Digital media and cultural hegemony: class, power, and historical leisure in Titanic: Adventure Out of Time throughout

This paper examines how the digital game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is a site for exploring cultural hegemony through early 20th-century leisure and class dynamics. While research in digital leisure has focused on identity, participation, and play, limited attention has been given to how narrative-driven historical games depict leisure as an ideological structure. This paper addresses that gap by analysing how the game spatialises social hierarchies and portrays leisure practices as social control and resistance mechanisms. Using qualitative narrative analysis based on multiple gameplay observations, this study draws on the theories of Gramsci (cultural hegemony), Bourdieu (habitus), Elias (civilising process), and Goffman (social performance) to examine character interactions, leisure spaces, and player choices. Findings reveal that leisure in the game is deeply classed, with first-class spaces reinforcing elite power, while lower-class characters engage in informal, often overlooked acts of resistance. By demonstrating how leisure becomes a medium for negotiating class, gender, and power within a digital environment, this paper contributes to the broader leisure studies and digital game discourse. It highlights the potential of historical games to serve as critical interpretive platforms for examining cultural ideologies and their persistence in historical and contemporary contexts.