REPRESENTATION CONVERSATIONS: HOW INDIGENOUS VIDEO GAME PLAYERS AND OTHERS EXPERIENCE “NEVER ALONE”

Abstract

“Never Alone” is a video game co-created by an Alaska Native tribal council and an educational video game company. This dissertation asks the question: How do Indigenous players who are not Adlaska Natives experience and discuss the game? Existing video game research into whether, and how, under-represented audiences value representation in video games, and research specifically on Indigenous video game players is rare. In addition, “Never Alone” has many unusual aspects, including commercial success, critical acclaim and its production process. There is also some published anecdotal evidence that Indigenous players experienced a boost in well-being from playing the game. I conducted in-depth interviews with Indigenous players of “Never Alone” who discussed playing this particular game as well as Indigenous representation in other games, movies, television, and other pop-culture genres. I combined this interview data with transcripts of three publicly available panel discussions of Indigenous representation in stand-up comedy, comic books, and the Star Wars science fiction universe. I also analyzed comments about the game on Reddit and interviewed three members of the game’s production team. Using a theoretical perspective that included self-determination theory (SDT), visual sovereignty scholarship, communitarian media ethics, and an Indigenous self-determination perspective, I identified themes that build a picture of what these Indigenous media consumers and creators believe are important elements of their identities as well as how they classify examples including “Never Alone” into negative, positive, and best representation. I also identified two processes – Representation via Adoption and Representation via Adaptation -- by which Indigenous media consumers imaginatively “fix” representation when it is absent or poorly done. In addition, I found that while media consumers were not necessarily aware of the detailed, collaborative, intercultural production process that the creators of “Never Alone” developed, they were aware that many elders and artists from Alaska’s Inupiaq community were involved in key decisions. This study contributes to the literature on representation in video games, and that on “Never Alone” specifically, by showing how players discuss a representative game in the context of their overall consumption of entertainment media. It also offers a window on how Indigenous consumers of entertainment media value, assess, and imaginatively create representation. It also shows that some Indigenous players value cultural production and want Indigenous people involved in key media-making decisions. For media producers and researchers, this study gives detailed insight into the goals of the video game company, tribal council leaders, and the decision-making process that helped ensure the game would be seen as “good representation.”