Microaggressions of gender towards women in the gaming community
Disciplines
Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics | Digital Humanities | Psychology
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Social media has become the primary mechanism for how our society performs social functions and social gatherings. However, the rise in digital communication has led to immense campaigns of cyberbullying, online harassment, and threats, especially towards women. In video games, it is even more extreme, resulting in a hostile phenomenon known as #GamerGate.
#GamerGate led to a new breed of anti-feminist subculture, which takes delight in engaging in online harassment, which often results in violent messages of physical threats, intimidation and even rape. This subculture has developed its own slang, and that slang is representative of the norms and associations within the anti-feminist subculture regarding #GamerGate. In my research presentation, I will be describing a discourse analysis of the #GamerGate phenomenon by evaluating gender linguistic microaggressions towards women by analyzing #hashtag post on the social media platform Twitter. In the presentation, I identify the specific lexical words that gamers use as gender slurs, insults, and slights against women.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - Psychological Science
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Jeanne Law Bohannon
Girard Young Jr. Abstract
Microaggressions of gender towards women in the gaming community
Social media has become the primary mechanism for how our society performs social functions and social gatherings. However, the rise in digital communication has led to immense campaigns of cyberbullying, online harassment, and threats, especially towards women. In video games, it is even more extreme, resulting in a hostile phenomenon known as #GamerGate.
#GamerGate led to a new breed of anti-feminist subculture, which takes delight in engaging in online harassment, which often results in violent messages of physical threats, intimidation and even rape. This subculture has developed its own slang, and that slang is representative of the norms and associations within the anti-feminist subculture regarding #GamerGate. In my research presentation, I will be describing a discourse analysis of the #GamerGate phenomenon by evaluating gender linguistic microaggressions towards women by analyzing #hashtag post on the social media platform Twitter. In the presentation, I identify the specific lexical words that gamers use as gender slurs, insults, and slights against women.