This is a response to Mark's link about videogames being portrayed in a negative light by the media. I also note Joy has already discussed this topic. I really liked the article because the main interest videogames hold for me is from a cultural perspective. I'm immensely looking forward to the lectures on violence, addiction and female image.
Firstly, speaking from a journalist's point of view, perhaps the journalists that interviewed Henry Jenkins were in fact liberal and did understand his point of view that games were not the problem, rather, it is a societal problem. However, due to editors/gatekeepers who distinguish what is newsworthy, i.e. what will cause panic and sell the most, the debate over whether videogame violence translates into real life is usually the most marketable angle and will likely end up being the story regardless of what the specific journalist originally wrote or thought.
In my opinion, it is a generalisation to state that videogames cause violence. There are a host of factors to be considered, even down to that person's genetic predisposition to violence. I am not disputing that humans can be conditioned (for example, to think that violence is commonplace. And certainly videogames that seem to normalise the abuse of women are terrible), however, I think the more accurate question is whether they can distinguish between reality and fantasy. There are some people that cannot, for example, this teenager who strangled his brother because he wanted to be like the character Dexter from the television series. Yet others can remain relatively unaffected. Not everybody who has played a fighting game such as Tekken will body slam people at random. Not every person who grows up in a violent household will grow up to be violent, it may in fact have the opposite effect and teach them what NOT to do. To blame videogames for all the violence perpetuated by young people would seem akin to obese people, who of their own volition eat fast food every day, blaming McDonalds for their health problems. As discussed in class, the very concept of having agency defies the hypodermic model of players passively having the information injected into them without questioning it.
As a side note, although videogames may be considered a social problem, it may also be an excellent solution in that it provides escapism and tool for minimising frustration or anger.
I find the stories of gaming addiction more troubling. For instance, the woman who killed her baby because it interrupted her game of Farmville. or the South Korean man who died after playing for 50 hours straight without resting.
As Mr Jenkins noticed, the students who carried out the shootings at Columbus utilised a whole variety of media, as opposed to just videogames alone. Whereas one may say that people are a reflection of the media they consume, it may also be said that they media they choose to utilise in their lives is reflective of who they are already. The argument is very cyclical. Also, Mr Jenkins discussed social elements such as bullying and inaction from authorities. In almost every case of a campus shooting, the shooters have been unhappy with the way they were treated by society. Therefore, we should ask ourselves if the cause of the problem is the nature of human society itself.
Storme
I remember once seeing an article in the newspaper a couple of years ago, about a fight that had broken out at a party in Christchurch. They stated the likely causes as video games, texting, and social social network sites. I thought this was amusing as it seemed to highlight the fact that older generations often place the blame on technology, because it is new and they don't understand it.
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