Battle_over_Violence

The Battle Over Violence Can you measure aggression' Craig Anderson and Douglass Gentile are professors in the department of psychology at Iowa State University along Kathrine Buckley collaborated to produce a research article in which the adverse effects of violence in video games. Their studies included kids’ games still have behavioral effect; the violent video game effect; violent videogames and school. Their opposition to the articles is Henry Jenkins. Jenkins who wrote, “Reality Bytes: Eight Myths about Video Games Debunked” in which he lists eight misconceptions about video games and the video game player community. Both articles above deal with the relevance of video games in today’s society and culture, but on a more specific approach, the zoom of their lens goes deeply into video game violence. The evidence shown by Gentile and Anderson provides links to aggression age groups and videogames while Jenkins provides educated explanations or myths about the video game community. Although Jenkins touches upon a link to aggression and videogames on his list he doesn’t address the issue to its entirety. Only three or four depending on one’s opinion, out of the eight myths deals with aggression as well as video games. Of those three, “Scientific Evidence Links Violent Game Play with Youth Aggression” seems to be a direct jab at the scientific studies rallied against game play, In these studies media images are moved from any narrative context. Subjects are asked To engage with content that they would not normally consume and ma not understand/ finally the laboratory context is radically different from the environments where games would normally be played most studies found a correlation not a causal relationship which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. (451) In this section Jenkins greatly weakens the evidence of Gentile and Anderson’s first two studies. However, Gentile and Anderson’s studies are supported only by the results of their subjects. There are no outside statistics or suggestions of possible repetition of said experiment. The sheer number of subjects in each study solidifies the study as acceptable but. Jenkins uses strategies for framing evidence such as presenting statistics, raw numbers, public records, personal opinions as well as the experience being co-author for Computer Games Magazine. Evidence for the aggression studies of the professors is the results of the subjects within those studies. Study one, led to the realization that, “What seems to matter is whether the players are practicing intentional harm to another character in the game.” (450) the games presented to the subjects that ranged from 9 to college student age, were selected randomly from non-violent to violent, suitable for the test taker’s age. Study two however showed that, “There was no apparent difference in the video game violence effect between boys and girls or adolescents with already aggressive attitudes” (450) This conclusion helps Jenkins claim that all these aggressive studies show that aggressive people enjoy aggressive environment, thus possibly proving The Violent Video Game Effect ineffective. As in Jenkins case, his citations, public records, statistics and numbers support each of his claims in which they are used, with the exception to Scientific Evidence Links Violent Game Play with youth aggression and Video Game Play is Desensitizing. The reason for such differing style of informing the reader about violence in video games and aggression seems to be based on their respective field of work. The psychology professors used studies and presented only their findings then recorded and reported them to inform the general public. Jenkins, gathered information that would strengthen his counter argument and cited his sources to give credit accordingly. As a life-long gamer, I can relate better to Jenkins’ point of view. Gentile and Anderson’s results doesn’t sit well due to the fact that the vast majority of gamers, realize that it is just a game. Maybe aggression is increased or created by the acts portrayed in the video game however; there is only so much a game creator, publisher and distributor can do. Parents should teach their children self-control and monitor what they play. Jenkins approach seemed a lot better at informing the reader the truth behind the relationship of aggression and videogames.