Recording: Findings: Examining Radicalisation in Gaming Spaces

This event marks the conclusion of the project ‘Examining Socialization with a Nexus to Radicalization Across Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms Through a Gender Lens’, which was funded by Public Safety Canada, led by RUSI and implemented by a consortium of members of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network. The research project provides a rigorous analysis of how online gaming environments can be exploited for radicalisation, with a specific focus on how socialisation processes, identity formation, and exposure to harmful content intersect through a gendered lens. 

With more than three billion gamers worldwide, online gaming has surged not only in popularity but also in social significance. The online gaming environment has evolved beyond merely the playing of games; today, it is a vibrant, immensely popular socialisation and community formation space. It connects gamers from different countries, cultures, languages and identities, while at the same time transcending the online realm to shape offline identities. It is therefore crucial to understand the ways in which gaming environments contribute to the development of both individual and community identities. While acknowledging the positive aspects of gaming, this project explored how socialisation processes, coupled with exposure to harassment, hate-based discrimination and extremist content, can undermine resilience to radicalisation in gaming and gaming-adjacent online spaces. The project also offers insights and recommendations for preventing and countering efforts, and for the safeguarding of gaming spaces. 

The project’s final report, practitioners’ toolkit and policy brief can be found at the following pages in advance of this webinar: 

• Main Report: Radicalisation through Gaming: The Role of Gendered Social Identity 
• Practitioners Toolkit: Implementing Positive Gaming Interventions: A Toolkit for Practitioners 
• Policy Brief: Extremism in Gaming Spaces: Policy for Prevention and Moderation

• Claudia Wallner, Research Fellow, Terrorism and Conflict Studies, RUSI   
• Galen Lamphere-Englund, Senior Research and Management Consultant 
• Dr Ashton Kingdon, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Southampton 
• Dr Rachel Kowert, Research Psychologist  
• Alex Newhouse, Political Science PhD student, University of Colorado Boulder  
• Linda Schlegel, Research Fellow, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and the Centre for Applied Research on Deradicalisation  
• Dr Alexandra Phelan, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University 
• Moonshot, Organisation
• Love Frankie, Organisation

This discussion was chaired by Dr Jessica White, Acting Director of Terrorism and Conflict Studies, RUSI.