Monday 19 June 2017

Audience response to Media Products - Unit 6 - Task 1 - P3

Unit 6 - P3 - Task 1

Understand how media audiences respond to media products


Results from the Survey

I was tasked with conducting research by gathering results from a survey, this led to the following results...

I found out that most people that answered turned out to be of the age of 17 and above, and Male. A very common demographic among gamers nowadays. The total amount of time played came to around 20+ hours a week, and the genre of games featured were focused more on adventuring but also featured violence set for a more mature audience. Despite this though, many of the responses from the survey showed that they didn't consider themselves to be more violent from video games, and that they don't take the age ratings into account. Further evidence of this is that most people answered that their first interaction with a mature 18 rated game was averaged at the age of 10-15 years old. The early exposure however hasn't led to any increase of violence or change of opinion from them, but most people answered that they are more desensitized to violence because of violent video games, and haven't be distressed by the violence because of it.

Judging by these results, it shows that most people have been introduced to violence in video games at a young age, around 10 years old with little consideration for the actual mature ratings, and this has led to them becoming more and more desensitized to violence which could lead to further interest in more mature games as they have no worry of being disturbed by mature imagery. The longer someone plays violent video games, the less they are bothered by violence in the real world.


Audience Theory


  • Hypodermic Needle Model
The concept of the Hypodermic Needle Model, is the effect of a source of media causing a direct impact on a person, and causing them to replicate actions seen in a video game, movie or any other form of media, and carrying them out in real life. Many point to video games causing troubled youths to commit crimes and even murder due to implications of a violent video game, but this is simply not true, or at least all there is to it. For starters the number of instances of this effect happening is far lower than many would lead you to believe, and also the reason for such instances to happen, like the infamous Manhunt game caused were also caused by mental illness. Coming to the conclusion this is a reason to believe video games are the cause of murders and crimes isn't plausible to the fact that there a hundreds and thousands of other gamers who have not followed in the same footsteps, and lead perfectly normal and peaceful lives.

The survey results I received also back this up as most of the responses openly say that they are desensitized to violence, but do not consider themselves violent, despite being exposed to violent games at a young age.

  • Uses and Gratification
This theory is used as a way to grasp the understanding of why someone is interested in a form of media and what keeps them invested. For example, the most common reason for someone being into video games is the gratification of escaping reality, a way to be who they want to be in a fantasy and self empowerment to a story far greater than the everyday life. Others seek challenge, and prefer games that don't hold your hand, or have a steep learning curve, but also rewards those who seek the challenge which is what invigorates them to try harder to reach the end. There is no logical comparison for someone to commit a crime to gain this gratification that you find in a game. Killing someone in real life has such a far greater impact and consequence to killing a polygonal NPC (Non-Playable Character), there is no reason to seek challenge or an escape you'd find from a game. It's not something you can escape from because the law will catch up to you, and your life will be permanently affected by your decision, because it's the real world.

  • Passive and Active Consumption
The differences of Passive and Active consumption is the act of how the consumer handles the media presented to them. What is meant by this is that Passive consumption deals with the audience viewing what is in front of them and not question anything at all, and excepting it. Active entices one to ask questions and let more unique thoughts flourish, and not expecting them to accept what you think. This could potentially lead to negative real world actions if the person blindly accepts violent implications and has no sense of morale, but again this is very rare and mostly a hypothetical situation.


Effects Debate

  • Effects or Exposure of explicit sexual or violent 
Violent and Sexual games have been around for a long time, and with the age ratings they are harder to be picked up by younger audiences, and will also be verified by staff if the person is of the appropriate age to purchase the game. As well as this, correct parental guidance can also prevent from mature games reaching a child's possession, however with the use of digital games and online downloads, practically anyone can gain access to mature game without the need for the physical copy.

  • Effects of Advertising
Advertising is problem the gaming industries biggest strength to use on the masses, as the form of media can be placed anywhere to advertise and is accepted pretty much everywhere, even to the point where games are featured on popular Television stations. Adverts are constantly being displayed on posters, banners, promotional goods, before movies, before Youtube videos. Basically, games are able to show themselves off to a mass market where anyone can look at and think "That appeals to me" and be hooked on what it has to offer. Something games tend to go for as well is the "Pre-Order" bonus, which is where a game will take an "exclusive" piece of content, typically an armour set, weapon or early access to the Beta, and will give it to any who Pre-Order to reach extra sales, as many people fall for wanting to apart of the "Exclusive club" and feel that "If I have that, I can show it off", usually the younger audience are most impressionable and go for this.

  • Health Concerns
The concerns with health have always been a topic and had many studies on the subject. Most would point again to the idea that they effect the mental health of the player to make them violent, when this is not true. Others would point to the effects on the eye, and while this does depend on exactly how much time is put into playing games and how close to the screen they are, videos have actually been proven to improve eye coordination and reflexes.

  • Censorship Debates
With the amount of controversy to do with violent games, of course there are those who feel that censorship should be an alternative. However a vast majority would argue against this, and feel as though they would be hindering the artistic integrity of the game/story. This is also applicable to Television shows and Movies, there is always a backlash against censors because many people feel as though it's needless and takes away a lot from a moment that needs that mature edge to it. It's not right to pander and treat gamers like children.


Responses

  • Negotiated
The response that warrants the player to negotiate is one that gives the player a world with ideals and opinions, but lets them add and think of their own too. Adding a piece of their experiences and interests into the game to further invest themselves.

  • Preferred
This is where the player understands and agrees with what the game presents them, and is able to gain their interest more because of the shared ideals. For example not glorifying violence which pretty much all of us can agree is the right thing to do, so we prefer that depiction over a game that treats violence like a positive solution.

  • Oppositional
Oppositional is just the opposite of "Preferred", where the player disagrees with what a game is displaying or trying to convey, like the previously mentioned positive outlook to violence or committing crimes of various nature, and presenting them in a positive light.

  • Participatory
Many gamers seek to find a story to become invested in, and video games offer what TV shows, Movies and books can't. The ability to participate in the story and affect the outcome of the story and characters within. It can keep people from thinking about their lives and often can lead to players caring more about the game world than the world they themselves are living in, which can naturally lead to negative effects on their health and social interactions. It's the major edge videos games have over all other media, the consumer can be part of the story.

  • Cultural Competence
Cultural Competence is how a video game handles making changes to accommodate cultural differences. A good example is how eastern games are released over to the western audiences, and how westerners need to wait upwards to an extra year for the the game to be properly translated appropriately and to its entirety. As well as this, changes to character names needs to be taken into account as they are pronounced and addressed differently over in countries like Japan.

  • Fan Culture
This side of responses typically handles the community that support the games they love, and modding communities always try to offer many different mods to keep games alive or simply add their own flare to spice up the original content. These can vary however, as depending on what game you're playing, the mods can be more "adult" oriented that isn't meant to be in hands of the younger audience. As well as that, players can make their own levels and games using existing engines. A negative example of this however would be that of the infamous Columbine High School shooting, where the two gunmen were later discovered to have created their own mod based off the game Doom, where they recreated the location of their school to plan out their attack, to then later carry out their rampage in real life. This isn't a completely legitimate reason against video games, or mods for that matter. As both of the youths were actively picked on and bullied throughout their years, and suffered from varying mental health problems.

My thoughts/Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel as though video games should not be held accountable for contributing to violence. From all of examples of people committing crimes and murders have all had symptoms pointing towards a mental health problem. As well as this there are countless factors to take into account here, bullying can lead to such events such as Columbine, where the gunmen had a hard time from bullies and being cast out from social interactions. It's not fair to group games into such terrible events simply because the guilty played a video game once. I'm not completely ruling out games as they do desensitize people to violence, but there's no evidence to them fully forcing someone to act out term. Modding and access to mature games as well can't be helped when their mostly accessed via the digital market, which is much easier to get by all the age restrictions. The key to me is good parenting and fair, but not excessive monitoring of what your child is playing and is into. Other than that, I feel that games offer a great escape to those seeking a good time away from reality, and allow those seeking a challenge to test themselves on a good way to kill time. Games are a form of entertainment. 

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