Introduction to the Critical Investigation

Investigate: How do video games such as 'Call of Duty' and 'Grand Theft Auto' push the boundaries of on-screen violence and what is the impact of this on audiences?

Maram, Hamsa and I worked together as a group to investigate the question above in detail and explore different perspectives, which them we had to present to the rest of the class. Firstly we broke the question into two parts and found that in the question there are two key points which are ‘push the boundaries’ and ‘impact’. When referring to ‘push the boundaries’ we thought it could mean if the two games stated in the question exaggerate on-scree violence. Notably, it could also refer to graphic violence (showing everything) which could link to realism as by showing everything such as blood it makes the game look more realistic. On the other hand, we discussed what it meant by ‘impact of this on audience’ and we thought it could me if the video games have a negative or positive affect on individuals. Furthermore, to investigate this question we had to explore both sides of this argument which would help our critical investigation. Therefore we came up with points for what impact might violence games have on an audience and what would be the arguments against this. 

The points we presented to the class about what impact might violence games have on an audience was:

• The game may have a negative  impact on young children behaviour especially as they may likely be easily influenced to behaviour violently. This is because; as they keep playing the game which creates excitement for them it may encourage violent behaviour as a result.
• Video games may also lead to certain individuals to become  addict to the game. As a result,  it may ruin their social skills, health, behaviour and affect their education.

However, we discussed points against this statement:

•  Video games allow some individuals to release their anger or frustration which is better than going out and committing a crime.
•  Before video games never existed, individuals still committed crimes which could suggest that on screen violence may not have a negative impact on the audience as it depends on how the persona is like.
• Video games such as Call of Duty allow individuals to connect with their friends or others across the world. This could imply, that video games are a form of social network which may have a postive impact on the audience as it could generates excitement for them.

A theorist who could be covered in this critical investigation would be sociologist Bandura. His theory is called Bobo Doll experiment which explores how exposing media violence to children causes them to copy what they see, and possibly behave more aggressively in the real world.

Link Production Pieces which could work with this critical investigation:

• Print advertising campaign for a new game.
• Website dedicated to a video game.
• Documentary
• Interview with the creator or gamers - reveal their opinion about the game.