Together we brand: America’s Army

Abstract

This paper signals the aesthetic and socio-economic impli- cations of a new generation of commercial media culture in an age of computer network-facilitated participation. It explores the cultural status of the online game America’s Army: Operations (US Army, 2002) that has commerce at the core of its brand identity. The game exemplifies the link- age of commercial goals with cultural texts through cre- ating engaging experiences, initiated by commercial corpo- rations for reasons of promotion and profit, enabled by computer networks, and – to a lesser extent - given form by various members of the public.