Amanda Cote is Assistant Professor of Media Studies/Game Studies at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Her work focuses on the industry and culture of analog and digital games, with a particular emphasis on gender, representation, and issues of technological access.

More specifically, Cote draws on critical explorations of industry texts and practices, as well as interviews with female gamers, to explore gaming’s conflicting trends towards greater diversity and greater discrimination. Although the spread of casual, social, and mobile games has led researchers, journalists, and players to believe that video gaming is opening up to previously marginalized audiences, especially women, the past decade has simultaneously seen numerous incidents of game-related racism, sexism, and misogyny. Cote’s work explains how these conflicting narratives can co-exist, as well as how women navigate their contradictions while gaming.

Her more recent reseach additionally considers questions of labor and equity within the video game industry, how values are embedded in game design, and how collegiate esports grow and institutionalize.

Cote received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 2010 and completed her Ph.D. in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan in 2016. Her first book, Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games, was recently published by NYU Press. She has also published articles in venues such as Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Games and Culture, Feminist Media Studies, and edited book collections.

Ph.D., Communication Studies

University of Michigan, 2016

B.A. with Distinction, Media Studies

B.A., Foreign Affairs

University of Virginia, 2010

Key and Recent Publications

Books

• Cote, A. (2020). Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games. New York University Press.

• Cote, A., Dal Cin, S., Exelmans, L., & Mustafaj, M. (2022). Philanthropic, Prosocial Players: How Game-Related Charity Events Motivate Unlikely Donors. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221130738
• Cote, A., Can, O., Foxman, M., Harris, B., Hansen, J., Rahman, M., and Fickle, T. (2022). The COVID Season: Collegiate Esports Programs' Material Challenges and Opportunities During the 2020-21 Pandemic. Games and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221088116
• Cote, A. and Foxman, M. (2021). Studying Games. In Ferdig, R., Gandolfini, E. and Baumgartner, E. (Eds.), Teaching the Game, Vol. 1: A collection of syllabi for game design, development, and implementation. (pp. 201-224). ETC Press.
• Mejeur, C and Cote, A. (2021). Who Gets to Be in The Guild?: Race, Gender and Intersecting Stereotypes in Gaming Cultures. Loading: The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, 14(24), 70-89.
• Cote, A. and Harris, B. (2021). The Cruel Optimism of “Good Crunch”: How Game Industry Discourses Perpetuate Unsustainable Labor Practices. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211014213
• Cote, A. and Harris, B. (2021). “Weekends became something other people did”: Understanding and intervening in the habitus of video game crunch. Convergence, 27(1), 161-176. doi: 10.1177/1354856520913865
• Cote, A., Coles, S. M. and Dal Cin, S. (2021). The Interplay of Parenting Style and Family Rules about Videogames on Subsequent Fighting Behavior. Aggressive Behavior, 47(2), 135-147. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21931
• Cote, A. (2020). Casual resistance: A longitudinal case study of video gaming’s gendered construction and related audience perceptions. Journal of Communication, 70(6), 819-841. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaa028
• Cote, A. (2018). Curate Your Culture: A Call for Social Justice-Oriented Game Development and Community Management. In K. Gray and D. Leonard (Eds.), Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice. (pp. 193-212). University of Washington Press.
• Cote, A. and Mejeur, C. (2018). Gamers, Gender, and Cruel Optimism: The Limits of Social Identity Constructs in The Guild. Feminist Media Studies, 18(6), 963-978. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2017.1376699
• Cote, A. (2018). Writing “Gamers”: The gendered construction of player identity in Nintendo Power magazine. Games and Culture, 13(5), 479-503. doi: 10.1177/1555412015624742
• Cote, A. (2017). “I can defend myself”: Women’s strategies for coping with harassment while gaming online. Games and Culture, 12(2), 136-155. doi: 10.1177/1555412015587603

Public Speaking/Writing

• UO Understood- From Digital to Dungeons: What the video game industry can learn from D&D
• Oregon Humanities Center, UO Today with Amanda Cote
• Cote, A. C. (2020, August 21). Here's what it'll take to clean up esports' toxic culture. The Conversation.

See http://www.amandaccote.com/ for full details on research and publications.