America's Digital Army

Americas Digital Army is an ethnographic study of the link between interactive entertainment and military power, drawing on Robertson Allens fieldwork observing video game developers, military strategists, U.S. Army marketing agencies, and an array of defense contracting companies that worked to produce the official U.S. Army video game, Americas Army. Allen uncovers the methods by which gaming technologies such as Americas Army, with military funding and themes, engage in a militarization of American society that constructs everyone, even nonplayers of games, as virtual soldiers available for deployment.Americas Digital Army examines the armys desire for talented soldiers capable of high-tech work; beliefs about Americas enemies as reflected in the games virtual combatants; tensions over best practices in military recruiting; and the sometimes overlapping cultures of gamers, game developers, and soldiers. Allen reveals how binary categorizations such as soldier versus civilian, war versus game, work versus play, and virtual versus real become blurred-if not broken down entirely-through games and interactive media that reflect the U.S. militarys ludic imagination of future wars, enemies, and soldiers.