Digital Transformation in Media & Society

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DOI :10.26650/B/SS07.2020.013.02   IUP :10.26650/B/SS07.2020.013.02    Full Text (PDF)

Digital Transformation or Not? The Image of Women in Online Games

Himmet Hülür, Bahar Kayıhan

While cyber feminists suggest that technological developments will lead to greater equality of women, there remains a gap between men’s and women’s access to the internet. The uses and gratifications they gain from technology also remain gendered, and this chapter contributes to ongoing concerns about consumption that transfigures sexualized images of women in ways that objectify and commodify them. In this study, a one-month participant observation and in-depth interviews were conducted with users of massive multiplayer online role-playing games. World of Warcraft and Second Life were chosen as examples. Female subjects recognized and preferred images that were both feminized and objectified, emphasising the ways that female engagement with this technology supports, rather than disrupts, established gendered power roles.


Keywords: Hyper-gender, MMORPG, online games

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