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.

Titel: When online hate becomes a threat to democracy - a qualitative study about editorial writers experiences of online hate The aim of this study has been to, through an intersectional gender perspective, identify how interviewed editorial writers at Swedish newspapers experiences, and are affected by, online hate and how the effects of online hate could have consequences for the democratic function of journalism. This has been done through qualitative interviews with eight editorial writers from different Swedish newspapers, four female and four male, two of which has another ethnic background than Swedish. The theoretical framework for the study has been intersectional gender theory, the theory of participatory culture and Sara Ahmed’s theory of the link between emotion and rhetoric. The results of the study are categorised into four different themes: ”Racist online hate”, ”Sexist online hate”, ”Emotional online hate” and ”Consequences of online hate”. The results show that female editorial writers with another ethnic background than Swedish are getting an disproportionate amount of racist and sexist online hate because of their gender and ethnicity. Further, the study shows that female editorial writers are exposed to sexism which is something that is absent in the online hate directed towards the male writers The male editorial writers tends to reduce their experiences of online hate, even though some of them are or have been exposed to aggravated libel, on the grounds that female colleagues are worse affected. The study shows that subjects that trigger online hate are integration, feminism, national security and Romany beggars. The consequences of online hate that the editorial writers identifies are very individual. The ones that are worst exposed tell stories about personal consequences such as fear of safety in public, need of protected identities and self-censorship. The ones that don’t consider themselves very affected by online hate talk more about societal consequences such as the threat of online haters tone becoming the norm on the internet, the need of  common guidelines for social media, and a threat against the freedom of speech. The conclusion of the study is that the experiences of online hate is very individual for the editorial writers, but there are clear structures that shows that women and persons with another ethnic background that Swedish are exposed to sexist and racist online hate. Some subject are triggering for online hate and there are consequences, such as self-censorship, that can be seen as threats to democracy and freedom of speech. Keywords: social media, online hate, hate speech, editorial writer, journalism, media, democracy, freedom of speech, gender, race, ethnicity, participatory culture, sexism, racism, emotional rhetoric