Relações internacionais e jogos digitais: o jogo como um projetor de identidades e a reprodução de temáticas securitizadas em jogos

Abstract

This work analyzes the content of digital games to establish their relationship, as media, with the projection of cultural identities, advocating understanding of games as tools of securitization, i.e. responsible for building consensus and threats related to international security institutions. For that, I addressed the the following points: the organization of production and the elements that constitute digital games as different and interactive media; the great ability of identity projection in electronic games and their educational capacity, and diversified and innovative approach; aspects linked to national identities and how state institutions already consider games as powerful advertising vehicles; the best-selling entertaining games that deal with contemporary warfare, reaching immense public consumers therefore structured as a phenomenon of mass culture. It was concluded that such games reproduce and reinforce certain themes, foremost among them terrorism, political destabilization of non-aligned countries and the weapons trafficking. The war games analyzed, in general, carry large elements of alignment with U.S. foreign policy, which arise both in political fictions as built in-game mechanics. There is finally a tendency towards dehumanization of war, portrayed as heroic and patriotic events, shallow in geopolitics and political interest, interpreted in a Manichean way.