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

Abstract

ABSTRACT Gaming journalism began its existence under attack from the rest of the journalistic field and from US culture as a result of its audience: young, diverse, and 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 gamers as diverse, social, and mature.