Video Game Streaming as a Curriculum of Masculinity: A Case Study Approach

• In Event: 28.091 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Two - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 28.091-6 - Critical Issues in Curriculum: Everything Great and Small

Abstract

This paper discusses the beginning stages of an online ethnography (see Gaston, 2011) of video game streaming. It includes further examination of literature surrounding video game streaming and a discussion of various users from the video game streaming site Twitch (www.twitch.tv).This paper examines video game streaming, popular streamers on the platform, and how they perform masculinity through a case study approach (Creswell, 2007). This research intersects with three theoretical avenues: curriculum theory, cultural studies, and feminist theory. By using a framework that pulls from these three fields of study, this work presents a perspective on the culture of video games by examining it as a curriculum designed to teach male gamers the social constructions of masculinity.

Authors

• Gabriel Stephen Huddleston, Texas Christian University

• Vanessa L. Haddad, SUNY Erie

• Elissa Bryant, Texas Christian University