The procedural rhetorics of mass effect: Video games as argumentation in international relations

Abstract

Popular culture is a significant interest for scholars of International Relations and world politics. This article explores the capacity of video games to articulate, represent, and simulate the practice of international politics in both narrative and procedural capacities through a study of the highly popular Mass Effect science fiction series of video games. The introduction of procedural rhetoric as a means of textual criticism is argued to address existing concerns within the study of International Relations to articulate the significance of representation with cultural texts and to extend the implications of claims about science fiction as a compelling set of contingent arguments about the broader sphere of social life that constitutes International Relations.