Video games and moral panic

The debate over the effects that violent games have on the children that play them has been a long and continuous one, some saying that exposure to violent games at a young age can cause children to act more aggressively compared to kids that don't, while others argue that there is little to no connection between violent video games and troubling behavior, numerous studies showing results that support both points of view. While there have been concerns since the dawn of movies and TV about how they can influence the behavior of the children that they are exposed to, video games have add a whole new dimension to the immersion of the consumer with the media product for instead of being a passive viewer of the violence, players are involved in the violent acts themselves which could be a cause for concern due to the influence that this point of view that could be seen to glorify murder and violence.

The Columbine High School massacre is an example of a real life event that has been connected to the playing of violent video games by the attacker. The attack sparked moral panic and debate over gun control laws. During the 1990s, which is when the attack took place, developments in the technology that produces video games meant that the industry could produce games that depicted violence more realistically than ever before and so the popularity of violent video games increased. Both of the perpetrators, senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were known to be fans of video games such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem, and Quake, Harris even creating his own levels and mods for Doom that could be accessed on the internet. One of his mods, that he titled Tier, he called his "life's work". Researchers claim that this mod consisted of a mock up of his high school that he attacked the same day that he released it online.

The attack induced a moral panic over the effects that exposure to excessive violence in video games can have on young people and in response to this tragedy, many parents of victims filed several lawsuits against violent video game manufactures, under the impression that the reason that the perpetrators were influenced by the games that they played. When playing video games, the teenagers were able to carry out violence and murder and it being glorified and therefore seeing violence from this point of view would influence them to copy these behaviours in real life. This point of view supports the fact that the media has the power to 'inject' ideas and messages straight into the audience's mind, like how Vance Packhard suggests in his hypodermic needle theory.

I think it would be wrong to say that the media has no impact on us at all for there are plenty of examples of people's opinions and actions being shaped by the media that we consume. However, I do not think that a liking for violent video games alone is the reason that these people comitted this crime for it is likely that the cause of it due to a wide range of factors. Like a lot of media products video games are used as a form of escapism for a lot of us, literally putting ourselves in the shoes of other people or into other worlds. People argue that video games teach violence but if I watch Jamie Oliver teach me how to cook a roasted halloumi tray bake on Jamie's 15 minute meals it doesn't mean I'm going to nip out to the local tescos and buy the ingredients for a roasted halloumi tray bake but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy watching someone make a roasted halloumi tray bake. Perhaps there are a small minority of people who do believe that killing people is acceptable but that obviously means that there is a more deep rooted problem that needs to be looked into and is not the fault of video game manufacturers.

#videogames #moralpanics #mediaeffectsdebate #passiveaudiencetheory #activeaudiencetheory #unit1 #LO6 #roastedhalloumitraybake