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Constructing homelessness in video games: Stigma, survival, and social meaning

Abstract

Video games are an increasingly influential cultural medium. Their role in shaping social understandings of homelessness has received little attention within social work scholarship. This study examines how homelessness and people experiencing homelessness are represented in contemporary commercial video games. Using qualitative reflexive thematic analysis, 64 games in which homelessness was central to the protagonist or core gameplay were analysed. Particular attention was given to narrative framing, visual and symbolic representation, gameplay mechanics, perceived realism, and the presence of stigmatizing attributes. The analysis indicates that homelessness is most commonly constructed through individualized survival narratives, frequently accompanied by aggression, criminality, and cumulative stigmatizing cues. Structural explanations are largely absent. Representations also disproportionately centre white, male protagonists whose intensity and multiplicity of aggression were more pronounced, narrowing the range of homeless subjectivities made visible. Games coded as more realistic tended to contain higher concentrations of stigmatizing features. From a social work perspective, such representation risk reinforcing moralized and deficit-based understandings of homelessness. The findings position video games as important sites of informal learning and meaning-making and highlight the need for social work engagement with digital media to challenge stigma and support more structurally informed and humanizing narratives.

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Posted in: Journal Article Abstracts on 06/26/2026 | Link to this post on IFP |
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