Sooliste stereotüüpide tajumine internetisuhtluses World of Warcrafti näitel

Experience of Gender Stereotypes in Online Communication on the Example of World of Warcraft A study was conducted in Estonia to investigate experience of gender stereotypes and genderbased differences by players in an online-game, World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is the most popular MMORPG (a Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game, where hundreds or thousands of people play together over the internet) in the world, where about one fifth of the players are female. The study tries to find answers to the questions „What stereotypes have developed in the game regarding females?“ and „What are different gender-based attitudes in the game?“. For this purpose, ten semistructured informant-interviews were conducted, eight of which were conducted through the internet, six with females and four with males. After this, the interviews were analyzed using a qualitative horizontal analytical method. Results of the study show that attitudes towards stereotypes in an online-environment are rather soft and no strong meaning is given to them by either gender. On the other hand, it became apparent that gender stereotypes have in a large portion transfered over to the World of Warcraft from the real world – women are seen as weaker than men and less able, they are also seen as representatives of their gender (due to females being a minority of the playerbase) their minority gender rather than individuals. The study also found that men consider their strongest characteristics their instrumental characteristics, while for females emotional characteristics were more important. In addition the study found that women prefer to play together with other men instead of women and that women have in a large part adapted motives for playing from men and have also adapted several other behaviours usually attributed to men.http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2451140~S1*es