Responding To Media Products
The debate that a video game can have drastic effects on the player has been an ongoing argument in the industry and media for a long time now. There are many theories regarding the topic and both the industry and the media have alterior reasons for being for or against video games. As would be expected the majority of the video game industry is of the opinion that they do not have an effect on the player. This can be attributed to their personal beliefs or educated opinions and the fact that the very industry they work in would be hugely affected should the argument sway either way. The media however can have their own reasons for believing the alternative.The media is pretty split in this regard as some promote this theory and some pay no attention to it. For instance a lot of news channels such as Fox News have on previous occassion made link between real life violence video game violence. They have reported cases in which a murder takes place and the killer owned a copy of a violent video game such as Grand Theft Auto and then reported this fact and taken their own twist on the story implying that the game could be to blame. The media has their own reason for promoting this belief. By adding this to a story they can further explore this and can attract more readers or viewers to the subject. When a greatly contoversial story such as this occurs it attracts a lot of audiences to read about the topic which gains the network more viewers which then in turn leads them to post more about the topic. Neither the gaming industry or the media in general are completely unbiased, both have their own reasons and motives for believing one way or the other. This means that people should not place their entire trust in stories or facts coming from either of these sources otherwise they may gain information that is biased one way or the other and distorted to portray one side of the argument more favourably. In this assignment I will be applying audience theories to the game Grand Theft Auto V (A controversial game) and analysing it.
Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V is an open world action-adventure game developed by game studio Rockstar Games. It is the fifth game in the series and follows three different characters as they participate in a number of heists and other criminal activities. The game is open world in every sense of the term. The player can explore the entire world by a variety of means including cars, planes and boats. The nature of the games open world has however also earned the game some negative criticism as the player has the ability to attack and kill anyone along the street, crash cars and participate in other criminal activities not related to the plot. Development for the game began soon after the release of its predecessor Grand Theft Auto IV. The developers took some inspiration from their previously made games such as Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3. Both of which feature lots of violence. Much of the games development phase was dedicated to making the fictional open world setting of the game, Los Santos, based on Los Angeles. The team took footage of different areas in California to help with the development of the world. Upon its release the game broke industry sale records and became the fastest selling entertainment product in history. The game made $800,000,000 in its first day and $1 billion in the first three days. After release the game received much critical acclaim with much of its praise as a result of its open world, gameplay and multiple protagonists.
The game did however receive much negative criticism and was the subject of a number of controversies surroundings its content. One of which was its depiction of torture in one particular story mission in which the player is required to torture a captured prisoner in a number of methods. In this mission, play character Trevor Phillips interrogated a man known as MR K to gain information on a fugitive that poses a threat to the "FIB." The scene is itself a commentary on American torture of prisoners as the entire game is quite clearly a known commentary and mock version of America and criticises a lot of negative aspects of the country. Some people have criticised the games use of torture even in a commentary state stating "it pushed the boundaries of taste." In the scene the player must torture the prisoner in a variety of methods (most of which are methods famously used by American agencies to torture prisoners) such as electrocution and pulling out teeth with pliers. However the scene is followed by another segment of the mission in which Trevor takes a post tortured MR K to the airport and monologues with him about the ineffectiveness of torture and claims that is is just a way to "assert ourselves." This solidifies the commentary basis for the torture scene but has still however faced a lot of controversy regardless.
Audience Theories
Audiences interpret media in a variety of different ways and there are a number of theories about the topic. Some theorists hypothesise that there are two types of audiences; Passive and Active. An active audience member is much mroe aware of the content they are consuming and actively involves themselves with the media. They will not take all they hear as certain truths and will look out information to discover the truth from other sources and come to their own conclusions. They are unlike a passive audience member who inactively consumes media, an passive audience member will regard anything they hear as a truth and will not take it into their own hands to research into the topic from other sources, they don't question the information given to them and will simply accept it as fact.
Grand Theft Auto V seems to suggest that the audience is active. This is because of the nature of the game. being an open world with many options and choices a player could choose whether or not to go on a killing spree and kill the various digital characters populating the game world. The game also encourages them to take their own approach to missions, being a cover based shooter the player has to actively engage with the game in these situations and must think about what they're going to do in any given situation. The very world itself encourages a player to be active and read into the world and various parodies of real world, brands, companies and activities. A passive audience member would not notice any of this and would simply ignore it however an active audience member would notice the satirical nature of the game and how it parodies the real world as a commentary on many controversies and conduct by the country it is based in.
Hypodermic Needle Theory
This theory originated in the 1920/30s and is based on the idea that all audiences that view media are actually passive, according to the theory and audience is essentially "injected" with any and all of the information provided to them by the media and regards it all as fact without question. The theory suggests that everyone in any potential audiences are passive in nature and don't question the information provided. this theory arose due to the war effort, people were constantly viewing propaganda content from films, to posters and joining the war effort so it made sense at the time. We now however know it to be outdated. We know this because people in audiences are essentially different and respond to media products differently. Everyone has their own opinions formed from their experiences in life affected by their, social class, gender, age, location, sexuality, religion etc. People now also have the entire internet as a resource to utilise to identify any potential facts and any false lies spread in any media. This does however still depend on the individual as people have varying intelligence and people think and regard the media in different ways.
It would be fairly difficult to be a passive audience member whilst playing Grand Theft Auto V this is because of the exaggerated violence, satirical mocking and characters. It would however not be impossible. The whole game revolves around violence and very few audiences could play the game and be passive. Anyone who was could potentially be affected by the gameplay.
Effects Theory
Effects theory is a theory that suggests that a persons actions may have been influenced by the recent media they have consumed. This is a theory that can be seem to be pretty prevalent in the news, it suggests that a person may have copied something they saw in a video game or movie.
It would be possible for Grand Theft Auto V to be an influence on a persons actions in the real world as the game does follow a few characters in what is essentially a real life setting in a fictional setting paralleling modern day America. This depends on whether the player is more of an active or passive audience member. If the person was more of a passive audience member it would be possible for him to be heavily influenced by the actions of the game. The game shows the characters committing very violent acts to other characters and very often receiving reward, usually in the form of vast amounts of money. this shows a criminal action taken with no punishment and a reward instead. A passive audience member could take this media and regard it as it apears on the surface and think it is a good idea to simulate it in real life.
Two Step Flow - Katz and Lazarsfeld
The Two Step Flow theory suggests that audiences are much more active than the Hypodermic Needle Theory would suggest and that audiences will engage with the media actively and discuss and confer with one another about it, however an audience will become passive if the topic is discussed by someone they respect (known as an opinion leader) and accept their view of it. An example of this is a kind of trust built with certain critics of media products whom an audience may have agreed with and formed a respect for their opinions.
Due to the size of the Grand Theft Auto franchise and its huge success, the two step flow theory can be applied, having gained much critical claim it is accurate to assume that these reviews of the game have significantly improved its success, being in its fifth installment with an extremely successful release.
Uses And Gratification
The Uses And Gratification theory suggests that all audience members are active. This theory implies that audiences use a media text to earn their own gratification by analysing and questioning the information given, working to their own conclusions. The theory explains how media is involved in peoples everyday lives and what reasons people seek out certain media. A model was devloped in 1974 for the purposes of identifying the four types of needs that can be fulfilled by watching Television;
- Personal Identity: comparing your own life with the life of on screen characters, helps to explore problems and earns new perspectives.
- information: Find out about the event currently happening in the world at large.
- Escapeism: escaping from the pressures and hassles of everyday life.
- Social Interaction: for interacting with other people and conversing about the media topic.
Grand Theft Auto V could potentially apply to at least three of these needs. The characters in GTA are free from any restrictions they can do whatever they like whether that have negative consequences or not, the player is not bound by any restrictions, they can choose how to dress their character, how to have their hair, whether to have beards or not, what weapons to carry, run around killing pedestrians or just completing the story missions. The most obvious use for Grand Theft Auto V would be escapesim, removing all of the limitations on your actions could be a relief for many people. It is also frequently used for Social interaction, since the game is a very large open world the player can discover something fun and then talk to their friends about it this is also possibly with the online features of the game, players can play together and socialise. Or just kill each other. Grand Theft Auto could to an extent also be used for personal identify. Each of the characters of the game have strong personalities and develop as the game progresses, a player could use this to discover more about themselves. (no matter how inadvisable).
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