Combatting toxicity: leadership structures and aesthetics in mobile phone war games

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how the literacies in one mobile phone gaming community reinforced and contested oppressive discourses. This study is urgent because youth spend much time playing mobile phone games, and researchers need to understand literacy practices in these communities. Design/methodology/approach Researchers played a mobile phone war game for one year and collected publicly available writing from the in-game chat by taking over 13,000 screenshots. Drawing on theories of literacies as a social practice, Foucault’s conception of discourses, and theories of organizational development, the authors conducted a qualitative content analysis that traced discourses of leadership structures and aesthetics in this mobile writing community. Findings Presented as two constructed narrative episodes, findings demonstrate how users both reinforced and contested oppressive discourses particularly regarding issues of gender, control and leadership. Originality/value This study contributes to research on digital writing in communities as well as explores implications for English language arts classroom writing and leadership.