Digital imaging, narratives strategies, and security studies: the war in Ukraine through video games

Abstract

This article analyzes how different European game development studios have shaped the EU’s “of cial” discourse on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It builds on the importance of interactions in security studies for shaping interests and identities, distinguishing behavioral roles based on systems of enmity, rivalry, or friendship. States internalize their security dilemmas through of cial narratives linked to their region. Narratives have increasingly relied on visual images to re ect some of their securitization strategies. These narratives are supported by a model of top-down expansion and convergence that appeals to a set of geopolitical codes previously inoculated into the population through popular culture. The methodology used in this article is the classical techniques of cultural product analysis. As a preliminary result, the article highlights how these cultural products contribute to the dissemination of oficial discourses on the Ukrainian war.