Critical investigations 2013: 'Call of duty' and 'Grand theft auto' - mr bush

Quotes

1. 'A society that glorifies violence will grow more violent' [1]
2. 'In the UK British games companies contributed around £2 billion to the economy.' [8]
3. 'Violent video games came of age in the 1980's' [9]
4. 'User generated content on sites such as Youtube does not carry any age classification, nor is there a watershed before which it cannot be viewed.' [12]
5. 'Suggests that those who are exposed to violence in the media are influenced to behave in a violent manner.' [15] - George Gerbner's [14]
6. 'One boy followed the motto of "eat, sleep and play games" and had got kicked out of higher education, which subsequently meant he was damaging his relationships with his friends and family.' [20]
7. 'males are more attracted to violent imagery than females are.' [36]

Homework: 250 word review on lesson - mr bush

How do video games such as 'Call of Duty' and 'Grand Theft Auto' push the boundaries of on-screen violence and what is the impact of this on audiences?

In our groups on Monday 24^th June 2013 we discussed the impact of video games such as ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ may have on audiences as well as how they push the boundaries of on screen violence. First, as a group we thought of many ways in which we would be able to answer this particular question. One of these ideas was to always refer to the two games and point out the similarities as well as differences. We went on to talk about what ‘pushing the boundaries of on-screen violence’ actually refers to, this particular quote highly refers back to the games for example, increase in nudity, weapons, witnessing killings etc. We then spoke about the video games impact on audiences, this refers to things such as the ‘Bobo doll experiment’, where a lady hit a doll and as children witnessed this and came in contact with dolls of their own they also hit it. This therefore illustrates how children follow/copy what they see on TV/videogames or what they see others do. We also discussed the against argument for this questions (what passionate gamers would argue), this would be things such as ‘video games are censored’, games have got age ratings such as these two games are 18+ due to the violent content. In this critical investigation the media concepts and theories that could be covered would be the representation of games, uses and gratification (entertainment and escapism) and Prop’s theory (hero’s, villains etc). Lastly we discussed which linked production piece could work with a critical investigation like this one, we came up with an advert and music video.