Audience Repair as Paradigm Repair: Fixing the ‘Gamer’ in Games Journalism

Abstract

Gaming journalism began its existence under attack from the rest of the journalistic field and from U.S. culture as a result of the audience to whom they appealed: young, diverse, progressive. This study argues that early gaming magazines (n=150) repaired the gaming paradigm during the development of gaming's mainstream acceptance from 1991-1995 by challenging stereotypes of gamers: imagining their audience as diverse, social and mature.