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Suomeksi

Usva Friman

Assistant Professor, Academy Research Fellow
Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences | Communication Sciences
Tampere University
usva.friman [at] tuni.fi (usva[dot]friman[at]tuni[dot]fi)
+358504624795
City Centre Campus
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1537-5297
http://www.usvafriman.net

About me

I am an Assistant Professor of Game Studies and Co-Director of the Game Research Lab at Tampere University since August 2025. I am also a Docent of Game Culture Studies at the University of Turku since August 2024.

In 2025–2029, I am an Academy Research Fellow, leading the ENDGAME project funded by the Research Council of Finland.

My research is focused on cultural participation and agency, as well as DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) questions, in digital gaming and electronic sports. I explore these topics as experienced by people participating in these cultures – especially as marginalised individuals – but also from structural and organisational perspectives. My methodological approaches are qualitatively oriented and based in humanities, including e.g. interview and survey studies, online media analysis, participatory research, and (online) ethnography. I highly value and seek to develop good, ethical research practices based on the highest standards. Overall, my aim is to create new, research-based knowledge and practices in close collaboration with stakeholders and participants in the field to initiate positive change, as well as to develop and promote good practices and working conditions within the academia.

I supervise master's theses and teach game studies methodology courses in the Game Studies master’s degree programme and supervise game studies doctoral researchers in the Doctoral Programme in Media, Communication and Performing Arts at Tampere University.

I defended my doctoral dissertation Gender and game cultural agency in the post-gamer era: Finnish women players’ gaming practices, game cultural participation, and rejected gamer identity at the University of Turku in June 2022. I then conducted postdoctoral research at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (of which I was also the main coordinator from January 2020 to July 2022) at Tampere University, researching e.g. Nordic esports, and also working as a Project Manager in the research utilisation project PEGASUS: Promoting equity and game cultural sustainability in Finland in 2024–2025.

In September 2025, I will begin my Academy Research Fellowship project Exploring New Dimensions of Game Cultural Agency: From Marginalisation to Empowerment (ENDGAME), funded by the Research Council of Finland from September 2025 to August 2029.

Project links

Research fields

Game Studies; Digital Culture

Latest publications

All publications