Manifestations of Esteem and Contempt in Online Role-playing Games

This article aims to show the fecundity of Honneth’s theory of recognition, based on the partial results of an empirical study of online role-playing games. Although these media spaces may seem unrelated to phenomena of recognition or depreciation, the author emphasizes the analytical potential of this social philosophy for understanding the symbolic and moral dimensions of players’ mediated interactions. In particular, he shows how Axel Honneth’s thinking has prompted him to pay attention to manifestations of esteem and contempt in this synthetic world.