Rahppoye, Hekmat-e Honar

Rahppoye, Hekmat-e Honar

The Representation of Hegemonic Components in Digital Games: A Case Study of America-Centered Games

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Farzaneh Sharifi
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences, Faculty of Culture and Communication, Soureh International University, Tehran, Iran.
10.22034/rph.2025.2063768.1156
Abstract
With the mounting growth of the digital game industry as one of the most important branches of the creative industries, this medium has become not only a platform for entertainment but also a powerful tool for transmitting cultural, social, and political concepts. In such a context, the issue of “hegemony” as the dominant form of ideological and cultural domination is of particular importance. Hegemony in digital games means how some countries or companies, by taking advantage of their economic, technical, and narrative power, instill certain values, lifestyles, and attitudes in the form of games to global audiences and lead to the formation of a single framework for understanding reality, history, and morality. Most of the best-selling and popular games worldwide are the products of Western companies. Using sophisticated storytelling, advanced technologies, and extensive marketing, these games not only produce entertainment but also present specific narratives of history, politics, violence, race, gender, and identity. In this context, there are concerns about the monotony of cultural narratives and the neglect or distortion of cultures and perspectives of other societies, especially non-Western countries. Conversely, non-native game-producing countries, particularly developing nations, hold a minimal stake in the creation and production of indigenous content in the global market. This imbalance in digital content production and consumption indicates a form of “soft cultural colonization” through digital games, which can result in the weakening of cultural diversity and the creation of inequalities in cyberspace. The main purpose of this research is to analyze games developed by the United States from a hegemonic perspective. Therefore, the question here is: how have these American and Western games represented the East, the Middle East, and Muslims? Given the size of the market, the number of global audiences, and the powerful influence of digital games as an interactive medium in shaping public opinion and global culture, addressing the issue of hegemony in this area is an undeniable necessity. This issue not only leads to a better understanding of the role of ideology in gaming media but can also pave the way for the development of cultural policies and strategies to promote polyphonic narratives and strengthen local production. This research was conducted with an exploratory-descriptive approach. The reason for using this method was to obtain deeper findings from the analysis of games and also to analyze all the overt and covert layers of the game text. Another benefit of using this method, which cannot be properly achieved with other qualitative analyses, is the transformation of the findings into a conceptual model. At the initial stage, the research population comprised games that revolve around Western hegemony and ideologies expressing antagonism toward the Middle East. For sampling, a non-probability and purposive sampling method was used, and specifically, 6 digital games with the titles 1- “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” 2- “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” 3- “Command and Conquer Generals,” 4- “Medal of Honor,” 5- “Army of Two” and 6- “Splinter Cell” were selected, which had characteristics appropriate to the objectives of this study. Therefore, the units of analysis were selected according to the purpose of the study. To analyze the games, continuous observation of them and viewing recorded videos of the six mentioned games lasted for four months. Then, a complete description of how the East, the Middle East, and hegemonic concepts are represented in all these games was obtained. Analysis of the sequence, music, game footage, characters, scoring, dialogues, narrations, etc. was also carried out to answer the research questions mentioned below: How have these Western games represented the East? And with what concepts have they depicted this subject (the East)? To implement the analysis, the games were first classified based on semantic units to extract their categories. Then, in the next stage, 8 subcategories were extracted that were at a higher level of abstraction, and finally, three main categories were obtained, titled 1. Hegemony, 2. Negative representation, and 3. Islamophobia. To ensure reliability, the selection of semantic units was done carefully, and an effort was made to ensure that no data was inadvertently included in the categorization stages. To maintain reliability, a second researcher identified and reviewed uncertain codes. To increase the reliability of the analysis, the researcher first reviewed the research process from start to finish and reexamined the coding. Then, the second author supervised the analysis and coding stages separately and served as a secondary controller to achieve precise themes. Finally, to control the extracted themes and categories, the researcher’s opinion was compared with an expert (third controller). Data analysis and extraction were approved by the third controller. Also, to increase the validity of the results, the triangulation method was used. In this method, data were collected and combined from various sources, such as documents, specialized game analyses, and the researcher’s experiences, to arrive at a comprehensive and valid picture of hegemonic and anti-Oriental concepts in the selected games. In assessing the validity of the research, internal validity was ensured through data review by two independent researchers, and the findings were aligned with the theoretical framework. To increase external validity, other games with relatively similar narratives to the samples of this study were selected so that the research results would be more generalizable. The conceptual framework of the present study uses the “hegemony theory” and “Orientalist discourse” as the closest theoretical basis to the purpose of this study. On the other hand, when the East is opposed to the West as “other” in these games, metamorphosis and meta-textual ideologies are formed. Based on theoretical foundations and the combination of concepts, three main categories and eight subcategories were obtained from the six analyzed games. The three main categories are 1) hegemony, 2) negative representation, and 3) Islamophobia. The eight subcategories are 1) cultural hegemony, 2) military hegemony, 3) global hegemony, 4) civilian appeasement, 5) negative cultural representation, 6) negative geographical representation, 7) negative political representation, and 8) animosity towards Arabs, Islam, and Shias. During the analysis of these six games, the frequency of hegemonic and then anti-Islamic concepts was more than the rest of the categories. So, their classification into categories was sometimes difficult due to the similarity of thematic content. The ideological, cultural, military, political, geographical, and even media domination of America and not even other Western countries over the Middle East is visible throughout these games. In the process of gameplay analysis, the researcher sometimes does not need to refer to the hypertext, and hegemony is so obvious and explicit that it is recorded as an easily accessible code. Therefore, it seemed that in the ideological analysis of Western games, the use of three theories of representation, orientalism, and hegemony is necessary. The discourse of orientalism and otherness, the superior view of the Arab and Persian races, and the religion of Islam were the most important approaches to representing the Middle East in the analyzed games produced by America and the West. The findings of this study show that the analyzed games make a fundamental distinction between the East and the West in political, military, cultural, and even media dimensions. The West is portrayed in a favorable light alongside the wretched face of the Middle East and the East, especially Islamic countries. The player frequently encounters terrorists who are Arab, Afghan, and Muslim throughout these games. This research, in addressing the issue of cultural invasion and anti-Islamic ideological themes in digital games, can provide recommendations to two main groups: 1) researchers in the fields of sociology, media studies, cultural studies, and game studies, and 2) stakeholders in the game industry (developers, publishers, policymakers, creative industries, and trade associations). The following are some key and operational suggestions: 1. Adopting a confrontational strategy in the country’s cultural policymaking, 2. Guiding and supporting qualitative studies and digital ethnography, 3. Conducting studies on the psychological and identity effects of Western games, 4. Analyzing the social networks and online discussions of Muslim gamers in response to anti-religious content, 5. Carrying out comparative and cross-cultural study, 6. Doing policy research and analysis of cultural risks and identity damage of Western games for cultural policy-making institutions, 7. Strengthening the capacity of domestic game designers to produce games with confrontational narratives, 8. Designing a process of ex-ante and ex-post monitoring in controlling the publication of foreign game content in the Iranian age rating system (ASRA), and 9. Increasing public awareness and media literacy about the ideological themes of foreign games.
Keywords
Digital Games
Islamophobia
Hegemony
Orientalism
Ideology

Subjects

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Rahppoye, Hekmat-e Honar
Volume 5, Issue 1 - Serial Number 8
April 2026
Pages 119-132

  • Receive Date 24 June 2025
  • Revise Date 30 July 2025
  • Accept Date 31 July 2025