We eclectically borrow from four frameworks to analyze Kangzhan Online: the dual-process perspective, imaginary world studies, the sociology of collective memory, and the sociology of emotions. We begin with theoretical explorations of how to define propagames, how to demarcate them from other games with political content, and what role they play in digital authoritarianism. This study fills this research gap by analyzing the most popular propagame in China, Kangzhan Online (War of Resistance against Japan Online), and gamers’ reception of it. But knowledge on propagames is seriously lacking compared to the voluminous scholarship on politically progressive, educational, and serious games. The contemporary democratic struggle against global authoritarian resurgence will require knowledge on how propagames and other digital propaganda work. They operate as a part of digital authoritarianism, together with other forms of new soft propaganda, to legitimate populist authoritarian states around the world.
“Propagames,” or games with propagandistic content, have been emerging in the past two decades.
