Intermedia Concept

I would say I am quite interested in various aspects of the media. I decided I wanted to focus on the forms of the media dealing with entertainment. I am a huge movie buff and playing video games is a hobby of mine as well, which I find both to be great forms of entertainment. The issue I wanted to discuss deals with the relationship of today’s youth and the violence portrayed in various aspects of our media. Yet I want to pay closer attention to violence in movies and video games.

In some recent news pertaining to the consistency in gun violence, I noticed there was discussion of video game violence having a major influence. Personally, I play a great number of violent video games, mostly shooters, yet I do not find myself in anyway being influenced by the content. I have found renewed interest in the impact video games have on our generation and a commercial for a brand new military war game sparked this interest. The fourth installment of the Battlefield video game series is due this fall. The first commercial was released and oddly enough, it was a 17-minute video consisting of gameplay. I really enjoyed the last Battlefield game so I had to sit down and watch the majority of the video. I wasn’t too surprised with the game up until the end of the video. The gameplay looked quite similar to the action you’ll find in the previous installments as well as the past four Call of Duty games. Although, the final scene, which was in-game footage, did surprise me as fellow comrades wrestled to get a soldier out from underneath a large piece of rubble. In order to the save the soldier, the player had to use his knife to cut the soldier’s leg off and drag him free, which really put the player through an up close and personal experience including some blood and disturbing sound effects.

With the number of recent tragedies pertaining to gun violence, society has attempted to compile the factors that would contribute to these violent acts and the violence in video games and movies are argued to play a large role.  A number of experimental studies have shown support for the hypothesis that violence in video games and movies cause an increase in laboratory aggression. With these experiments I have noticed that the results are targeted towards the physical acts of the players’ behaviors. The experiments consist of the researchers using the General Aggression Model, or GAM. This model is created to explain the aggressive behavior children gain after viewing violent video games and movies. Not enough research has been done towards the thought processes and overall psychology behind the relationship between the violence on the screen and the player. But focusing on movies, I feel that the MPAA rating system has made distinct changes that have put some movies on the borderline of being PG-13 and R-rated.

 I only struggle with figuring out how to incorporate materials that will add another sense to my text. I do have physical examples of the video games and movies but I feel as though I would have to use video clips as well.