Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Hello everyone! I have a question about the Columbine disaster. If you guys remember seeing the documentary on that mass murder, the media blamed violent video games for this. In light of the recent disaster in the elementary school shooting does anyone think it is fair to blame violent video games for someone's actions because they simulate violent actions?
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Hello Jordyn, nice post :)
ReplyDeleteThe blame that video games are retrieving after incidents like these are becoming a great issue in popular media. In my opinion, it isn't fair to blame violent video games for violent actions that a person commits. In a way, you could say that the media is using Video games as a scapegoat. They're choosing to blame something that is growing to be more current in newer generations. It's just like how rock and metal was considered bad influence on the youth somewhere in the 60s 70s or so on (also a topic of today).
This isn't an academic resource but it's a good read:
http://thecynicscorner.tumblr.com/post/39602795228/tragedy-and-video-game-violence-a-response-to-todays
In any case, it is unreasonable to make any claims that there is a direct link between video games and violent actions and crimes in society.
Just because someone can be trigger happy in CS:S doesn't mean they're gonna go about in the same way in real life...
There are probably way better examples than this one so feel free to add xD
Also because guns are more available that mental healthcare.
Delete-Georgia C
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ReplyDeleteIt's overblown by the media, there are heaps of people who play the same games around the world but you don't see school shootings everywhere. They have to consider the other factors, such as gun culture. America's a country where you can get guns from Walmart so there are plenty of other things to blame
ReplyDeleteI think Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine touches on this, providing an example other than the Columbine shooting itself, am I right?
ReplyDeleteThe blame you're describing is a cultural affirmation of the (coincidentally named) 'magic bullet' theory in media studies, in which values and messages of a text are taken purely as influential on human behaviour rather than considering the influence of human behaviour on the text itself. It's commonly thought to be a dodgy theory, yet an idea that surfaces over and over again. PLEASE CORRECT ME IF IM WRONG
interesting point you raise :)
Actually a lot of the times the links made to video games are untrue, often shouted in the heat of the moment, and retracted (if at all) once the frenzy has died down. Similarly music such as Marilyn Manson and Rammstein have on occasion been blamed too.
ReplyDeleteWhat is often pointed out is correlation, and not causation. They played, for example, GTA. They then happened to shoot someone in real life. Not GTA made them shoot someone.
According to Wikipedia (yea I'm lazy) there have been 125 million estimated sales of GTA alone, add on the hundreds of millions of other shooters etc and I am pretty sure all of these people haven't gone and committed horrendous acts such as attributed to violent games.
Adding to this:
DeleteGiven the high proliferation of games, and specifically in this case those with violence, then is it not merely a statistical chance that someone may have played one of the largest selling games such as Halo or Doom back in the day could possibly go on to commit some sort of crime later in life?