Marcus Maloney
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597814 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marcus Maloney |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marcus |
| FAMILY NAME | Maloney |
| SIGNATURE | MALONEY M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Coventry University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1476-7267 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Beyond the manosphere
The manosphere is a loose network of anti-feminist and more broadly reactionary male-centred online spaces, influencers and communities. A range of scholars, activists, practitioners and policy makers have turned their attention to generating strategies aimed at countering the misogynistic reactionary ideologies that boys and young men influenced by the manosphere are increasingly adopting. While great work is being undertaken in this space, what…
I don’t want another kid stuck in this right-wing loop’
Building on Wescott and colleagues’ research on the manosphere’s influence in Australian schools, this study explores English transgender and gender-diverse educators’ experiences confronting manosphere-inspired rhetoric in schools. Methodologically informed by Elliott and Roberts’ “in-depth case studies approach”, this study employs in-depth narrative participant interviews. Our findings reveal that transgender and gender-diverse educators, are …
Online misogyny and pedagogies of Hindutva digital subjectivation
Positioned within the wider political, socioeconomic and cultural context of contemporary India's regressive and anti-feminist trajectory, this article examines the ‘Indian manosphere' and how it contributes towards the Hindutva digital subjectivation of young men – a pedagogical process that shapes their understanding of self, identity, history, and future aspirations. We propose that the overlapping pedagogies explored in this article engender …
Strange/R/Ness
Beyond the Clickbait
There is now an expansive literature on the manosphere - the loosely connected groups of digital communities that revolve around men's rights, aspirations and entitlements, and the perceived constraints upon these. Such studies have produced important critical insights into the collective and organized dimension of the networked harassment of women in digital settings, as well as highlighting the manosphere's craving to reanimate regressive modes…
Oh you're really good for a girl
This study explores gender dynamics in hobby board gaming culture through 43 semi-structured interviews with women who play these games. While recent scholarship indicates potentially decreasing toxicity in geek and video game spaces, less is known about gender relations in analogue gaming communities, and specifically, hobby board games. Similar to other geek spaces, this research demonstrates how women are often stereotyped as having particular…
The intersections of race and gendered stereotypes within the constructions of digital women footballers in video games
This article employs Bogost’s (2007) ‘procedural rhetoric’ frame to explore the ways in which the numerical values which constitute FIFA 22’s ‘Top 100’ Black and White digital women footballers reflect or challenge the exclusionary discourses that have, thus far, shaped the experiences of White and Black female sporting athletes in the social world. In doing so, this research is the first to empirically demonstrate considerable differences betwee…
I think it takes balls, girl balls, to challenge those stereotypes’
Despite growing sociocultural interest in, and engagement with, tabletop hobby games, and in particular board games, the surrounding culture(s) remain underexamined. Drawing from 43 semi-structured interviews, this article explores board gaming culture from the perspective of women who play modern board games. The findings highlight women’s experiences as a minority and the difficulties they face when entering board games spaces – often perceived…
I Can Choose to be a Good Man Even if I Got a Raw Deal
This article provides findings from our dual-computational/qualitative analysis of r/Stoicism, a large subreddit in which self-presenting boys and men seek Stoic philosophical advice on various life matters. In choosing to investigate this decidedly (hetero)masculinized online space in which users share their anxieties and grievances, we expected to find substantial evidence of 'toxic' manosphere-style discourse, while also hoping to uncover coun…
White digital footballers can’t jump’
Drawing on the quantitative datasets of Electronic Arts’ FIFA 20 top 100 players and their qualitative descriptors, the paper addresses the following: (1) How do ideas of race manifest and influence digital worlds? (2) How do digital football simulations (games) disrupt or reproduce racialised stereotypes and logics found within football in the social world? (3) How does playing football video games contribute to users’ understandings of race and…
How do I become blue pilled?’
Through an analysis of 4chan’s /adv/ or ‘advice’ board – in which predominately male users seek advice on life matters – here we examine masculine ontological insecurity and its implications for understanding how ‘toxic’ masculine identities emerge, and how young men more generally struggle to make sense of their lives. Advancing extant scholarship, our findings uncover an ‘on the cusp’ masculine identity – subject to the anxieties and self-perce…
Navigating the Tensions of Normative Masculinity
Building on research identifying sexting as an important aspect of contemporary youth cultures, this article critically explores the ways that homosocial bonding is bound up with, and produced in the context of, young adult men’s discussions of sexting. Drawing on a focus-group study with 37 undergraduate young men based in Melbourne, Australia, we find both deviations from and continuations with the literature that has emphasised men’s homosocia…
Gender, Masculinity and Video Gaming
Gender, Masculinity and Video Gaming
Ambivalent Violence in Contemporary Game Design
Through a textual analysis of three noted examples- Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, and Grand Theft Auto V-This article explores the capacity for ambivalence in violent video games. The analyses bring into dialogue film scholarship which has sought to understand a comparable trend in cinema with games scholarship, most notably Darley's discussion of narrative "decentering" and Bogost's notion of "procedural rhetoric." In all three games, the core g…
‘Mmm … I love it, bro!’
Despite being ubiquitous and embedded in everyday life, ‘the centrality of the Internet is still under-theorized in much masculinities research’. Contributing to the knowledge base in this area, here we place under the microscope the performance of hetero-masculinities undertaken by the three most popular YouTube gaming vloggers in 2015–2016: PewDiePie, VanossGaming and Sky Does Minecraft. The focus of this article thus sits at the intersection o…
How do I become blue pilled?’
Through an analysis of 4chan’s /adv/ or ‘advice’ board – in which predominately male users seek advice on life matters – here we examine masculine ontological insecurity and its implications for understanding how ‘toxic’ masculine identities emerge, and how young men more generally struggle to make sense of their lives. Advancing extant scholarship, our findings uncover an ‘on the cusp’ masculine identity – subject to the anxieties and self-perce…
Beyond the Clickbait
There is now an expansive literature on the manosphere - the loosely connected groups of digital communities that revolve around men's rights, aspirations and entitlements, and the perceived constraints upon these. Such studies have produced important critical insights into the collective and organized dimension of the networked harassment of women in digital settings, as well as highlighting the manosphere's craving to reanimate regressive modes…
Navigating the Tensions of Normative Masculinity
Building on research identifying sexting as an important aspect of contemporary youth cultures, this article critically explores the ways that homosocial bonding is bound up with, and produced in the context of, young adult men’s discussions of sexting. Drawing on a focus-group study with 37 undergraduate young men based in Melbourne, Australia, we find both deviations from and continuations with the literature that has emphasised men’s homosocia…
Online misogyny and pedagogies of Hindutva digital subjectivation
Positioned within the wider political, socioeconomic and cultural context of contemporary India's regressive and anti-feminist trajectory, this article examines the ‘Indian manosphere' and how it contributes towards the Hindutva digital subjectivation of young men – a pedagogical process that shapes their understanding of self, identity, history, and future aspirations. We propose that the overlapping pedagogies explored in this article engender …
Oh you're really good for a girl
This study explores gender dynamics in hobby board gaming culture through 43 semi-structured interviews with women who play these games. While recent scholarship indicates potentially decreasing toxicity in geek and video game spaces, less is known about gender relations in analogue gaming communities, and specifically, hobby board games. Similar to other geek spaces, this research demonstrates how women are often stereotyped as having particular…
I Can Choose to be a Good Man Even if I Got a Raw Deal
This article provides findings from our dual-computational/qualitative analysis of r/Stoicism, a large subreddit in which self-presenting boys and men seek Stoic philosophical advice on various life matters. In choosing to investigate this decidedly (hetero)masculinized online space in which users share their anxieties and grievances, we expected to find substantial evidence of 'toxic' manosphere-style discourse, while also hoping to uncover coun…
White digital footballers can’t jump’
Drawing on the quantitative datasets of Electronic Arts’ FIFA 20 top 100 players and their qualitative descriptors, the paper addresses the following: (1) How do ideas of race manifest and influence digital worlds? (2) How do digital football simulations (games) disrupt or reproduce racialised stereotypes and logics found within football in the social world? (3) How does playing football video games contribute to users’ understandings of race and…
Ambivalent Violence in Contemporary Game Design
Through a textual analysis of three noted examples- Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, and Grand Theft Auto V-This article explores the capacity for ambivalence in violent video games. The analyses bring into dialogue film scholarship which has sought to understand a comparable trend in cinema with games scholarship, most notably Darley's discussion of narrative "decentering" and Bogost's notion of "procedural rhetoric." In all three games, the core g…
‘Mmm … I love it, bro!’
Despite being ubiquitous and embedded in everyday life, ‘the centrality of the Internet is still under-theorized in much masculinities research’. Contributing to the knowledge base in this area, here we place under the microscope the performance of hetero-masculinities undertaken by the three most popular YouTube gaming vloggers in 2015–2016: PewDiePie, VanossGaming and Sky Does Minecraft. The focus of this article thus sits at the intersection o…
Gender, Masculinity and Video Gaming
Gender, Masculinity and Video Gaming
Ambivalent Violence in Contemporary Game Design
Through a textual analysis of three noted examples- Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, and Grand Theft Auto V-This article explores the capacity for ambivalence in violent video games. The analyses bring into dialogue film scholarship which has sought to understand a comparable trend in cinema with games scholarship, most notably Darley's discussion of narrative "decentering" and Bogost's notion of "procedural rhetoric." In all three games, the core g…
Navigating the Tensions of Normative Masculinity
Building on research identifying sexting as an important aspect of contemporary youth cultures, this article critically explores the ways that homosocial bonding is bound up with, and produced in the context of, young adult men’s discussions of sexting. Drawing on a focus-group study with 37 undergraduate young men based in Melbourne, Australia, we find both deviations from and continuations with the literature that has emphasised men’s homosocia…
White digital footballers can’t jump’
Drawing on the quantitative datasets of Electronic Arts’ FIFA 20 top 100 players and their qualitative descriptors, the paper addresses the following: (1) How do ideas of race manifest and influence digital worlds? (2) How do digital football simulations (games) disrupt or reproduce racialised stereotypes and logics found within football in the social world? (3) How does playing football video games contribute to users’ understandings of race and…
How do I become blue pilled?’
Through an analysis of 4chan’s /adv/ or ‘advice’ board – in which predominately male users seek advice on life matters – here we examine masculine ontological insecurity and its implications for understanding how ‘toxic’ masculine identities emerge, and how young men more generally struggle to make sense of their lives. Advancing extant scholarship, our findings uncover an ‘on the cusp’ masculine identity – subject to the anxieties and self-perce…
I think it takes balls, girl balls, to challenge those stereotypes’
Despite growing sociocultural interest in, and engagement with, tabletop hobby games, and in particular board games, the surrounding culture(s) remain underexamined. Drawing from 43 semi-structured interviews, this article explores board gaming culture from the perspective of women who play modern board games. The findings highlight women’s experiences as a minority and the difficulties they face when entering board games spaces – often perceived…
I Can Choose to be a Good Man Even if I Got a Raw Deal
This article provides findings from our dual-computational/qualitative analysis of r/Stoicism, a large subreddit in which self-presenting boys and men seek Stoic philosophical advice on various life matters. In choosing to investigate this decidedly (hetero)masculinized online space in which users share their anxieties and grievances, we expected to find substantial evidence of 'toxic' manosphere-style discourse, while also hoping to uncover coun…
I don’t want another kid stuck in this right-wing loop’
Building on Wescott and colleagues’ research on the manosphere’s influence in Australian schools, this study explores English transgender and gender-diverse educators’ experiences confronting manosphere-inspired rhetoric in schools. Methodologically informed by Elliott and Roberts’ “in-depth case studies approach”, this study employs in-depth narrative participant interviews. Our findings reveal that transgender and gender-diverse educators, are …
Online misogyny and pedagogies of Hindutva digital subjectivation
Positioned within the wider political, socioeconomic and cultural context of contemporary India's regressive and anti-feminist trajectory, this article examines the ‘Indian manosphere' and how it contributes towards the Hindutva digital subjectivation of young men – a pedagogical process that shapes their understanding of self, identity, history, and future aspirations. We propose that the overlapping pedagogies explored in this article engender …
Strange/R/Ness
Beyond the Clickbait
There is now an expansive literature on the manosphere - the loosely connected groups of digital communities that revolve around men's rights, aspirations and entitlements, and the perceived constraints upon these. Such studies have produced important critical insights into the collective and organized dimension of the networked harassment of women in digital settings, as well as highlighting the manosphere's craving to reanimate regressive modes…
Oh you're really good for a girl
This study explores gender dynamics in hobby board gaming culture through 43 semi-structured interviews with women who play these games. While recent scholarship indicates potentially decreasing toxicity in geek and video game spaces, less is known about gender relations in analogue gaming communities, and specifically, hobby board games. Similar to other geek spaces, this research demonstrates how women are often stereotyped as having particular…
The intersections of race and gendered stereotypes within the constructions of digital women footballers in video games
This article employs Bogost’s (2007) ‘procedural rhetoric’ frame to explore the ways in which the numerical values which constitute FIFA 22’s ‘Top 100’ Black and White digital women footballers reflect or challenge the exclusionary discourses that have, thus far, shaped the experiences of White and Black female sporting athletes in the social world. In doing so, this research is the first to empirically demonstrate considerable differences betwee…
Beyond the manosphere
The manosphere is a loose network of anti-feminist and more broadly reactionary male-centred online spaces, influencers and communities. A range of scholars, activists, practitioners and policy makers have turned their attention to generating strategies aimed at countering the misogynistic reactionary ideologies that boys and young men influenced by the manosphere are increasingly adopting. While great work is being undertaken in this space, what…
Sociology (11 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (10 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Digital Games and Media (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Masculinity (5 works) · Media studies (5 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (4 works)