How do Media Responses towards Violence in Video games create Controversy?
Through the years there has been
much controversy about the influence that Video games, as well as the mass
media has had on how people act with one another. There have been many negative
views that Video games cause people to be violent, aggressive and more hostile.
However, how true are these claims? The controversy stems from the Media
itself, with newspapers and studies conducted by the media into whether
Violence is cause by video games. These studies are then presented to the
public to persuade them that Video games are the source of all problems in
terms of violent behaviour from adolescents. But are these studies conducted in
a way that goes towards their conductors favour? Legitimate studies conducted
by Sociologists and Psychologists have found reasons to suggest that violent
video games and violent behaviour have no correlation between them. What I will
be studying is the controversy between the media and its audience on the case
of violence in video games, as well as studying the effect the media has on the
general reaction to games. I will study the rhetoric of a wide range of games,
and compare the experiences different games can give to their audiences.
To examine the way mass media can
influence how people view games, we have to first understand the sociological
theories behind it. The first theory which was released around 1940-1950 was
the Hypodermic Needle Theory. This theory suggests that like a needle, the mass
media is 'injected' into the audience and the effect it has is immediate and
overwhelming. 'The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a
powerful influence on behavior change.’ [sic] (University of Twente, 2013) At
this time there were various reasons to suggest the mass media was having a
direct effect on the population. The main indicator was the steep rise of
Propaganda and advertising. Being around the time of WWII, the use of
propaganda to influence the actions of the masses was widely used and
successful. Another use of propaganda was 'Hitler's monopolization of the
mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party'.
(University of Twente, 2013) This is the earliest and simplest form of
influence from the media; however, it is still relevant today, with this theory
explaining panic caused by news stories such as epidemics and natural
disasters. This also explains the fear caused by the media blaming violent
behaviour on video games, as the audience then believes that anyone who partakes
in games will become violent. Two Sociologists who expanded on this theory were
Katz and Lazarfeld (1955) who introduced the Two Step Flow theory of Mass
Communication. Their theory claims that the media moves in two stages. These
two stages are split between opinion leaders and Individuals in social contact
with an opinion leader. The opinion leaders are the receivers of the mass
media’s information, and who interpret it to the rest of the audience. 'Opinion
leaders are quite influential in getting people to change their attitudes and
behaviors and are quite similar to those they influence.' [sic] (University of
Twente, 2013) The opinion leaders interpret the media’s message to the
individuals in social contact with them. Katz and Lazarfeld are simply trying
to explain that our relationships with others also can determine how we
interpret and gain influence from the mass media. They have claimed that there
must be more than one step to how the population receives media, as one person
may receive a media message and then go and pass the message onto someone else.
In relation to how this can affect a person in terms of the mass Medias message
on video game violence, the population will absorb information given by the
media, and this will affect their views on video games.
The media has always been a key influence on how
the population view different parts of society. Games are no exception to this
fact, as they are the point of blame from the media in cases of violence, as
well as other subjects such a childhood obesity etc. The media has always
portrayed games as negative, and these ideas are passed onto the mass
population. But do these views affect the population’s outlook on video games?
Whenever encountered by cases of violence caused by adolescents, the mass media
are always quick to blame video games. Dubious sources such as the Daily Mail
even conducted studies to prove their point. Their results show a strong correlation
between violent video games and violent behaviour from adolescents. 'Evidence suggests that long-term players of
violent games may become more likely to react aggressively to unintentional
provocations such as someone accidentally bumping into them.' (Daily Mail
Online, 2012) The research conducted found that the teenagers who played
violent video games showed rises in their aggression levels over the course of
the study. It was a long-term study conducted by the Brock University of
Canada, and their results concluded there was rise in hostile behaviour in
these adolescents. However, if you look through the article, the Daily Mail goes
on to blame video games for two violent actions. A young boy of age 14 hung
himself after playing 'Call of Duty' which has disturbing scenes of soldiers
trying to kill each other. Another is Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in
Norway after claiming he played 'Call of Duty' to train himself for the task.
These two cases have been solely blamed on video games, however the
investigation in these individuals’ family circumstances and mental health may
explain much more. In essence, the Daily mail is twisting stories in its favour
to encourage the mass population that video games are bad. Another famous
shooting in Colorado committed by the Columbine shooters in a high school has
been claimed to have been caused by the shooters playing violent games. 'The media revealed that Harris and Klebold
played a lot of violent video games, including "Wolfenstein 3D,"
"Doom," and "Mortal Kombat."' (Julia Layton, 2013). This
is another case of the media finding blame in video games. If we look into the
minds of these boys, we can see a clear mental instability which is a more
reliable and realistic cause of their behaviour. ‘During the attack Eric made comments
directed at jocks and claimed that he was getting revenge on people for
mistreating him.’(Langman, 2009) Past experiences with bullying and mistreatment are more
likely to have caused their violent behaviour against this school, than the
video games they may have played.
However, even looking over
studies and cases of violence, there is no substantial evidence that proves
that these games directly affected these actions, and are video games really to
blame for individuals behaviour? A Secondary school student from R.A. McMath,
claims there is no correlation between violence in video games to violence in
real life. 'In an essay he wrote on the subject, Yeung, who plays games such
as Call of Duty and Left 4 Dead 2, points out that many of the shooting games
that are popular in North America are also played in foreign markets. However,
while mass shootings have been spotlighted in the United States for the past
few years, such acts has decreased in those other countries, Japan and France
in particular.' [sic] (Andrew Hung, 2013) Therefore, if the violence was
directly caused by the video games, there would be a substantial rise in
violence in other countries as well, but this is not evident. A study
found in the New York Times also explains that the correlation between the
sales of violent video games and the rates of violent crime is not what is
expected. The rates of violent youth crime are actually seen to have lowered in
contrast to the rise in violent video game sales. 'We found that higher
rates of violent video game sales related to a decrease in crimes, and
especially violent crimes' (Dr. Michael Ward,2013) If there was an increase
violent crimes committed by youths in relation to the increase of sales, this
would indicate a possible link, however there isn't. One obvious cause
of violence is mental health problems, as well as some people claiming it is in
our 'genes'. If a perfectly normal, sane person plays a violent video game,
does this mean they will go out and mimic the actions? No, as the violent
crimes figures would be sky high. A recent post on Gamasutra's website examines
the reasons behind why people commit violent crimes, and how video games aren't
to blame. 'There’s no reason to believe the aggression videogames cause is
any different or more severe than aggression from any other source.' [sic] (Michael
Kasumovic, 2013) For a prime example we can look at the case of a 20 year
old boy, Adam Lanza. He murdered his own family after apparently playing the
game 'Dynasty Warriors'. However, looking into the case Adam had a severe
antisocial disorder, as well as being alienated by his friends after his
parents split up. If Adam did not have these underlying mental issues along
with family trauma, there is a significant chance that he would not have acted
violently in any way.
Games can give many different experiences to the player than
just messages of violence. The sheer amount of different genres of games there
are on the market today means there is plenty of diversity to give unique
experiences to the player. The role of the mass media in recent years has been
to portray all video games as violent and harmful on adolescents. This however
isn’t the reality. Games can fulfil all types of purposes in society, such as educational
purposes as well as being used as political influences. Video games which
contain positive messages are games such as Brain
Training, Spore, Save the Whale game (Greenpeace), as well as family games
such as Dance Central and educational
games. Brain Training encourages
players to keep their minds active by completing puzzles and mathematics on a
daily basis. Spore is a SIM game in
which players can create their own world and race, and help them survive and
evolve. Save the Whale game is a game
made by Greenpeace to promote saving the whales from being hunted and captured.
Family games such as Dance Central
merely have the rhetoric to encourage families to play together and compete
with one another. The rhetoric of these all these games is to teach players
without them even realising it, with even games such as Portal teaching the player physics and science. The mass Medias
opinion on games is that the rhetoric of all games is to subconsciously teach
people to be violent. However, when you study others it is clear that there is
a mixture of genres and messages, which can be found in all types of media.
After examining the effects of
the mass media on audiences, we can conclude that the message received by the
audience on video games is always a negative one. The point of blame by
newspapers and the government itself in terms of violent crimes by adolescents
will always lie on the shoulders on video games. In terms of violence, we can
claim that a person’s genes and mental stability can determine whether a person
acts violently from playing video games. In cases where video games have
apparently influenced a person’s actions, such as the Sandy Hook shootings, we
must realise that when a person commits these actions there is usually an
underlying mental health issue. 'Social isolation and precipitating mental
health issues, particularly in the Sandy Hook situation, have been other
contributors to the criminals of the recent shootings.' (Andrew Hung, 2013) The
lack of sufficient evidence to claim that video games do cause violent acts
means that there will never be a true correlation between the two. However, in
light of mass shootings in the USA in recent years, the government is looking
for someone to blame and video games will always be on their radar. The
ultimate conclusion of games is that there is a wide range of experiences that
this media contains. The view that all video games contain violent messages in
some way is flawed, as the substantial amount of positive messages found in
games as well as the use of rhetoric to subconsciously teach players outweigh
the negative feedback from the mass media.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
