Jazz against the Nazi State? How Music shapes the ideological Topography of Video Games

The chapter aims to explore the role that music plays in sonically representing ideological content in games or conveying an attitude towards it. To this end, it offers the model of Ideological Topography based on the assumption that ideological aspects shape the 'texture' of a video game. Ideology can be expressed in text and language, but also implicitly and contextually in design, aesthetics, paratext, sound and music. Just as the relief of a landscape reveals underlying geological structures, (intended or unintended) ideological implications can be mapped by analyzing the narrative, ludic and audiovisual elements of a game. The chapter outlines the model and then looks at the contribution of the music of individual games to their respective Ideological Topography.