A Critical Multimodal Content Analysis of Videogames, Policing, and Public Pedagogy

• In Event: Reimagining Youth Learning and New Spaces for Digital Action

Abstract

Theorizing videogaming as a site of public pedagogy, this paper interrogates the ways that game developers use multimodal discourse to “teach” about policing and society. We focus on digital games available through Steam, a popular PC gaming platform. We apply multimodal critical content analysis to a corpus of 17 games published since the 2020 racial justice uprisings, interrogating the recontextualization of social actors and social practices associated with policing in this medium. Findings suggest evidence of hegemonic reproduction, ideological subversion, and radical reimagining across different games, but also contradictions within the games themselves. These findings support the use of games as an entry point toward unforgetting the realities of the school-prison nexus, realizing the imagined futures of schooling beyond carcerality.

Authors

• Earl Aguilera, California State University - East Bay

• Joel De Jesus Lovos, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Katherine Kafonek, Stockton University