The political video game in Mexico as an editorialized genre for the exhibition, mockery and stance on the work of politicians

Abstract

Forty-two interactive games produced between 2006 and 2013 in Mexico were analyzed to reflect on the possibilities of their incidence in public opinion. This study postulated the hypothesis that political videogame is an emerging critical editorial form linked to the communicative function of political cartoon. To analyze this, four categories were used, related to the process of videogame production: newsworthiness, symbolism/referentiality, usability, and sense of opportunity. This paper concludes that to understand the impact of the political videogame in public opinion it is necessary to understand the processes of redistribution by users, the contexts and commentaries that endow them with a new meaning and to advance an hermeneutic inquiry that will reveal the forms of appropriation of these videogames.