weakness is related to content validity and a certain threat to that validity is instrumentation, which is a factor that influences the methodology of gathering and examining data and information.
Conclusion
To summarize, from the assessments and early surveys, the author identified a number of elements that led to the onset of racism, and the participants were able to forecast when it would occur. The racism that was acknowledged and recorded followed the typical pattern of interrogation, agitation, incitement, racist statements, dispersion, or a constructed race war. A difficulty associated with the number of racist occurrences is the speed at which they originate and disappear. The selected article contributes to the topic “The Lack of Diversity and Inclusion in the Gaming Industry” by discussing the aspects of racism manifestation in video games and describing the forms of the problem’s emergence.
Reference
Gray, K. L. (2012). Deviant bodies, stigmatized identities, and racist acts: Examining the experiences of African-American gamers in Xbox Live. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 18(4), 261-276. Web.