This one is not like the other Bandura essay I uploaded, as it includes both video games.
QUESTION: To what extent are video games harmful to society? Use Bandura’s media effects theory to explore the two video games you have studied.
To what extent are video games harmful to society? Use Bandura’s media effects
theory to explore the two video games you have studied.
Introduction:
Video games can vary in their genre and content. Different content will obviously impact
audiences differently. It can be proven that video games are beneficial in further progressing
a society, nonetheless, in extreme circumstances which happen more frequently than one
would like, video games can also be proven to be extremely harmful.
First Point: Attitudes
Paragraph One: View women as inferior and men as superior
Harmful attitudes may be adopted by audiences who play any game from the ‘Grand Theft
Auto’ franchise. In the study of ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (2013), players may develop the way of
thinking that females are inferior to the male gender. For instance, players are able to
purchase sexual acts performed by women which can be experienced in first-person
gameplay. After this, the players are given the option to kill the prostitute. To have this option
in the first place may encourage males to think that females only exist for their pleasure, and
once they are not needed, they can be discarded without a thought or consideration. Males,
particularly younger males who are not equipped to think critically, may come to believe that
they have the right to treat any women however they wish. It is the fact that you can kill the
prostitutes that compares females to animals from animal hunts, reinforcing the idea that
females are inferior in the same way that humans are the superior animal compared to the
rest of the animal kingdom.
To adopt this attitude is harmful to a society as it not only poses men as a threat to women
but also prevents women from thriving and achieving more than what they are believed to
achieve.
Bandura describes the idea of ‘retention process’, in which representations of behaviours
that are visually vivid or symbolically constructed will be retained for longer periods. Bandura
argues that medias which are encoded in a visually rich manner, or in ‘Grand Theft Auto V’
(2013)’s case, in a graphically detailed manner, the ability of affecting an individual is also
much richer. As a result, players of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ may be cultivated into thinking that it
is justified to kill a woman especially if she is a prostitute, as her life is worth barely anything.
To see how the act of killing is done may even become a dangerous fantasy of males.
Paragraph Two: Develop strong attitude
In the time that ‘Tomb Raider’ was released, Lara had become the first female character who
was not only strong and educated but also provided with the same privilege as a man. In a
cutscene of the ‘Tomb Raider’ (2013) reboot, Lara is seen recalling the moment when she is
on the ship discoursing with Dr. Whitman, an experienced yet arrogant male archaeologist
regarding which direction the ship should head. Bandura once stated that, ‘there is a large
body of research evidence showing that both children and adults can acquire attitudes… as
a result of observing filmed or televised models’. To see Lara standing up for herself against
a character who refuses to listen or understand her perspective, audiences may develop the
same or similar frustrated feeling as Lara, believing that Lara (or themselves) is correct.
Audiences may see themselves in Lara’s position and recall the times that they have been
dismissed.
However, to see Lara persist that her theory is more likely correct may also develop the a
strong and positive attitude towards one’s own capabilities, and consequently, individuals
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