Coursework draft

How far does the 1^st person shooter genre affect the attitudes and behaviour of people?

The first person shooter genre is a genre that has had a lot of controversy surrounding it over the past years, mainly due to the concerns that it may affect the way others are acting. But how does this genre affect people who play it and is it in a positive or negative way?

The 1^st person shooter genre has not only been used for entertainment but research into whether they can teach players to shoot more accurately when using a real gun. In America the military and police already use video games to improve shooting accuracy so researchers at Ohio State University decided to test it on college students. In their study they wanted to test the theory “Can violent video games train a person to shoot a gun?” they tested this on 151 college students. Students played one of the three video games being used in the test for 20 minutes: a violent shooting game with humanoid targets that rewarded headshots (e.g. Resident Evil 4), a nonviolent shooting game with bull’s eye targets (e.g. the target practice game in Wii Play), or a nonviolent, non shooting game (e.g. Super Mario Galaxy).  Those who played a shooting game used either a standard controller or a gun-shaped controller. Afterwards, they had to fire 16 shots at a life-size mannequin 20 feet (6.1 meters) away using an air soft training pistol.                                                                                                                          The results showed that players who used a pistol-shaped controller in a violent, shooting video game had 99% more head shots and 33% more other shots compared to other players. The players were not told to aim for the head, but they did it naturally because they were rewarded points for headshots in the game they played.

However this does not show that people who play more video games are more likely to fire a gun at others and instead indicates they can improve your hand-eye coordination meaning the results have a good impact rather than bad. Nonetheless the results do indicate that if they were to fire a gun at someone else they would fire more accurately which is more likely to result in a death, this certainly implies that 1st person shooter video games are a powerful “weapon” to teach or increase skills potentially increasing the use of dangerous weapons.

“But are video games really the villains in our violent age?”

On April 20^th 1999, two seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 fellow students and 1 teacher and injured a further 20 in their high school in Littleton, Colorado in a video they claimed they used the violent shooter game “Doom” to practice their shooting rampage. However they were also described at school to be socially isolated and they hated school and its jock culture which would soon prove to be a deadly common bond.

There has been a rise in dramatically violent shootings and attacks by teenagers, many of whom are said to play violent video games, this is helping the argument that video game violence translates into real world situations. But other people aren't convinced and insist that video games are a scapegoat for a shocking social trend that has people scared and looking to place blame. Entertainment media has always made a great scapegoat.

In July of 2011, Anders Breivik killed 77 people at a political youth camp on the island of Utoya. In court, Breivik stated that he used holographic aiming technology and the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to practice his aiming skills. He said that “(The gaming device) is built up in such a way that you could have given it to your grandmother and she would have been a super marksman.”

That being said, video games did not appear to be his motive to go on his shooting spree, but merely his training device. He had written a manifesto claiming to have ties to the Knights Templar, giving him religious motive. He said his attacks were to stop the “Islamisation” of Norway. He killed these people merely because he did not agree with their opinions. Breivik is currently serving a 21-year sentence for his crimes.

However surely for these serious acts of violence to take place the assailant would have to have had a form of mental health disorder or a specific personality trait that when triggered may cause someone to be so violent. The violent video games have been referred to as a “Murder Simulator” but complete blame cannot be put on a videogame.         

                                                            

For instance, a 2010 study published in the "Review of General Psychology," reviewed past studies that reported ties between violent games and violent responses. The researchers found the subjects most deeply affected by violent game play were those who showed personality traits that demonstrated psychoticism, which include lack of empathy, nonconformity and impulsiveness. People who fit this model tend to see violence as an appropriate response to social conflict.

There is so much controversy surrounding games such as Call of duty or Halo but not games that have hidden potential violence such as the Sims? The Sims follows real life situations as you take care of a created family. But you can decide to not take care of your family and do things such as starving them to death. This may give people an exaggerated sense of power and control. Due to the realism of The Sims by not feeding them your Sims will show how they are suffering, by waving to get your attention or groaning in pain. You can even watch your Sims burn alive, shouting for help but in Call of Duty signs of pain during death are pretty much invisible. According to Gamespot as of 2010, The Sims franchise has sold more than 125 million copies worldwide and Call Of Duty having sold 175 million copies.

So why do we focus primarily on the violence in the shooter genre?

Perhaps it’s because any attacks on people where a videogame has been accused tend to be blamed on games in the shooter or action genre. It could be because the main objective is to kill as many enemies as possible. But if those enemies are also holding guns, trying to kill you would that not teach people to only use guns in a self-defence situation? In the American constitution the 2^nd Amendment is “the right to keep and bear arms”, but this is dependent on how an individual perceives this law. Some may identify it as having the right to defend yourself others may look at the amendment and recognize it as a way to eradicate responsibility from their actions.

Younger people are more likely to be affected by the violence in these games. Young people can be influenced easier because they aren’t completely set on what they believe is right or wrong. Media violence can lead to aggressive behavior in children, this is supported by research that states that when a child hits the age of 18, he/she must have seen about 200,000 acts of violence on television alone. Young children become desensitized to the real world violence. They cannot easily tell the difference between real life and fantasy so the violent images they see on television and in the movies may seem real to them.

I understand that this genre of videogame may affect someone if they are a child and they play these games constantly as they progress into their teenage years as they might start to believe what they’re seeing is right but this doesn’t in any way mean they will go on a shooting rampage. Video games have age ratings and if parents still allow their young children to play 18 rated games is it really the game developers fault if the child decides to follow the same path as the game’s protagonist?

The future of gaming stands with the Oculus Rift (2016) and Sony’s Project Morpheus. They’ve been created to put the player in the games and let them be in the virtual reality that would usually be on the TV or computer screen. Both these devices are headsets that cover your eyes and as you turn your head every part of the room you are standing in becomes the game. When the Oculus rift is connected to the Oculus touch it enables the game to follow your hand movements placing you further inside of the game. Will the real life experience of shooting your opponents transfer into the everyday lives of the players? Or will it simply give you a more fascinating experience?

After watching a Documentary; BBC’s Horizon: Are video games really that bad? I got an idea for my primary research. There was one experiment in particular that interested me and was easy to carry out at home.  Dr Andrew Przybylski a ‘research fellow’ who specialises in Psychology of motivation (What makes us act the way we do) at Oxford University and his colleagues investigated what other emotions were triggered in a videogame to cause aggression, the method was simple and could be done at home so I chose some subjects and tested it on them. 20 people took part and were a variety of different ages, genders and class. I used two different games to test this Super Mario Land; the typical well known Mario game and Unfair Mario; a hidden trap is in the game nearly every other move. Half of the participants played unfair Mario. Before they played each participant had to immerse their hand in ice cold water for 20 seconds. After playing the participants were asked how long the other players should hold their hands in the water for and on average the players who played Unfair Mario suggested an extra 5 seconds than those who played Super Mario. The response of increased aggression couldn’t have anything to do with violence. My responses were similar to Przybylski’s which helped me understand his theory that frustration was the emotion to trigger the aggression.  

To conclude I don’t think violent crimes can be blamed on a game because the video game didn’t tell them to go out and kill and I don’t think video games can alter the way people think drastically. If someone commits a heinous crime of murder they must have thought about doing it in the past, the video game may have been the trigger but it certainly wasn’t the enforcer. As mentioned earlier personality traits will alter the way people think after seeing something violent. Video games are an easy scapegoat as a motive for a crime but really the only crime video games have committed is to help improve accuracy, whether the player uses this for the benefit of their coordination or to practice real life shooting is no fault of the game.

News Article 20

More than 12 Million fall into UK digital skills gap

Over 12 million people, and a million small businesses in the UK do not have the skills to prosper in the digital era. That is the warning today from Go.On UK, a charity set up to promote digital skills.

It has produced what it calls a digital exclusion heatmap, pinpointing the areas where people are most likely to miss out on the digital revolution. There is bad news for Wales where over a third of the population do not have the five basic digital skills as defined by the charity. But London, Scotland and East Anglia, come top of the league with over 80% of people having those skills.

The map also shows that men are less likely to be digitally disadvantaged than women, with 80% having the necessary skills as compared to 74% of women. What are these five skills, without which we are unfit for the digital future? Well if you can manage information, communicate, make payments, solve problems, and create stuff online then you are in good shape.

A survey of over 4,000 people nationwide to assess their skills, coupled with data about education, income, health and internet access, have all helped build the exclusion heatmap. The BBC, with its Make It Digital project, is among the institutions backing the map.

Where skills are lacking, poverty and a lack of infrastructure are part of the story. Wales has the lowest levels of internet access and places like Merthyr Tydfil are amongst the poorest in the UK.

But the charity says the UK isn't doing too badly compared with other countries when it comes to broadband availability, and in our use of mobile devices we are ahead of many of our rivals. So you might think that a country which has taken to online shopping and social media with feverish enthusiasm would also be a leader in digital skills. But it seems that we are a little below average compared with OECD rivals, and well behind countries like Japan, Finland and the Netherlands.

News Article 19

Donald Trump: "I Would prevented 9/11"

Donald Trump says he's not blaming George W. Bush for 9/11, but he claims that if he'd been president, the attacks never would have happened. In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," the real estate mogul said that since he's "extremely, extremely tough on immigration" the attackers wouldn't have been in position to commandeer U.S. flights. "So there's a good chance that those people would not have been in our country," Trump said.

He took another shot at Jeb Bush for claiming that Bush's brother, the 43rd president, kept the nation safe. "I'm not blaming George Bush," Trump said. "But I don't want Jeb Bush to say, 'My brother kept us safe,' because September 11 was one of the worst days in the history of this country." It wasn't just on the Sunday shows that Trump attacked Bush over his brother's tenure.

On Twitter, as the "Fox News Sunday" interview aired, Trump tweeted: "Jeb, why did your brother attack and destabalize the Middle East by attacking Iraq when there were no weapons of mass destruction? Bad info?" He also tweeted: "Jeb Bush should stop trying to defend his brother and focus on his own shortcomings and how to fix them."

Bush is pushing back against the criticism, which Trump has made repeatedly in recent days. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday, Bush defended his brother's presidency.

"My brother responded to a crisis, and he did it as you would hope a president would do. He united the country, he organized our country and he kept us safe. And there's no denying that. The great majority of Americans believe that," he said.

"And I don't know why he keeps bringing this up. It doesn't show that he's a serious person as it relates to being commander in chief and being the architect of a foreign policy," Bush added.

I think that this was a stupid comment that Trump made that had no reasoning behind it. He says it's wouldn't have happened had he had been president and he wouldnt' have let the immigrants in the country, but the people that committed this terrible crime aren't just immigrants are are terrorists making me think it couldn't have been avoided. I personally think Trump is trying to implicitly but the blame of 9/11 on Bush but doesn't want to say it outright. 

New British Shorts

When we went to the BFI film festival we watched a series of short films all made by different directors and producers and all following a different narrative and mostly using a different genre. My favourite film was Alicia Macdonld’s Romantic comedy ‘Otherwise Engaged’ because it looked at how social media changes our lives and affects how we react to things. I felt I could relate because being a teenager in the 21^st century I have witnessed similar activities to what happened in the film. I felt the film was made better because it was a comedy and it made me realise how unusual these actions are especially straight after an engagement. I also thoroughly enjoyed the first film that was shown to us which was Caroline Bartleet’s Drama ‘Operator’. I liked this film because it was incredibly tense and really captured my attention, it was also based around a phone call Bartleet had heard which made it more intriguing because it was partially based on a true story.

All the film makers took a different approach to making their films so it was interesting to hear how they made them and the difficulties they had whilst creating them. I was quite surprised about their budgets with none being particularly high and this inspired me to think that I can also create a good film on a low budget. I really enjoyed some elements from the film such as in ‘Otherwise Engaged’ one of the characters ‘Megan’ had her music playing and the music quietened whenever the camera was facing away from her which I felt was really effective. These shorts films also helped me to think about a range of ideas for my short film I will be making for the film coursework. The shots they used made me further think about how the shots are used to show different things.

News Article 18

Ankara Attacks: Turkey in mourning as blast kills over 100

Thousands of Turkish citizens gathered in central Ankara a day after twin bombings targeted a peace rally in the city, killing over a hundred civilians in an attack that demonstrators and mourners blamed squarely on the government of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Witnesses and victims’ families, as well as opposition parties, ascribed direct responsibility to the government for allegedly failing to provide any security measures ahead of the peace rally, saying police officers who arrived at the scene after the bombing fired tear gas at grieving families who rushed there to inquire about their loved ones.

They also blamed Erdoğan’s government for allegedly sowing chaos ahead of next month’s parliamentary polls, either to delay the elections and retain power for his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), or to increase his chances of securing a broader majority in the elections to maintain security.

“We are grieving, we are saddened, but we are also furious,” the Kurdish opposition leader, Selahattin Demirtas, told a rally in Sihhiye Square in central Ankara. “We will struggle, fight, and win back the democracy.” Demonstrators shouted slogans condemning the Turkish president, chanting “chief and murderer Erdoğan” and “death to fascism”.

Brief scuffles earlier broke out as police used teargas to prevent people from laying red carnations at the site of the attack, the deadliest terrorist strike on Turkish soil in recent history. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic party (HDP) said said some members of its delegation sustained injuries. According to the HDP, the number of people killed in the bombing stands at 128, all but eight of whom have been identified and their names published by the HDP’s crisis desk.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, and the government has denied any part in it. The prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, cited the political upheaval in both Turkey and Syria and said the attack could have been carried out by Islamic State, Kurdish militants or radical leftist groups.

If this act of violence was another terrorist attack carried out by the Islamic state I think this terrible event just backs up the idea that all the countries should be working together to defeat IS. These attacks have gone on too long to the point where nobody feels safe in their own country, fearing something terrible could happen when you're in a certain place.  

Kingsman and Skyfall Comparison

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a 2014 action comedy directed by Matthew Vaughn and written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn and Skyfall is a 2012 action thriller film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Neal Purvis, it is the 23^rd instalment of the Bond series. These films have many similar and different themes and conventions throughout but both come under the same sub-genre of spy movie but are portrayed quite differently. Kingsman is about a spy organisation that recruits an unrefined street kid into the agency’s training program, Skyfall on the other hand follows the narrative of most James Bond films; Bond must track down and destroy the threat after M’s past comes back to haunt her.

The most noticeable difference is the way the spy’s are portrayed in these films. In Skyfall the film has a very serious tone following the typical conventions of a classic spy film whereas Kingsman has a tone that it a lot more relaxed with conventions of comedy featured, however Kingsman may also be seen more as a spoof of spy movies as a lot of the typical features e.g. a mastermind villain is made fun of and shown as a joke. Also a feature of mise-en-scene used similarly in both is costume. The agents in both films are shown to wear suits, which is shown to be a feature of superiority. This links into the theme of masculinity as only the men in the films are shown to wear suits. Masculinity is a strong theme in both films.

Masculinity is a strong theme because both of the protagonists are males and the villains both of which are trying to save or change the world. Masculinity is more so shown throughout Skyfall rather than Kingsman which does show masculinity but the males are far from being the only ones able to fight and defend themselves. In Kingsman some stereotypical traits of masculinity are put into the female characters as well as the males. Both Bond (Daniel Craig) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth) are shown to represent the dominant ideology, white, middle class, middle aged, straight males.

Valentine played by Samuel L Jackson (the evil genius) has an assistant Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) who is not only female but is also disabled with blades for legs which is incredibly useful when trying to take over the world. Gazelle features in the only big fight scene between two people, she faces the protagonist Eggsy (Taron Egerton). She is shown to be incredibly strong and difficult to beat with her unbelievable skills in martial arts, and although defeated she fights very well in order to protect Valentine, this is certainly unusual for an action film; the female protects the male so here Vaughn has played on gender stereotypes and decides to make the female the protector. The representation of Gazelle also shows disability in a positive light implying the can do things just as well as someone with no disabilities. Also during the Kingsman training Eggsy meets fellow trainee Roxy (Sophie Cookson) who although against all males but one comes out on top and is chosen to be the new Lancelot. In Skyfall the one woman who was out on the field Eve (Naomie Harris) makes a fatal mistake presumably killing 007 in the beginning, by the end of the film she has given up on wanting to be on the field and instead stays in the office to work by line said by Bond “If it helps, I feel a lot safer” this shows how females are seen as incapable and in this particular film a danger in this line of work.

However the theme of masculinity in women is also contradicted in some cases as in both films particularly Skyfall the women are sexualised. Bond is shown in a few scene to be having sexual relations with different women. The first woman he left as soon as he heard MI6 were in danger and quickly moved on to a new woman as soon as he was put onto a new mission all while still flirting with Eve. The film never shows you what happen to these women except Eve which shows how women are sexual objects to the men for when they want to be entertained. The one scene in Kingsman is the end scene when Eggsy approaches a kidnapped princess to have anal sex after she says “If you save the world, we can do it in the asshole”, the end shot of the film is a shot of the Princess’s arse which was surprising and inappropriate since throughout the film all the females are shown in a positive light so it was quite disappointing to see them change the tone so quickly. 

News article 17

Oregon shooting: Gunman was student in class where he killed 9

The man identified as Chris Mercer who gunned down nine people at an Oregon community college was enrolled in the class where the fatal shootings occurred, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Friday.

Investigators found 13 firearms connected to shooter, Celinez Nunez of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said:

"Five pistols and one rifle were found at the college, where the shooter died Thursday after a gunbattle with police", Nunez told reporters.

Police searched his apartment and found two pistols, four rifles and a shotgun, she said.

"All the guns were legally obtained by the shooter or family members over the last three years through a federally licensed firearms dealer, she said. A flak jacket was found next to a rifle at the school with five magazines of ammunition", Nunez said, "and additional ammunition was found at the residence."

Authorities are not providing a motive for America's latest mass killing. The gunman went to the college in rural south Oregon heavily armed and wearing body armour, authorities’ said. Two of the people killed were members of the local EMS and fire department "family," Douglas County Fire District No. 2 Chief Greg Marlar said. Sen. Jeff Merkley said one of his cousins was killed at the school. "This is a small town and everyone is affected," he said.

Stacy Boylan, the father of Anastasia Boylan, who was wounded, said she told him the gunman singled out Christians.

She said the gunman entered her classroom firing, told the professor teaching the class, "I've been waiting to do this for years," and shot him point blank, Stacy Boylan said. "While reloading his handgun, the man ordered the students to stand up and asked whether they were Christians", Boylan told her family.

"And they would stand up, and he said, 'Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second,' "Stacy Boylan told CNN, relaying his daughter's account. "And then he shot and killed them."

In my opinion I just can’t believe another terrible college shooting has occurred. When events like this happen it really makes me annoyed that America have not yet changed their gun laws, there is always talk about the change but the change has no yet commenced. The problem with everyone having a right to bear arms is that some people use this law for bad things to happen such as this event and nothing can stop it. I feel great sympathy for all the victims of this crime and their families both young and old. R.I.P.