In recent years, right-wing extremists have increasingly targeted gaming communities and gaming-related social media platforms to engage in recruitment. Research indicates that gaming spaces can be especially vulnerable to these efforts, because of a strong presence of exclusionary discourses and because gaming activities lend themselves well to visceral forms of group alignment which can be mobilized for anti-social behavior (Kowert, Martel & Swann, 2022). Scholars have also noted that right-wing extremists target historically-themed games and their communities specifically (Kingdon, 2024), which raises questions about the vulnerabilities of these games and their communities. Which representations and activities in historical gaming spaces lend themselves well for extremist mobilization, and why? In this paper, I present a review of the available scholarship on historical gaming and right-wing extremism, and venues for further research.
Kowert, R., Martel, A., Swann, W.B. (2022). "Not Just a Game: Identity Fusion and Extremism in Gaming Cultures." Frontiers in Communication 7 (2022): 1-16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.1007128.
Kingdon, A. (2024) “Beauty is Power: The Use of Gaming References and Gaming Aesthetics in Extremist Propaganda.” In: Schlegel, L., Kowert, R. (eds) Gaming and Extremism: The Radicalization of Digital Playgrounds. Routledge, London. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003388371-8.
