All for the public good...

Hey there,

So this week prior to tutorials I had been thinking about the subject of violent videogames and what makes them violent. Where is the line drawn between what is considered violent and what is not. This was brought up in tutorials with a discussion surrounding Mortal Combat which lacks realism in its graphics, is not in first person or physically interactive, and is within the framework of a fighting competition. Despite these factors it was still considered a very violent game and had the same public response when it was released as GTA does now. So is this moral panic justified?

The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (which is also used for videogames here) is designed to “protect the New Zealand public from material that is likely to be harmful or injurious to the public good”. So what does this encapsulate?

According to the Office of Film and Literature Classification website:
“A publication is likely to be injurious to the public good if it
· encourages violent tendencies in society through repeated exposure to violent imagery
· erodes widely agreed moral standards
· encourages young people to have sex
· changes attitudes to women in a negative way
· increases the risk of copycat behaviour
· exposes people to bad ideas they might otherwise never have been exposed to
· offends or shocks viewers with unexpected language or images
· frightens, upsets or disturbs particularly younger viewers

These are public perceptions, not scientifically proven facts. Scientific studies tend to show that a publication’s availability is more likely to injure the public good in terms of its likely effect on attitude rather than on behaviour.”

If this is the case then all the moral panic about videogames leading to violence would be void. The censorship needs to cater for the majority, there will always be a minority that can complain and it makes a line impossible to draw. Each child develops at a different rate and each adult reacts differently. Therefore the role of the parent is important with individual censorship of each individual game themselves before allowing access by their children or those who may be easily influenced by the material within the game. As this is such a grey area and as stated above, down to ‘public perceptions’, the violence debate will continue.
-Alice