This article presents the ways in which Muslims and Arabs are represented and represent themselves in video games. First, it analyses how various genres of European and American video games have constructed the Arab or Muslim Other. Within these games, it demonstrates how the diverse ethnic and religious identities of the Islamic world have been flattened out and reconstructed into a series of social typologies operating within a broader framework of terrorism and hostility. It then contrasts these broader trends in western digital representation with selected video games produced in the Arab world, whose authors have knowingly subverted and refashioned these stereotypes in two unique and quite different fashions. In conclusion, it considers the significance of western attempts to transcend simplified patterns of representation that have dominated the video game industry by offering what are known as 'serious' games. Read more...

Digital Islam is a research project that focuses on the Middle East, Islam, and digital media. It aims to analyze the various ways in which Islam and Muslim identities are articulated through information and communication technologies and the Internet. Its research materials include websites, digital videoclips, and videogames. The webpage digitalislam.eu provides free access to full texts and bibliographical database of research resources. Read more...

The article examines political videogames produced by the Syrian company Afkar Media in Damascus, mainly their recent game Tahta al-Hisar (Under Siege) and puts them in a broader context of persuasive and serious games. It deals with the representation of the Other and Foreign in videogames, construction of the Arab and Islamic heroes and ongoing digital emancipation of the Middle East. Read more...

Interview with Radwan Kasmiya, an executive manager of the company Afkar Media, a Syrian studio producing political and other videogames. The interview was made in the company office in Damascus in May 2005, just before their release of a new videogame dealing with Palestinian Intifada ‘Tahta al-Hisar’ (Under Siege). Read more...

This paper presents the ways in which Muslims and Arabs are represented in mainstream European and American digital games. It analyzes how games — particularly of the action genre — construct the Arab or Muslim ‘Other.’ Within these games, one finds the diverse ethnic and religious identities of the Islamic world reconstructed into a series of flat social typologies, often presented within the framework of hostility and terrorism. The second part of the paper deals with selected digital games created in the Middle East, whose authors are knowingly working with the topic of self-representation. Recent digital games originating in the Middle East can be perceived as examples of an ongoing digital emancipation taking place through the distribution of media images and their corresponding meanings. A key part of this ongoing digital emancipation involves the construction of Arab and Islamic heroes, a process accomplished by exploiting distinctive narrative structures and references to Islamic cultural heritage. Read more...