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This master’s thesis is a product of 6½ years of study at Roskilde University, Denmark. The thesis researches popular culture within the subjects of History and Politics & Administration through a board game called Axis & Allies, made in the USA in the late 80’s. The master thesis’ main thesis is whether this board game in particular, can inflict changes in opinion regarding the players’ view of the history of the WWII and International Relations as a whole. The game itself is described as a 5-player strategy game directly based on WWII from spring 1942 and on. The thesis’ conclusion is based on the analysis of 3 collections of data; (1) interviews collected from experi-enced players, (2) two sessions of playing the game with a questionnaire before and after the ses-sions with a group interview after one of the sessions and (3) the game itself with its rulebook, map, figurines and illustrated box. Each of the two subjects is given an analytical tool that investigates these data on its own. The tools are primarily based on the knowledge from two books that contains the most basic understandings among scientists in the two fields. The results from the analysis of opinion changes in historical views are used as context for the analysis concerning opinion changes on basic views of International Politic. In the historical analysis we find that players opinions are changed, but often not in the direction of the game or the way Danish professional historians view the war. Instead they react on the way the game portrays the war in a third way, moving opinions away from the view the historians have and towards extremes. This often happens where it seems that their knowledge is little or isn’t existing. Areas where each individual player feels comforted in his own pre-existent knowledge their opinion is not changed but rather further cemented. But loads of impressions from the game are not critically absorbed, which is very clear in the matter of opinion changes of some of the important ideas of International Relations. Here the thesis finds strong tendencies, that when it comes to International Relation opinion changes reflects the outcome of the particular gaming session. These results mirror the experienced players’ opinions as well as the games plurality in how the war progressed on the board. In detail if the Axis Powers of the game, Japan and Germany, grow powerful beyond their historical power, players lean towards Classic Realism and away from Classic Liberalism, while the opposite happens when it’s the Allies who reach for glory. Other important finds are, that the discussions around the table lacks certain Elephants in the room. As an example, Holocaust is not mentioned even once while the players are sitting around the game. When it’s done it is in a more indirect way, like mentioning Lebensraum. In overall, the thesis finds that games like A&A should be the subject for further studies to fully understand how they change a player’s view of the world. |
