westminister essay
In no more than 500 words highlight and discuss an aspect that interested you within a resent game.
The video game I would like to discuss is ‘Grand Theft Auto-San Andreas’. The highlights about the game are concerning its take on society and the representations of certain people in society.
In considering the game’s content is what first interested me, as it is a game of identification for an audience to pursue certain sadistic and voyeuristic pleasures. To have the power to control what happens and when it happens encourages audiences in seeing events in the world that would not normally be seen on our own doorsteps. The violence, corruption and exposure of indecency are what the youth of today is exposed to and possibly the reason/influence for many crimes and other problems that occur in our society. The game plays on stereotypes about ethnic minorities, especially black people, in the western world and takes a specific role in using those stereotypes connected to gun crime, drugs and sexual activity to create authenticity towards its young audiences who are dominantly part of the ‘MTV’ generation, living a hip-hop lifestyle, so it is a text that would appeal to them as they are seeing what they would expect.
I found the game understandably appealing to its audiences, however, its take on the way some people live their lives glamorises these negative aspects to passive audiences in using guns, dying, then coming back with the restart button. Unlike life that is not the case, though the game is just a game, some may take the contents literally and psychologically believe that they could be shot five times without dying. This can be argued through certain media theories such as the ‘copycat’ theory, which is the idea that audiences duplicate behaviour through watching and within the last couple of years, games such as GTA have been singled out by the media for influencing youngsters to be violent and in the worst cases take the lives of others promoting a ‘trigger’ friendly environment to which can only lead to trouble.
My personal experience with the game in question has never reached this kind of level, although individuals are different and tend to ‘read’ the media in very different ways, linking to the uses and gratifications theory.
In conclusion, there are interesting points about the video game that would appeal to a wide audience from certain points of view in fulfilling specific pleasures, however controversial to different people it is a matter of opinion that has given it its status in society and can only be argued by people to agree to disagree on its place in our communities.
By Danny Pascal
The video game I would like to discuss is ‘Grand Theft Auto-San Andreas’. The highlights about the game are concerning its take on society and the representations of certain people in society.
In considering the game’s content is what first interested me, as it is a game of identification for an audience to pursue certain sadistic and voyeuristic pleasures. To have the power to control what happens and when it happens encourages audiences in seeing events in the world that would not normally be seen on our own doorsteps. The violence, corruption and exposure of indecency are what the youth of today is exposed to and possibly the reason/influence for many crimes and other problems that occur in our society. The game plays on stereotypes about ethnic minorities, especially black people, in the western world and takes a specific role in using those stereotypes connected to gun crime, drugs and sexual activity to create authenticity towards its young audiences who are dominantly part of the ‘MTV’ generation, living a hip-hop lifestyle, so it is a text that would appeal to them as they are seeing what they would expect.
I found the game understandably appealing to its audiences, however, its take on the way some people live their lives glamorises these negative aspects to passive audiences in using guns, dying, then coming back with the restart button. Unlike life that is not the case, though the game is just a game, some may take the contents literally and psychologically believe that they could be shot five times without dying. This can be argued through certain media theories such as the ‘copycat’ theory, which is the idea that audiences duplicate behaviour through watching and within the last couple of years, games such as GTA have been singled out by the media for influencing youngsters to be violent and in the worst cases take the lives of others promoting a ‘trigger’ friendly environment to which can only lead to trouble.
My personal experience with the game in question has never reached this kind of level, although individuals are different and tend to ‘read’ the media in very different ways, linking to the uses and gratifications theory.
In conclusion, there are interesting points about the video game that would appeal to a wide audience from certain points of view in fulfilling specific pleasures, however controversial to different people it is a matter of opinion that has given it its status in society and can only be argued by people to agree to disagree on its place in our communities.
By Danny Pascal
posted by dp866GHS at 2:32 PM
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