An ordinary gamer - a qualitative analysis of the treatment of women in CS:GO is an essay with the aim to examine the treatment of women who play CS:GO, and the influence of the response and to highlight the player interaction and communication in the game and its influence on the individual. With questions concerning treatment, the consequences of treatment and future interest in gaming and the gaming industry, the paper examines how a selection of women look at the treatment they receive in CS:GO. The essay also focuses on player interaction and communication in the game, and examines the importance of communication in the game, and the impact on the individual. To analyze the result, gender theories regarding femininity, masculinity, queer, gender hierarchy and patriarchal structures was used. The study was conducted with 10 qualitative interviews of girls aged 14-24 years who play or have played CS:GO. The study also uses a more ethnographic method where I play the game to observe the communication, treatment and response at close range. The result show a broad picture of the response to that woman gets, and contains stories about the good, bad and neutral approach. The results also show that the treatment is something very subjective and different for all individuals. Furthermore, the results also shows patriarchal structures within the game and how men use power and violence in order to organize women. Regarding communication and play interaction, is it through interviews and observations clear that communication plays an important role in the game and affect the individual to either play better or worse depending on what type of response and treatment the player gets. Conclusions are that women that play CS:GO are treated in different ways, some take it more personally than other and some are affected bigger than other. Some women choose not to play the game or only play with friends while other choose to play with an anonymous profile and to distort their voice.

Participatory culture inside a filter bubble – A content analysis of the network society Twitch.tv’s external communication. The aim of this essay was to study how user-generated content is being used and how it is presented by Twitch Interactive, Inc. in its external communication, more specifically how the discourse of this content is shaped on Twitter. To gather the information needed a quantity based content analysis was made, ranging from 1-31st of October 2015. From this data patterns where detected and a discourse analysis based on Berglez version of van Dijks model was conducted on six of the Twitter posts that followed said pattern. This was done to answer how the discourse was shaped and what the consequences could be of using such a pattern. Analyzing the results was done using theory from strategic marketing researchers such as Larsåke Larsson, Lars Palm, Ulf Dahlqvist and Magnus Linde. Furthermore theorist like Gripsrud, Pariser, Lindgren, Jenkins, Ford and Green were used to describe and analyze the field of culture, more specifically participatory and popular culture. The conclusion of the study was that Twitch representation of user-generated material and the culture it represents was unjustified and could be seen as a filter bubble. The results showed that the majority of content was young white male gamers where as other research on the field of gaming culture shows a more equal split between genders. The individuals that where represented in the content could be seen as objects of admiration and association. Discussion led to the belief that Twitch may not possess the power to change to discourse due to the strong economic need of the consumers. This need was concluded to arise from the fact that the platform and its culture is much like participatory culture and where this culture has been taken to a commercial level.