Virtual realities: The use of violent video games in U.S. military recruitment and treatment of mental disability caused by war

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Issue Date
2016
Author
Derby, John
Publisher
Ohio State University Libraries
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
Disability Studies Quarterly is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license unless otherwise indicated.
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Abstract
This article critically analyzes the U.S. military's contradictory use of violent video gaming technologies for recruiting young gamers to the military, training soldiers for combat, and clinically treating soldiers for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by military service. Using a Disability Studies lens, I discuss the commercial video game Full Spectrum Leader/Warrior, the U.S. Army's free video game America's Army, and the virtual reality exposure therapy application Virtual Iraq. I also discuss missions and omissions from the literature on these gaming technologies, which bolsters the underlying ableism of military culture that inhibits soldiers from recovering from PTSD.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1808/25311
DOI
https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v36i1.4704
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Citation
Derby, J. (2016). Virtual realities: The use of violent video games in US military recruitment and treatment of mental disability caused by war. Disability Studies Quarterly, 36(1).

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Disability Studies Quarterly is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license unless otherwise indicated.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as: Disability Studies Quarterly is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license unless otherwise indicated.