Earlier this month, our founder and CEO, Dr. Yalda T. Uhls, participated in a panel discussion at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. Titled “Ensuring Authentic Representation in Games and Media,” the panel also featured long-time friend of the Center (and former Summit panelists) Adrian Ledda (Director of Inclusive Game Design) from Activision, as well as Rachel Kaser from VentureBeat and Brandy Stiles (Senior Game Producer, and former Chair of the Blizzard LGBT+ Employee Network Leadership Team) from Blizzard Entertainment. Aimed at exploring the positive impact of representation in media and gaming specifically, Dr. Uhls shared information about the Center for Scholars & Storytellers’ work and why inclusivity matters both for youth wellbeing and business’s bottom line.

During the panel, Dr. Uhls highlighted the importance of using the lens of AIR (“Authentic Inclusive Representation”) — which means not only looking at who is being represented on screen and who is making the content, but also how that media makes people feel and what it teaches the audience about a particular group being represented. Brandy Stiles and Adrian Ledda from Activision and Blizzard Entertainment echoed this sentiment, adding the need to “build curiosity” and embrace bringing in more voices in the creation process and asking questions.

“One of the ways we’ve been able to build this type of curiosity has been through collaborating with the Center for Scholars & Storytellers,” Adrian Ledda said. “They provided workshops for us around topics like gender stereotypes and cultural appropriation and storytelling, which helped equip our team with a space where they could be curious and learn.”

Speaking on the importance of inclusivity and authenticity, both Brandy and Adrian brought up the importance of representation in the workplace, while Yalda also mentioned the importance of media being made today reflecting Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the most diverse generation in the U.S., who are drawn to media that reflects them.

Brandy shared their experience working on Overwatch’s first queer character, and how the producer at Blizzard didn’t just rely on their own experience or one single person’s expertise, but actually gathered a group of people working at Blizzard together to answer questions for executives and the narrative team, including Brandy. The group’s work ended up inspiring important queer stories in the Overwatch universe focused on the character Tracer, brought people together, and gave opportunities to designers that are often marginalized inside of large media companies. As Brandy explained, this was a huge moment that truly highlights the power of authenticity.

Here at the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, we firmly believe in the power of research-informed tools to help creatives tell authentic stories. We’ve had long-term partnerships with companies like Activision, working with their teams to give workshops and other resources to help them foster responsible content creation. Likewise, our research on teens and games is focused on understanding what draws them to games and what they want from games. Unsurprisingly, representation is an important part of that for Gen Z: in one study, we found that 80% of teens want to see characters that look like them in games, and 50% have difficulty finding games that do so. With panels like these and our work with the gaming industry, we can help create games that better reflect teens in authentic ways.

To listen to the full panel discussion, visit the SXSW website here.

Listen to the Full Panel Conversation