@inbook {265,
	title = {Video Games, Video Clips, and Islam: New Media and the Communication of Values},
	booktitle = {Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption},
	year = {2009},
	publisher = {Cambridge Scholars Publishing},
	organization = {Cambridge Scholars Publishing},
	address = {Newcastle},
	abstract = {In the course of the 20th century, hardly a region in the world has escaped the triumph of global consumerism. Muslim societies are no exception. Globalized brands are pervasive, and the landscapes of consumption are changing at a breathtaking pace. Yet Muslim consumers are not passive victims of the homogenizing forces of globalization. They actively appropriate and adapt the new commodities and spaces of consumption to their own needs and integrate them into their culture. Simultaneously, this culture is reshaped and reinvented to comply with the mechanisms of conspicuous consumption. It is these processes that this volume seeks to address from an interdisciplinary perspective. The papers in this anthology present innovative approaches to a wide range of issues that have, so far, barely received scholarly attention. The topics range from the changing spaces of consumption to Islamic branding, from the marketing of religious music to the consumption patterns of Muslim minority groups. This anthology uses consumption as a prism through which to view, and better understand, the enormous transformations that Muslim societies Middle Eastern, South-East Asian, as well as diasporic ones have undergone in the past few decades.},
	url = {http://books.google.com/books/about/Muslim_societies_in_the_age_of_mass_cons.html?id=2XIOQgAACAAJ},
	author = {Sisler, Vit}
}
@article {2750,
	title = {Procedural religion: Methodological reflections on studying religion in video games},
	journal = {New Media \& Society},
	year = {2017},
	abstract = {The article discusses the methodological aspects of studying religion in video games. It examines the concept of {\textquotedblleft}procedural religion,{\textquotedblright} that is, the representations of religion via rule-systems in games, and investigates how we can formally analyze these representations. The article uses Petri Nets, a mathematical and a graphical tool for modeling, analyzing, and designing discrete event systems, in order to analyze how religion is represented in the rule-systems of two different mainstream video games{\textemdash}Age of Empires II, developed in the United States, and Quraish, developed in Syria. By comparing the rule-systems of both games, the article provides empirical evidence on how game rule-systems migrate between cultures and influence local game production by providing local game developers with pre-defined formulas for expressing their ideas while simultaneously limiting the scope of such expression with schematized patterns. On a more general level, the article discusses what rule-system analysis can tell us about video games as cultural and religious artifacts.},
	url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444816649923?journalCode=nmsa},
	author = {Sisler, Vit}
}
@inbook {268,
	title = {Representation and Self-Representation: Arabs and Muslims in Digital Games},
	booktitle = {Gaming Realities: A Challenge for Digital Culture},
	year = {2006},
	pages = {85 - 92},
	abstract = {This paper presents the ways in which Muslims and Arabs are represented in mainstream European and American digital games. It analyzes how games {\textemdash} particularly of the action genre {\textemdash} construct the Arab or Muslim {\textquoteleft}Other.{\textquoteright} 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.},
	url = {http://www.digitalislam.eu/article.do?articleId=1423},
	author = {Sisler, Vit}
}
@article {267,
	title = {Digital Arabs: Representation in Video Games},
	journal = {European Journal of Cultural Studies},
	volume = {11},
	year = {2008},
	pages = {203-220},
	abstract = {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 {\textquoteright}serious{\textquoteright} games.},
	url = {http://ecs.sagepub.com/content/11/2/203.abstract},
	author = {Sisler, Vit}
}
@article {266,
	title = {Palestine in Pixels: The Holy Land, Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Reality Construction in Video Games},
	journal = {Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication},
	volume = {2},
	year = {2009},
	pages = {275{\textendash}292},
	abstract = {This article explores the ways in which Palestine is envisioned, and its representation constructed, in contemporary video games. At the same time, capitalizing on Bogost{\textquoteright}s notion of "procedurality", this article discusses the potential and limitations of various game genres for modeling complex historical, social, and political realities. It focuses particularly on the ways in which the Arab-Israeli conflict is mediated and its perception and evaluation subsequently shaped by these games. By doing so, this article analyzes how the (re)constructions of reality as provided by the video games{\textquoteright} graphical, textual, and procedural logic, serve parallel - albeit contradictory - political and ideological interpretations of real-world events. Essentially, this article argues that the procedural forms, i.e. the common models of user interaction as utilized by particular video game genres, fundamentally shape and limit the ways in which reality is communicated to the players. Therefore, on a more general level, this article aims to further develop the game genres{\textquoteright} critique by focusing on two contrasting, but equally significant and simultaneous, aspects of video games - the persuasive power of procedurality and the inherent limitations thereof.},
	url = {http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/mjcc/2009/00000002/00000002/art00007?token=00471231d7275c277b42576b462176743b702c492b5f592f653b672c57582a72752d703},
	author = {Sisler, Vit}
}
