Esports in international political communications: factor of media representation and fiction aspects
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31558/2519-2949.2022.1.3Keywords:
esports; videogames; international political communications; universal codes of media; universal code of movies; representationAbstract
Using certain cases, the article raises the scape of problems regarding cultural intervention in esports through the universal codes of media, as well as the use of esports as an instrument of hybrid war. A certain consideration is given to esports as a theme or a unit of such codes in more traditional media (news media in particular), as well as co-called ‘new media’ (such as podcasts), which is followed through a middle link of hybrid media evolution (universal code of movies), meaning evolution which does not make previous fragments obsolete per se. Article also dwells upon esports from a POV of international political communication: parallels are drawn to media interest for sports events, characterized is the approximate difference between the two components which could be found in this type of media, now only forming when compared to traditional coverage of sports events.
Using the method of case studies and logical-intuitive analyses a few educated guesses are made about the future development of esports themes from the point of view in international political communication, the role of that forming link in the media institutes in general, as well as retranslation unit of political messages. Expressed is a certain concern with how unnoticed any messages could be through the high level of coding in specialized media, which provides the esports coverage.
Conclusions are drawn about: relevance of following research regarding representation of esports competitions in the media from the perspective of international political communications; perspectives of observing the representation of esports microcosm in media; forming of institutionalization of non-state compounds in esports which have certain influences on international political communications as a cocalled ‘wild cards’. Specified is that it’s too soon to talk about forming of an actor in international political relations, but at the very least a new leverage of actorship in the branched system of universal codes of media, research of which separately will be unsatisfactory and will bring unrepresentative results to the table.
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