Speaking Through Omission: Game Maps as Spatial Rhetoric

This paper uses the military propaganda game America's Army to understand how computer game maps can be used to serve a rhetorical purpose. I argue that the game maps speak primarily through omissions, simplifications and differentiating features that highlight the relationship between similar games, rather than the relation between game and reality. Through a study of user-generated maps, I
conclude that the rhetoric of America's Army can be identified also in the players' own creations, indicating some degree of success for the propaganda purpose of the game.