Gaming Culture Strategies 2020 Event

SUBOTRON arcademy /departure talk

Talk: Steam Nazis Must Die! Radicalization in the internet and gaming culture

Christian Huberts
mighty™ cultural scientist (Berlin)

Not only since the terror attack in Halle on October 9, 2019, radicalized internet communities are being discussed. Back in 2014, the #GamerGate movement provided a blueprint for a decentralized, anti-feminist hate campaign, which was soon instrumentalized by right-wing groups and later almost entirely absorbed into the so-called »alt-right«. Scientific research on modern extremism also speaks of an »alt-right pipeline«: Young men that feel victimized by a supposedly left mainstream search the internet for identity and explanatory models. If they encounter spaces in which misanthropy and conspiracy ideology has been normalized as satire, humor or trolling, they begin a radicalization career, which in individual cases can lead to the acclimation to extremist communities and end in the dehumanization of whole groups of people. Even supposedly harmless platforms such as the distribution service Steam play a role in this process. Largely unmoderated and with an absolute understanding of free speech, they provide spaces of normalized anti-semitism, racism and sexism. Even people who do not necessarily want to radicalize themselves quickly encounter more and more radical content – and various bridges to even more extreme areas of internet culture such as 4chan. Gaming culture must develop strategies to deal with this appropriation of their spaces.

after the talk:

Panel on Nazis, #metoo, blitzchung and the state of Indie with

Natalie Denk (Applied Game Studies Donau-Uni Krems)
Harald Koberg (Ludovico Graz)
Rainer Sigl (freelance journalist)
Eugen Pfister (Bern School of Arts)

Moderation: Sarah Kriesche (ORF)

Biographies

Christian Huberts
Christian studied “Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice” at the University of Hildesheim and since 2009 successfully works as a cultural and media science publicist based in Berlin. His focus is on the culture of digital games in all its facets. Currently, he is a freelance editor and author for the games bookazine WASD, he curates texts on the news aggregator piqd.de and appears regularly as an expert for digital games at cultural events and on radio and TV. Further he lectures at the University of Applied Sciences Europe in Berlin on the history and theory of games and among other things published the game studies anthology »Zwischen|Welten: Atmosphären im Computerspiel« in the vwh-Verlag. Most recently, he supported the Berlin studio waza! Games as associate producer in the development of the political education app Konterbunt. He also writes for various scientific publications, cultural magazines and online newspapers on the participation in virtual worlds and the culture of computer games.

Natalie Denk
Natalie has a degree in Educational Science and Game Studies. Her research focuses on Game Based Learning, Educational Game Design and the examination of age and gender aspects in relation to digital games. Since 2014 she has been involved in several national and international research projects at the Center for Applied Game Studies at the Danube University Krems. Furthermore, she is involved in the teaching as well as in the course management of the Master’s courses “Game Studies”, “Media Game Pedagogy” and “Action Oriented Media Pedagogy”. Since July 2018 she acts as Head of the Center.

Harald Koberg
Harald is a games researcher, media pedagogue and cultural mediator based in Graz, Austria. He works for the Styrian Government as an expert in digital culture. At Ludovico – an NGO focusing on the culture and pedagogics of play – he is responsible for digital play and organizes the annual button Festival of Gaming Culture. And at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Graz he is currently finishing his doctoral thesis on the interplay of digital games and their social surroundings.

Rainer Sigl
Rainer is a freelance journalist with a focus on games culture. Based in Vienna, he has written for Der Standard, FM4, Golem, WASD, Heise, Der Spiegel and numerous other publications.

Eugen Pfister
Eugen Pfister is leading the SNF-Ambizione Research project „Horror-Game-Politics“ at the Bern School of Arts. He studied history and political sciences at the Universities of Vienna and Paris IV and wrote his PH.D. Thesis on the history of political communication at the Johan Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main and at the Universita degli studi di Trento. He is founding member of the Working Group on History and digital games.

Sarah Kriesche
Sarah is a freelance journalist for Austrian public radio stations Ö1 and FM4, covering IT related topics. With a strong focus on it security, privacy and the mechanisms that lie behind the great apps and devices and games we’re able to have nowadays, her passion lies in understanding their cultural impact on society.