Abstract

At the digital era, mass media have sensibly altered the social spheres through broadcasting and promoting various thoughts and different life styles. The computer games industry also acts as an influential medium in changing user behavior so as to form our cognition and perception of the world by constructing, transferring and recurring a variety of representations. In reviewing media texts, the ideological elements existing beyond them and the way they affect the audience's insight must be seriously addressed. In recent years, we have been witnessing a critical focus on Moslems' image in Western Media and computer games, in specific. This article has an attempt to investigate figurative representation of Arabs and Moslems, narrative structure and games stages in order for studying the methods of imaging of Arabs and Moslems in computer games. So, 7 ideological computer games produced in recent years regarding Moslems and Islam were examined using semiotic analysis qualitative method. Here, an integrative approach is conducted in which Stewart Hall's representation theories are at the center of theoretical debates and then Edward Said's insight into Orientalism is presented as an instance of representation theory application. We conclude that-in a complex integrative movement-Global Imperialism tries to create a sort of Islam-phobia in public opinion across the world and represents its own desirable image of Islam and Islamic civilization in mind of the audience.

Keywords:

Computer games, cultural representation, Islam, Moslems, orientalism, terrorism,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

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Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.