...Ethics in Media Violence Tatiana Y Craft Social Psychology Opposing View Points in Social Psychology Capella University September, 2013 Introduction There are always been violence in our world from ancient times when cavemen fought with tribes who came into their domain, the crusades in the 11-13 centuries, to the Iraq war in current days. At what point do we decide what violence is and is not, at what point do we decide what is better for our children to see, violence on television or video games and movies. We see in the news all the time reports about children shooting up schools, like Columbine, and Sandy Brook elementary. In both cases the media and video games were to blame for these tragedies, people have always been tied in their thoughts about why these things happen. At what point do we take responsibility for the way we raise our children? And at what point do we stop the media from depicting horrible images that may cause harm to our children? The Studies on Violence Several theoretical models describe the psychological mechanisms through which media violence can influence later behavior. Fundamentally, the psychological process all rely on learning. With repeated exposure to media violence, one can guess that one will be more aggressive. Many studies have been done the effects of media violence and videos games on the young human mind. Most of the studies done show that after time of playing violent video games many children’s aggressive...
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...Marketing Violence to Kids Jeremy Eisnor ITT Online Written Analysis January 9, 2015 Abstract It is said that video game makers advertise their violent games, to young children and that that leads to violence among the youth. I believe that companies market their games in general, and when it comes to ones deemed violent, they are careful not to market to children. I also believe the games cannot be blamed for the children being violent. I play violent video games and so does my son, and we are the least violent people you will ever meet. At some point we as parents have to stop blaming games, movies, TV, or any other type of media for the violent actions of our kids. Marketing is everywhere, and no matter how well you control it, kids will see it, especially in this day and age of information. My son and I play video games all the time and some of our favorite are the ones considered violent. The Grand Theft Auto series of games are some of the best if you like video games. It isn’t the best because of the violence but because the content of the game and what you’re allowed to do. You can roam free in this world and explore things and basically do things as you want or you can do specific missions. We will continue to play these games and if they are violent then so be it. We are with the majority of people who understand these are just games and they do not makes us any more violent then we already want to be. The truth is we give our...
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...Do video games make children and teens violent? Many feel that violent video games are affecting our children and teens. Are video games really a factor in children and teen violence? I think not. Video games are definitely not to blame for children and teen violence. A factor that could cause violence is poor parenting. Violence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other. It is also a form of control that includes emotional abuse (Oxford Dictionary). Violence goes back to ancient times. In Roman times a popular form of entertainment was gladiatorial combats. Gladiators fought either to the death, or to first blood, with different weapons. They also used animals, where they combined them with gladiatorial combat. Video games first came about in the 1970s, but it was during the 1990’s that violent games truly came of age. Starting in the 1980s video game producers experimented with what the public would accept in video games. It became clear that games sold better if they contained more violence. In the mid 1980s, children averaged about 4 hours a week playing video games, (Media Violence-Opposing Viewpoints Series) including time spent playing at home and in arcades. By the early 1990s, home video game use had increased and arcade play had decreased. While some studies claim that violent entertainment may be linked in some way to violent behavior, many other studies contradict that assertion. There have been approximately 200...
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...Bloody Pixels: Video Game Violence There are many speculations on video game violence and its harmful effects on the kids who have come addicted to playing them. Many people believe that video games are the ultimate cause of why we see aggression and violence from our youth today. In reality video games are not the main cause of this violence that is being seen. There are many factors that are not being accounted for when determining the cause of a child's violence. Factors such as abuse, depression, and environmental influences have more of an effect on children then actual video games. Violence in video games is not the reason children become violent. Said violence comes from the abuse, depression, and other environmental factors. My support for this claim is for many of reasons, but the big one being that I myself have played many violent video games as a child yet I have grown to be caring and refrain from violence towards other people. I have not committed a violent crime or acted aggressively towards another in any way. A major argument that comes up is that children act based on what they see. With today's advanced technology video games have become so clear and graphic that one could get lost into the "gaming world". Albert Bandura, a famous psychologist, did a study on children and aggression. The study showed that children who witnessed a bobo doll being abused by an adult also committed those same actions, sometimes worse and sometimes less when encountered with...
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...Videogames have been accused of social aggression since the 90’s. As many as 97% of United States kids ages 12 to 17 play videogames and more than half of the 50 top-selling videogames contain violence. People claim that they are source where killers are inspired to do what they do, and therefore they must be banned and forgotten. This is a controversial topic given that some people say that there is more to it than people think about, and there is some others that directly blame videogames for all mass shootings in the country. Violent videogames should not be consider to contribute to youth’s aggression and violence. Videogames should not be banned because they are believe to desensitize players to real life violence, perpetrators of mass shootings played violent games, and because...
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...noticed that in all news outlets the rise in violence amongst the youth of the United States is out of control. Whenever a rise in violence happens people are always looking to blame someone. Back in the 1950’s Elvis and Rock and Roll were to blame. In the 1960’s and 1970’s it was blamed on drugs. Now in the age of information technology the new scapegoat is the video game entertainment industry. To understand video games and it’s inception we must first know the history of it’s predecessor, the computer. People believe that computers and the information age are a new concept, but most would be surprised that computers have been around since 1936. Mr. Konrad Zuse created the first programmable computer that would change the world forever in the decades to come. The real turning point for the history of computers came in 1983. The first home computer was created. This allowed people the flexibility to purchase and work from home. There were video game systems out in the 70’s, but it wasn’t till 1983 that it really hit mainstream. That was the year that Japan released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It took the entertainment value of computer games with the graphics of the computer to create the perfect combination. Arcade consoles were wildly popular and Nintendo realized a niche in being able to bring that entertainment home to the consumer. This would create a new form entertainment that would help change the face of the video game industry for years to come. The Nintendo...
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...Does Video Game Violence Promote Aggressive Behavior Chris Foxworth Preston Hughes ITT Technical Institute Alan Cameron 6 May 2016 Does Video Game Violence Promote Aggressive Behavior Some people may say that video games and the violence that is in them, are the causes of the younger generation behavioral problems. No matter what the “issue” is with the child, somehow the focus seems to be diverted back to the media they tend to view and the games they play, but this is not always the case. According to Kennedy-Moore (2015), other factors such as family violence, parental discipline, peer rejection, and school problems are established risk factors for aggression. Few parents worry about if violent videogames will turn their children into criminals. With my personal experience, I don’t worry the least bit whether or not my children will become violent or aggressive; let alone become a criminal due to the videogames they play. If these types of games were so inspiring on the younger generation, I’d really be concerned with my son jumping off rooftops because he likes to play superhero type games like Batman and Spiderman. Another article by Dotinga (2003) that I have come across did a study of videogame violence with some teenage boys and girls. During the research study on boys and girls the researchers found that out of the 22 kids who played video games the most each day, were the likeliest to have behavioral problems, exhibit hyperactivity and have trouble academically...
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...entertainment are Video Games?” For a long time parents have always asked one simple question, are video games good for you? Video games have been blamed for a lot of things from making kids gain weight to making their behavior aggressive. Some of the negative effects parent’s say video games have on children are: 1. An increase in emotional disorders. What I mean by this is that video games can get a kids or anybody emotions down and keep them down for a long time. 2. An increase in behavioral disorder symptoms. What they mean by this is that kid’s behavior in school, at home, etc. can get horrible and they can act just like the video. 3. Declines in verbal performance. 4. Attention problems such as hyperactivity, ADD or ADHD. 5. Family interaction problems. Kids can get so into the video games and then try to act just how the video games plays, then it comes out in real life and they act let’s say if the game is violent the kids act just like it and their parents don’t like it at all and it causes problems. And that comes to my last point. 6. Playing violent video games can cause the behavior to become aggressive. Like in the sentence above explains this point perfect. Shooting games, fighting games can cause aggressive violence in this society. Video games can be good for kids also, especially if the parent’s buy video games that are able to teach (instruct). Video games can help in the following ways also. 1. Effects on Eyes: Action games can help with your...
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...Drew Perry ENC1101 1 December 2014 Are Gamers Really a Threat? Within the last fifteen years, the video game industry has grown exponentially and is now arguably one of the most robust industries in the entertainment world. Video game sales have more than quadrupled in this time as well, which accounts for this multibillion dollar industry. Inside this enormous industry, hundreds of genres span the base of the industry but a few genres make up the core. Within this core are game categories, such as FPS (First Person Shooters), which have some aspect of violence to it. The popularity of these violent video games has risen greatly within the last 5 years. In 2008, from the age group 12-17 in the United States, 97% of them played video games, and 10 of the top 20 best-selling video games in the United States contained violence (ProCon.com). These violent video games are attributed to the cause of increase in school shootings as well as increases in domestic and youth violence. Critics of these violent video games argue that the because the violence is encouraged to do well in the game through reward, that the player becomes desensitized towards the violence and will teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts (ProCon.com). Video game advocates claim that the research is deeply flawed because there has been no link between video game violence and that of social violence. Many argue that the game actually relieves anger and aggression in a safe outlet...
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...people with entertainment but it also has the ability to connect people around the world. While gaming is purely a hobby for certain people, there are others that only focus on its negativities. As game stations have become amazingly advanced in the last few years, so do their games. Games have amazingly transformed from 2-dimensional images to now complicated concept. Recently, the topic for most of these newly developed games have focused strongly on violence, which is stirring up a commotion about whether this increase in violence is reflected in individual’s aggressiveness. Even though several studies have been made about this growing problem, these studies only prove certain cases are true while most would neglect other important factors like the backgrounds, personalities and interactions of these candidates with other people. While it is true that most games are focusing too much on violence, there are legitimate sources that prove video games are not the reason behind individual’s aggressiveness. Game Revolution's Duke Ferris did a hefty bit of research, foraging through countless studies about violence and video games, reading a number of charts and graphs from the Department of Justice, and has come up with this conclusion: the era of kids who grew up with video games (from about 1993 and after) has the least amount of violent crime rates ever recorded (Ross Miller 1) The world of gaming was introduced in the 1970s purely as a new method for entertainment...
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...As the United States searches for answers to alleviate the suffering citizens receive from sending their children to school everyday, it is quite simple to believe that the very games children are allowed to play are one of the reasons schools and public places are being attacked. The games that majority of children play are games that contain shooting, killing, and other forms of violence. Therefore, it is considered number one on the list of objects to get rid of to demolish the violent acts done by mass shooters. However there has been lots of research done to determine if there really is a correlation between videogames and violence, and the different researches done are not consistent. For this reason, it is to be said that video games is the “fall guy” for various acts of violence such as mass shootings and more. Many believe that violent video games creates psychopaths. They gain this idea from the constant search for massive shooters and other violent people’s motive for carrying out with their violent acts. Each time someone commits an act of high-level violence , such as public or school shootings, investigators and society is always one the look out to see what motivated them to act that way. Investigators look upon the person's history and tries to find a pattern between their behavior and their at home life. As Christopher Orlet suggests that elements that produce violent people with violent actions are, “abuse, neglect, hopelessness, ignorance, laziness, absentee...
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...only pulled the trigger of a XBOX controller, and no-one really got hurt, except for a NPC (non-player character) that is programmed to die. A common stereotype brought up against those who enjoy the appeal of video games are that the violent games contribute to violence in society. The stereotype is that by playing so many violent games, especially now with so many games with more realistic graphics and more blood and gore that it is influencing the many that play these games into becoming violent people, violent people such as murderers,...
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...equally terrible, can be blamed for violent video games, like most school shootings. But are video games at fault for these horrific events? No, they are not, in all cases, is is mental health or parenting, not video games. There was shooting where the shooter claimed he spent hours honing his skills on Call of Duty, well let’s take a look at video games in general. There are cooking games, Mario games, football games. Do cooking games really make you better cook? Do Mario games really make you eat mushrooms and break magic blocks? Does playing an NFL game really make you a good football...
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...Do Violent Video Games Make A Person Violent? Violent video games have been evolving for years. The first violent video game to ever be released was Death Race made in 1976 (Suddath). This game brought a controversy that would follow all video games for years to come. Although many people say that violent video games cause a person to become violent, many people will argue that violent video games do not cause a person to be violent. Both sides of the “violent-video-game” argument, examples to both points being made, and who should not play violent video games will be analyzed or examined in order to determine the effects of gaming. First, many people believe that violent video games do not cause violence. People believe that violence in video games is the cause of violence, but most video games depict and reflect the real world (Rynne). The world is full of violence, and it was full of violence long before video games started to make their way to popularity. People will counter this point and say that violent video games bring stabbing, shooting, running people over, drugs, alcohol, theft, etc… into people’s lives, but if a person turns the television to a news station, he/she will see all of the same things. War games depict wars in other countries, Grand Theft Auto reflects how people in bad neighborhoods can act, and medieval games give people and understanding about the past. People will say that because of these games mass murders will evolve; for example, Sandy...
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...visual entertainment media. The violence depicted is still the same as it was at the dawn of television. But we as a society have greatly changed in the standard we deem to be acceptable. Violence is easily viewed and visually accepted. Due to this modern age and how easy it is to view crime as it happens and eye witnesses thru cell phones and other devices that are commonly used and available everywhere by everyone. A good example would be a television shows from the 70s three’s company. This show was very edgy for its time it pushed the envelope for back then with its double meaning jokes and very sexually driven innuendos on every episode. Not to mention the Gay topic and the reasoning for living with two girls because the landlord wouldn’t allow one man to live with two women. These may be small things now looking back, but were really ahead of its time back then and was a sign of what was to come with the growing popularity of visual media and entertainment. Pushing the line and finding the next big thing in entertainment and news have always been the goal in the American culture. This new age is about who has the biggest news the best shows or the most groundbreaking. That’s what is and has shaped our American culture from visual entertainment and media. (Jacqueline L. Jennings, 2013) The social influences from these visual entertainment media seems to be mostly positive though in most instances our culture picks and choose when to blame it. When a teen commits a shooting...
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