Synenko, Joshua

This research examines the digital game through the subject of the Apocalypse, both in its literal revelatory form and its colloquial disaster form. To accomplish that, it employs Louis Althusser's concept of structural causality as a springboard for a structure-based interrogation of interlocked systems. Drawing a comparison between Ian Bogost's definition of black-box analysis and Althusser's concept of ideology, I suggest the apocalypse is a valuable subject matter for understanding digital games, and in turn digital games provide media-based insight on complex systems of subjectivations. These positions are accomplished in two ways. First, I focus on five different apocalyptic games - The Last of Us (2012), Tokyo Jungle (2012), Mass Effect (2008), Doki Doki Literature Club (2016), and Persona 4 Arena (2012) – and how they express radically different visions and scopes of apocalypse. More specifically, I focus on the digitality of these games and how their technical construction in light of their suggested themes reveal hidden relations between apocalypse and ideology. Second, I expand on a research-creation project focused on the production and dissemination of a game, specifically as a means of using what has been discussed in previous chapters to attempt to expand on the subject matter of ideology and apocalypse. The aim of this is to discuss the process of expressing a procedural argument following several chapters interpreting them. It is also to expand on additional tensions between human and system which are underplayed or obscured in the playing process. It concludes that apocalypse, in the process of using systems, remains an elusive topic and to produce meaningful texts as commentary on ideology requires different, difficult considerations.

Author Keywords: Althusser, Apocalypse, Bogost, Digital Games, Ideology, Jameson

The purpose of this thesis is to acknowledge the contributions chapbooks have made to the world of Canadian publishing and to Canadian culture. It is important to place chapbooks in Canada's publishing history as there has not been a lot of writing on chapbooks or even on Canadian publishing. What sources there are usually focus on larger, traditional presses, often based in Ontario (Lorimer); if chapbooks are mentioned at all, they are usually mentioned only in passing (MacSkimming). On rare occasions when texts focus on micropresses or small presses, they are usually out of print and not easy to access (Anstee). Due to this short list of accessible resources on chapbooks, this project was created to help record and capture the impact chapbooks have on Canadian publishing and culture using interviews.

Author Keywords: Canadian Culture, Canadian Publishing, Chapbook, Interviews, Mirocpress, Small press

This dissertation focuses on the intersectionality between images posted on social media and social rules in the lives of young people. The findings are based on thirty-four qualitative interviews with young social media users where photo-based methodologies were employed. From these interviews, three key themes emerged: 1) Posting and sharing images are connected to identity exploration and formation, 2) Social rules around embodied emotions affect how youth present their emotions in online photographic material, and 3) The conflation of private and public spaces in the digital sphere complicates how social media users interact with images. While the findings presented are clear, this dissertation aims to take a holistic approach to understanding youth digital culture and avoids coming to conclusions that view social media as "good" or "bad" for youth. This tactic allows the findings to acknowledge the complexities of communicative digital spaces and understand the intricacies of social media in the daily lives of young people (boyd, 2014; Tilleczek & Campbell, 2019). This dissertation discusses both challenges youth face on social media when posting and viewing images, as well as how images can be used to defy social norms.

Author Keywords: Affect, Culture, Image, Social Media, Youth

Beginning in the 1970s, games went from being trivial and innocuous elements of childhood culture to major touchstones of North American popular culture. Games came to symbolize the dangers of a rapidly shifting technological and cultural landscape. This led to a series of moral panics that were centered upon these new, often complex, and increasingly realistic games that were apparently a source of moral corruption for children and teenagers. This view of games as a moral hazard for young people was often taken up by the news and mass media, opening the path for many moral entrepreneurs to leverage 'common sense' Media Effects thinking and gamer stereotypes for their own personal gain. This thesis tracks the historical development of these interrelated phenomena from Death Race in 1976, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, the Mortal Kombat hearings and finally to Doom and the Columbine Massacre in 1999.

Author Keywords: Media Effects, moral entrepreneurs, moral panic, realism, role-playing games, video games

Games, and especially video games are fast becoming the most pervasive media form, and live streaming games is fast becoming the most pervasive way of experiencing those games. This thesis looks at the history of broadcast, the practices of technological hobbyists, the social and technological aspect of games, gaming communities that transform game narratives, and gaming communities that transform political narratives. It demonstrates how the study of video game live streaming can be used as a model to study and analyze the production, consumption, and reciprocal relationship between the producers and consumers of media.

Author Keywords: Bill Gates is the Devil, Broadcast, Gaming, Ham Radio, Live Streaming, Video Game Live Streaming

This dissertation traces the emergence of the "transgender predator" discourse on social media. Taking its cue from the 2019 British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal case Yaniv v. Various Waxing Salons, in which a white Canadian trans woman named Jessica Yaniv unsuccessfully filed a series of complaints against a number of racialized cisgender aestheticians claiming that they denied her body and Brazilian waxing services, I examine Canadian socio-legal discussions regarding trans women's access to spaces and services designed for cisgender women. Second, I focus on the realm of YouTube in which Yaniv v. Various Waxing Salons was marketed as the case of a transgender predator by another trans female YouTuber named Blaire White. I locate Yaniv-related content within a larger genre of "predator-hunting" in which self-proclaimed vigilantes lure and "hunt" putative child predators through sting operations and publish their expeditions as online shaming content on YouTube. By analyzing the visual and verbal discursive elements of the genre of predator catching/exposé, I suggest that "transgender predator" functions within the axis of surveillance regimes and monetized humiliation-entertainment, rather than merely being motivated by the goal of protecting cisgender women and children. Lastly, I turn my attention from "transgender predator" to another type of pejorative construction about trans people represented in the stand-up comedy of Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais. I argue that, as opposed to comedy's previous engagement with trans subjectivity in which the comedic element was revealed through the tropes of deception and bodily incongruity, in the works of Chappelle and Gervais, transgender subjectivity is used to make social commentary about the supposed decline of, what are deemed to be, Western values of reason, rationality, and freedom of speech.

Author Keywords: predator, stand-up comedy, surveillance, transgender, vigilantism, YouTube

This dissertation focuses on the intersectionality between images posted on social media and social rules in the lives of young people. The findings are based on thirty-four qualitative interviews with young social media users where photo-based methodologies were employed. From these interviews, three key themes emerged: 1) Posting and sharing images are connected to identity exploration and formation, 2) Social rules around embodied emotions affect how youth present their emotions in online photographic material, and 3) The conflation of private and public spaces in the digital sphere complicates how social media users interact with images. While the findings presented are clear, this dissertation aims to take a holistic approach to understanding youth digital culture and avoids coming to conclusions that view social media as "good" or "bad" for youth. This tactic allows the findings to acknowledge the complexities of communicative digital spaces and understand the intricacies of social media in the daily lives of young people (boyd, 2014; Tilleczek & Campbell, 2019). This dissertation discusses both challenges youth face on social media when posting and viewing images, as well as how images can be used to defy social norms.

Author Keywords: Affect, Culture, Image, Social Media, Youth

This thesis examines the ways in which body image is discussed in online settings. There are three different communities discussed: body positivity, proED (pro-eating disorder), and body neutrality. Both body positivity and proED content are fairly popular online, and both have found significant support and followers on various social medias. In this thesis, I argue that both of these types of content cause significant harm to those who engage with them, primarily because both communities (though different in their approaches to body image) work to uphold the thin ideal. I then bring up the third type of content: body neutrality. Body neutrality has not been given the same academic attention as body positivity and proED content, likely due to its relative infancy. In this thesis, I propose body neutrality as a much healthier way to frame body image online because of its completely neutral stance on fat, thinness, and general body image. Though any work relating to social media is quickly out of date, I hope that this thesis provides an overview of body neutrality and how, in its current form, it provides a more balanced approach to online body image discussions.

Author Keywords: body image, body neutrality, body positivity, eating disorders, social media

This thesis examines the impact that digital labour and work from home have across different populations. This work is framed with regards to Marxist-feminism and particularly examines the impact of work from home across different genders. To demonstrate the depth and breadth of the impact that work from home has on worker agency, four unique industries are analyzed: office jobs, gig economy, affect labour, and sex work. Additionally, the lens of critical race theory is invoked to highlight the distinct challenges that BIPOC workers face in the transition to digital labour. This thesis would not be contemporary without addressing the COVID-19 pandemic which was occurring during the time of its writing. This thesis uses those established lenses of gender, industry, and race to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workplace and home (office). Work from home increases the amount of labour that needs to be performed by each worker in exchange for some flexibility and agency in some domains.

Author Keywords: Covid-19, Digital Labour, Hybrid, Work from Home