Militaristic Attitudes and the Use of Digital Games

From their beginnings until today, digital games have been a substantial part of what has been labeled the “military–entertainment complex” deeply imbued with militaristic messages and imagery. Within cultivation research, this enhanced exposure to war and militarism is supposed to be associated with the adoption of military norms and thinking. Concepts on narrative persuasion specify this relationship between certain narratives and the adoption of story-inherent beliefs. Based on these theoretical concepts, the present study tries to investigate the relationship between aspects of gaming and militaristic attitudes. We carried out a representative survey of 4,500 gamers with an added control group of 500 nongamers. Militaristic attitudes were measured using a newly developed multidimensional militarism scale. Structural equation modeling did not reveal any relationship between gaming and militaristic attitudes. Moreover, neither the gaming type (multiplayer vs. single) nor the gaming frequency or a preference for shooter games was significantly related to militarism.

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