Can video games lead to murder?

This work show's how augmented reality can influence an individual's actual reality. Different theoretical aspects are explored to influence the overall conclusion.

I will investigate the use of effects theory and the result of these on an audience in video games and campaigns. I will also look at modern day examples to see how the theories are applied to todays society in a positive and negative way.

The theory; Hypodermic Needle theory is something that investigates the implication of mass media and the effect that the source can have on its audience. The effect that is said to have in this theory is the influence of their beliefs, opinions and thoughts being ‘injected’ into them by what they have seen. When this theory was first thought after in the 1940s to 1950s the change in an audiences behaviour was investigated to see if there was a change based on the rise in the populations of radio and television and the persuasion used in propaganda and advertising.

An example of this theory is from a video advert produced by Levi Jeans in the mid-1980s. The advert consisted of a young, handsome male walking in to the dry cleaners; where he takes is clothes off to wash them. Young females are looking at him and also young boys in a role model way. When the male strips is clothes close ups are used on the jeans ensuring the audience can see they are Levis to reveal white boxer shorts. This video saw the rise in Levi jeans sales of 800% and also the sale of boxer shorts. The advert used this theory as it implied to its audience that if you wore Levis jeans you could be this cool male that everyone was in ore off. This was the common aspirational model that advertising used alongside this theory. It offered an appealing lifestyle to its audience that people felt if they brought this product they were going to have.

This theory is said to be of a strength as it allows producers to use numbers and statistics to see what has been effective and reliable for their audience through their opinion and thought being influenced by what they have seen. This is through data being collected to market and determine what impact the campaign has had on the audience. This is a positive as it allows a producer to know the positive and negatives of what they have produced. This can be seen for this video advert in the up sale of Levi boxers. This on the other hand can be seen as a weakness as the audience if this theory stands is being influenced by what they are viewing so inevitably the results will be biased as people are buying in to a mainstream appeal. One other strength that this theory has is the audience will provide long term support and will consist of a high number. This however can be negative also and further the biased result as the audience will have been too simplistic as the changes in attitudes would have been influenced by the people collecting the results. This point however can be contradicted as people view the same thing in different interpretations so the views may be influenced but there interpretations may be different.

This theory; Cultivation theory is something that looks at how television influences an audience over a gradual period of time that results in long term effects on the audience. This theory also has the belief that the influence the audience have are norms they already had but they are just being reinforced. This theory is unlike the previous theory as it gives a time period.

An example of this comes from the aspect of the theory stating that people that watch more television are more likely to be influenced by what they have viewed compared to people that watch less television. This was put into an experiment by one group of college students watching lots of television and the other watching a little bit. The result of this meant that the students watching lots of television, especially action and violence were found to be more fearful of life in the everyday world compared to the ones watching less television. This therefore supports this theory as it shows that over a period of time the norms people watched were reinforced in a stronger concept.

This theory is said to be of a strength as it allows the producers to gather people’s norms from what they viewed over a sustainable amount of time. This however can been seen as a weakness as the theory is simple so people can argue that the simplicity could make it not very valuable and correct. This is because is doesn’t take anything else into consideration like the persons experience or cultural background making the audience passive. One other strength that comes from this theory is that allows people to see if there television programme has influenced there audience which will infer whether the show has been a success from entertainment to a learning value. In comparison to this, in today’s society there are many various TV channels with many different shows so in reality the theory doesn’t really stand with modern television as results would not be suitable.

A video game that has caused controversy in the past is Grand Theft Auto. Grand theft auto is a game that has sold 35 million companies and produced of $2 billion dollars. The game includes killing people with sniper rifles, the killing of police and creating massacre. On the 18th March 2005 a multimillion dollar lawsuit was filed in Alabama against a teenager (18 years), Devin Moore that had murdered three males, two of which were a police officer. It was discovered that the teenager played on the game a substantial amount.

With this law suit is would appear that the hydrometric needle theory was in fact the cause of this rampage. This is through the video game allowed the teenager to be influenced by the game within his morals. In an argument for however is does appear that the majority of people playing the game can differ between reality and the fiction the game infers. This then leads to the questioning of weather it was the video game that influenced the teenager to do what he did. In my opinion I feel that a vulnerable person with mental health issues can be influenced considerably by a game like Grand Theft Auto in the form of the hydrometric theory. I feel this is because the person has issues that could surface from playing such involved games. I also think it is not a coincident that two police officers were killed considering how often and ‘freely’ police officers are killed in the game.

Uses and gratifications is another theory that was produced by David Morley in 1991. The theory explores different concepts that allow the theory to summarise different formats of media. One form of the theory is cognitive. This is a learning form of the theory and explores text helping the audience to find out something like a narrative. Another form of the theory is affective. This develops on the previous text format and looks at how text affects the audience and how much emotional satisfaction is provided. Another form of the theory is tension release. This follows the text allowing the audience to relax and let of any tension they were experiencing. Another from is personal integrative. This is something that the audience can relate to and the text allows them to define their own personal identity. One last form of this theory is social interactions. This looks at how the text helps the audience with social interactions. This could be in the form of providing a topic of discussion then the audience interacts with others.

This theory however has experienced a lot of criticism. This comes from many people believing that the public have no control over the media and what it produces which results in the audience not trusting the media fully as they do not need to take responsibility for what they produce. This comes from the theory taking out possibility’s that the media can have an unconscious influence over the audience lives and also influence how they view the world. The stems from the concept of media sources like television have power on people opinions and beliefs and don’t just satisfy a given need. The theory has also experienced criticism as it can be argued that media is manipulative for the audience even if the audience don’t intend to have their opinion changed. This stems from the idea that an audience in media have a free will to decide what how they will use media to affect them but sources can influence an audience unintentionally. This however can be argued as for the theory as in modern society the audience has choices over what they view and what they choose to watch. This comes from digital technology and satellite TV giving more choices compared to pre internet and analogue television.

An example of how this theory applies to a video game is Fortnight. This is a relatively new video game that follows a narrative of a player working as part of a team of 50 players to kill of the opposition with the aim to be the last player left in the game. The game uses realistic settings, weapons and props that each player has access to. Some of the access on the game depends on the level of the player. This also allows others to see how good others are and adds even more competition. This game abides to the theory of uses and gratifications by allowing a participant to develop their own personal integrative. This is through the player using the text to define their own personally integrity in the form of building team work skills. This happens through the game by players of the same team working together to save people on their team, share items they have collected and to kill the opposition. Even though the narrative is not a realistic scenario for the player the basis of the act of working together can be learnt and applied to someone’s personal identity in real life situations. One other way this game relates to the theory is through the game being a form of tension release. This comes from the entertaining value of the game allowing a player to become engrossed, enabling the participant to let of steam and forget about every day worry’s. The game also enables tension to be released by allowing aggression to be distributed in the game. This allows the player to allow themselves to concentrate on something that will allow them to let out frustration or other emotions. This also allows the game to full fill the affective part of the theory also as it allows emotional satisfaction of the player to be granted through participating in the video game.

To conclude this assignment has allowed me to gauge different effect theories that are used to entice, promote or engage a viewer from something that is being produced. It has allowed me to investigate how these theories are put into everyday life to ensure a positive outcome for a producer but has also enabled me to see that if something is done wrong it can lead to a negative impact on the game. All theories in my opinion summarise the audience and consumers best beliefs and interests and portrays to them something positive that seems to be formed by idealistic stereotypes.