Task 1 - Textual analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZ5tgjPVfU - GTA IV trailer 

Media language:

The shot that is used in the first screen capture is an establishing shot of the scenery, this shot allows us to see what the setting is like as a whole. Using a shot like this to start off the trailer is beneficial, as it straight away lets the audience see what they are in for and what is being offered to them in the game. 

Along with establishing shot there are also a lot of close ups and medium close ups that are used, this has been done as the intention is to either show something in more detail or to connote something. For example, one of the screen captures show a image of a male looking over the city, its a shot form behind the character showing half his face and the city. This shot connotes that the person being shown is going to be very important and the fact that he is over looking the city, further connotes that he is powerful, as it almost looks as if he has taken the city over and its all his. 

Another great shot is the medium low angle close up of one male offering a black male drugs. The focus of the shot is on the hand gesture of the black male and the male offering the drugs. I think that this is a very powerful that has been shown, as it shows the audience the corruption in the game and it also conforms to a stereotype that black males from the hood are in to drugs and violence, however if you analyse the shot its the opposite. The focus on the black males hand shows  that he refusing the drugs, and from the way he is dressed shows that he quite smart and probably a family man. 

This is another great aspect of GTA, that it shows a vast amount of stereotypes and racial stereotypes however they also contradict them in the same way. This shows the audience that GTA has these stereotypes, however they still know right from wrong. 
   
Institutions:

GTA is a Rockstar game, Rockstar have always been the institution behind 
GTA, they are the one and only company that have produced all of the GTA series and with GTA 5 they spent over £8 million on just promoting the game. They had released the trailer way 1 or 2 years before the game was anywhere near being finished, however this one of the main reasons why the game was so successful with sales, as millions of people knew about the game before it was released, thus when it came out everybody knew about it. 
3.6 million copies were sold with the first 24 hours of the game being released, coming to approximately $310 million (£194 million) in revenue within a week. 
Genre: 

The genre of GTA is a video game, however when playing the game it follows a narrative, it actually follows three different narratives as you have the option to play between three different people. The game in general is seen as being very violent and harmful, however i would disagree. When playing the game you get to see an aspect of the world from three different views; a rich family man, a struggling black male trying to become a success, and a crazy hill billy. From this I believe that people actually become more aware of how different people live in the world. However you still get the freedom to do what you want, but you still face the consequences e.g. when you steal, or kill someone the police come after you.   

Audience:

The audience for GTA is 18+ however a vast amount of young kids play the game. This may be due to that fact that the younger generation are more interested in these games and they generally have more time on their hands or is it that they get to find an escape to a world where they can be free and do whatever they desire. However the same can be said for the older generation 30+, as research has shown that more older than younger people tend to play the game. This again can relate back the theory of escape and freedom, as in the real world there are major consequences for what people do and there are a range of restrictions, whereas in games like GTA you can be whoever you want and do whatever you want. 

Social:

We are currently living in a low economical society, it means that spending is on a how time low, as people are more weary of how they spend their money. However people have still spent a lot of money on gaming. For the UK it was the fastest selling game of all time, it sold over 631,000 copies in just 24 hours and in the 5 day period that the game was available it sold over 927,000 copies. This shows that even though people are being very careful where they spend there money, they still have a need for gaming. This may be due to the fact they have can have a 'escape' or 'diversion' (Blumber & Kattz). It allows people to get away from the real world and play a life out of someone else, in this case they have three totally different lifestyles to choose from. We also live in a multicultural society, and England is one of the worlds most multicultural countries, this means that when media products are released they should be able to appeal to all of these (most of these) audiences. This can be seen in GTA V as they have created three characters in the game, each with their own separate lifestyle. This would appeal to the British market as people would be able to see the portrayal of real people in the game, thus making the game more life like and enjoyable.
Economical:

Economical factors that concern GTA V are that people think that games such as GTA V have a great affect on young kids that play the, as it causes them to behave violently and could lead to much more. However I disagree, as we are in an society where some parents/guardians may not know what the game is about and they would go and buy the game. And as business want to make profits they would sell the game to the parent knowing that its not suitable for the child. However as we are in low economical state, business need to make profits.
Political:

There are a range of political issues with the game, as a vast amount of people believe that the game has lead people to commit crimes and it increases the violence because of what is shown in the game. However I would disagree as although there is a vast amount of violence, sexism, and explicit content that has been shown, there are also other games that are much more outrageous with what is shown for example Mortal Kombat and Manhunt. Both of these games are very violent and the way the characters are shown being killed is far more explicit than anything shown in GTA. 

Media magazine

MM47 - pg.54

This article looks at how GTA has spent so much money they spent on the game, marketing and how much they made through sales. the release of GTA would make £1 billion in the first sale, but this was all due to the clever marketing and when it was marketed. GTA released the trailer to the game 2 years before the game was released, this was unusual as games are usually released a couple months or a year max before it is released, but GTA did something totally different.

Using the hashtag #GTAV, Rockstar started posting links to their website where they revealed the logo for the game, styled like a banknote, so as to give fans the first clues to the bank heist theme. The following day they posted a countdown to the trailer that was to be launched on 2nd November 2011. It was through small hints and clues like this that allowed GTA to get so many sales, whereas if they released the game without warning, they wouldn't have made as many sales as not many people would of known about the game. 

MM40 - pg.12

This article looks at "Play, Pleasure, and Panics" of gaming and films, reading the article it showed that there is a lot of explicit, violent, and sexual content across these platforms. This has been evident through games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. They have a range of different violent aspects such as killing, vast amounts of blood shown, torture.

For example, a shooting in Holland in April 2011 was linked to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and a French man retaliated against an in-game stabbing by actually stabbing his gaming opponent. Many research studies have been undertaken in this field. Some findings appear to suggest that games can heighten violent traits, normalise violent acts and can be a catalyst for violence when combined with other factors – personality disorders, environmental pressures etc. Ferguson’s study in the area states that media texts have a weaker level of influence than the other factors cited whereas Kooijmanns gives more credence to the direct influence of gaming on behaviour. Some see gaming quite differently; and there is an argument that violent games can relieve stress and dilute violent impulses as the player acts them out in a safe, non-destructive environment.

Dyer’s Utopian Solutions the first theory worth bringing to bear in unlocking what video games offer is Richard Dyer’s utopian solution theory. This has a relatively simple premise: entertainment texts offer audiences a utopian or perfect ideal that they can access through media consumption. This ‘utopia’ is in contrast to the imperfections and difficulties audiences face in their own social lives. In short, escapist texts offer quick wins and rewards that fix the gaps in our social and emotional needs. In real life, clear rewards are rare and much harder fought for.

According to Dyer, the predominantly male audience is offered an energetic escape from the sedentary lifestyles that most males are involved in their place of education or work. Likewise this allows male audiences a means of asserting dominance upon a virtual battlefield with their tactical movement and skill in handling virtual weaponry. The rewarding of this dominant and physically capable behaviour is a means of the audience becoming the most masculine male they can be. This is a form of masculine self-actualisation.

Rockstar’s Manhunt was banned in Australia, New Zealand and Germany for the charge of sensationalising violence and indulging torture – but what authorities missed was the game’s Orwellian temper, with an omnipresent dictator (an ex-film director) forcing the player through a series of ‘scenes’ for his snuff film. The repugnant acts of violence, rated on a 1-5 scale for audience satisfaction, is clearly mocking of a Big Brother culture, and the game’s bleak social commentary means that the violence is supposed to be barbaric – our emotional investment depends on it. Largely misunderstood, the game was even removed from UK GAME shelves in 2004 when it was implicated in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah – recalling the earlier blame of Child’s Play 3 (Bender, 1991) in the torture and murder of James Bulger.

All of the above articles are from Rockstar Games, Rockstar Games are the company that are also behind GTA, as they have been part of many games that have had a negative or have been very explicit in what they show, could show a trend between the violent games that are released and who is releasing them. On the other hand, as Rockstar Games have been a successful business for so long they know what their customers want in games, thus they have reason to release, such as GTA and Manhunt. 

MM40 - pg.28 

Conventional media theory such as Blumler &Katz’s uses and gratifications theory provide rather broad ideas about how fictional texts offer escapism for their audiences, transporting them to a different emotional place and diverting them from the mundanity of their real lives.

When the experience is taken online, players can take their virtual selves online and achieve real-world dominance over their friends in a virtual environment. One of the reason why computer games are popular with the parents of gamers is the safety of masculine expression it offers their children, compared to the dangers of old fashioned group play from days gone by – boys used to play 20-a-side football in the street back in the 1950s – it’s nothing new. In this way, online play is offering communal activity in an increasingly fragmented society.

Maslow’s Hierarchy a second theory that offers insight into the needs of video game audiences is the consideration of the human needs of the audience as outlined by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. In Western society most of our ‘lower order’ needs are met: we have food, shelter, we are healthy and we have the support of our families. However, the upper two categories of self-actualisation (becoming the best we can be) and the resulting self-esteem and praise by others can only be met by individual action and achievement of socially recognised goals. As we explore each genre of games in turn, we will see how computer games offer audiences ways to access these needs easily through play.Now we have some tools to use, we can apply these to the experiences offered by some of the most successful gaming genres that have dominated the market over the last few years.

totorial post

1) update proposal - add in linked production and the new title.

2) Research audience effects, and add theories. Thoroughly look at both sides of the argument.  

3) How does it fit in to ETA franchise? Conventions used (genre). 

4) Many more examples of racist stereotypes needed. Analyse using media language. 

5) 

6) Historical - history of video games. How does GTA 5 fit in. other examples that caused moral panics. 

7) Stereotyping - research the theory of stereotypes (not just racial stereotypes). 

8) Economical - industry data, research Rockstar Games, and the gaming industry. 

9) More detail on issues and debates - link to text. 

10) More audiences and books needed. 

Notes & Quotes - GTA V

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/10312420/GTA-5-the-violence-debate.html

- debate on whether GTA is too violent and the effect it has.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2428024/PETER-HITCHENS-GTA-V-If-Devil-invent-game-one.html
- The evil of gaming

http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-franklin-conspiracy-why-gamers-decided-the-police-in-gt
- Racist police in GTA

GTA is thought to be a game that is violent,racist and sexist and to a high extent it is, however this is done as this is what the GTA audience expect from the game. They want a place where they can have the freedom that they cannot experience in real life, for example going and killing random people in the most ridiculous way possible, or going to a strip club and getting a lap dance. These are the conventions that the audience of GTA expect form the game. However with that being said a vast majority of people (parents) are concerned about their children and the values that they learn from games such as GTA, and there have been cases where games like GTA have been blamed for the cause of terrible situations. Bur I would personally blame the upbringing of the person and the morals and values that they have been taught, as most people are taught right from wrong and they know that what they witness in video games and movies is fiction and that none of it should be rein-acted in any form.

Also the gamers that play GTA don't think of people differently just because of how they have been portrayed within a game e.g. they don't think that ll females are hookers because that's how they've seen them in GTA. Or that all black males are thugs.

The budget of GTA 5 was £170 million. When producing the game the producers would have put in a vast amount of thought, in to what extent they would want the game to be racist, sexist, stereotypical or misogynistic. Thus I think that they have done this as it's what they're audience wants from the game, as this is what they have experienced in GTA games before, thus they expect a consistency through the series.



This is a image of from GTA of a perfume that is made for females, as you can see it says, "smell like a bitch" some people (feminist) will see this as misogynistic. However this is 'tongue and cheek humour' which it's mocking something in order to create humour, 
however this humour may only be seen by the audience that you would associate with GTA. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpJGkG1g-Lk

This is one reason to why women may think that they aren't represeted fairly in games such as GTA, one being that most game developers are males, thus they create a game which will be male dominated and they will make females look sexy and they will show them with less power and as sex objects. Just as in a women's magazine you wont find anything very manly, you'll see images of females in bikinis or how to get a flat stomach. This is because they editors of these magazines are mainly going to be women, thus they give their audience what they want. Just as this GTA have done the same thing and giving the audience what they want.
http://www.giantbomb.com/mortal-kombat/3030-15743/

Games have always consisted of some sort of sexism and a high content of violence. For example Mortal Kombat, was one of the goriest fighting games that was made during 1992, with it signature killer finishing moves, that involved characters being torn apart or burnt or killed in a horrific way. The game also only had 1 female character, Sonya Blade even her finishing moves were made mildly sexual, one move was when she grabbed her victim with her legs and through them across, and her finisher was the kiss of death, were she blows a kiss which turns into a fireball and incinerates her victim.

The first time my brother allowed me to play Mario Kart with him on his Nintendo 64, I immediately selected Princess Peach as my player character. Peach’s shiny hair, princess gloves, and pink dress made me feel as though there was a character just for me in what my brother had made seem was a game just for boys. But as I played the game more I stopped selecting Princess Peach- or any female character. Through strings of losses I learned that my brothers masculine characters, just as they appeared, were in fact faster and more powerful than the feminine characters I was choosing.

Choosing Princess Peach based on her appearance was not an uneducated decision on my part; in versus games in which the operator selects a character based solely on the images presented on the character selection screen, it makes sense for the appearance of each character to represent their personality and skillset and therefore video game designers costume their characters with an appearance or accessories that reflect their unique abilities.

Even with games that have female characters, they aren't shown on the same level as the males, prime example in the article above. The Princess Peach character is much less powerful in the game, and she doesn't have the same ability as the male characters. Has this been done because she's female? Well no, as in Mario Princess Peach is the more vulnerable character, thus in the game she has been portrayed in the exact same way, whereas Donkey Kong is much more powerful in Mario, thus in the game he is also shown as being very powerful.
http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games

this is a article on the positives of gaming within young kids, Cognitive researcher Daphne Bavalier talks about the effects of video games and some of the possible effects that are said to be forced upon people when playing games, for example playing video games has a negative effect on your eyesight, when in fact it has a positive effect as it can improve the smaller details that you see. Another one is that playing games such as GTA and Call Of Duty have negative effects on young people. When after conducting many different runs, it was found that playing games like GTA and COD (call of duty) actually helped you increase certain skills that you can not learn easily through everyday life.

Some of these consisted of:

o Quick thinking, making fast analysis and decisions. Sometimes the player does this almost every second of the game giving the brain a real workout. According to researchers at the University of Rochester, led by Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive scientist, games simulating stressful events such as those found in battle or action games could be a training tool for real-world situations. The study suggests that playing action video games primes the brain to make quick decisions.

o Accuracy - Action games, according to a study by the University of Rochester, train the player's brain to make faster decisions without losing accuracy.

o Strategy and anticipation - Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, calls this "telescoping." The gamer must deal with immediate problems while keeping his long-term goals on his horizon.

o Situational awareness - – Defense News reported that the Army include video games to train soldiers to improve their situational awareness in combat. Many strategy games also require the player to become mindful of sudden situational changes in the game and adapt accordingly.

o Developing reading and math skills – The young gamer reads to get instructions, follow storylines of games, and get information from the game texts. Also, using math skills is important to win in many games that involves quantitative analysis like managing resources.

o Perseverance – In higher levels of a game, the player usually fails the first time around, but he keeps on trying until he succeeds and move on to the next level.

o Pattern recognition – Games have internal logic in them, and the player figures it out by recognizing patterns.

o Inductive reasoning and hypothesis testing - James Paul Gee, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that playing a video game is similar to working through a science problem. Like a student in a laboratory, the gamer must come up with a hypothesis. For example, the gamer must constantly try out combinations of weapons and powers to use to defeat an enemy. If one does not work, he changes hypothesis and try the next one. Video games are goal-driven experiences, says Gee, which are fundamental to learning.

o Mapping – The gamer use in-game maps or build maps on his head to navigate around virtual worlds.

o Memory - Playing first person shooter games such as Call of Duty and Battlefield series enables the player to effectively judge what information should be stored in his working memory and what can be discarded considering the task at hand, according to a study published in the Psychological Research.

o Concentration - A study conducted by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory reveal that children with attention-deficit disorder who played Dance Dance Revolution improve their reading scores by helping them concentrate.

o Improved ability to rapidly and accurately recognize visual information - A study from Beth Israel Medical Center NY, found a direct link between skill at video gaming and skill at keyhole, or laparoscopic, surgery. 

o Reasoned judgments 

o Taking risks - Winning in any game involves a player's courage to take risks. Most games do not reward players who play safely. 

o How to respond to challenges 

o How to respond to frustrations 

o How to explore and rethink goals 

o Teamwork and cooperation when played with others – Many multiplayer games such as Team Fortress 2 involve cooperation with other online players in order to win. These games encourage players to make the most of their individual skills to contribute to the team. According to a survey by Joan Ganz Cooney Center, teachers report that their students become better collaborators after using digital games in the classroom.

o Management – Management simulation games such as Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo tycoon teach the player to make management decisions and manage the effective use of finite resources. Other games such as Age of Empires and Civilization even simulate managing the course of a civilization.

o Simulation, real world skills. The most well known simulations are flight simulators, which attempt to mimic the reality of flying a plane.

Books 

The Meaning and Culture of "Grand Theft Auto": Critical Essays

http://www.techdigest.tv/2006/12/top_10_things_y.html

This is a book on GTA as a game and what people think of it, then it tells you about the real facts of the game. they talk about different aspects of the game, such as; "Tommy and CJ always exist as a co-constructed semiotic event prompted by the game narrative and player perception of prominent signs during game play. It could be argued that the biomechanical nature of signification during game-play… which is grounded in the computerized and structural nature of the game, exists in a dialectic tension with the social nature of signification…” - from ‘Positioning and Creating the Semiotic Self in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ essay by John A. Unger and Karla V. Kingsley

Jacked: The unauthorized behind-the-scenes story of Grand Theft Auto

"Thompson pops up throughout the book, but there are other lengthy digressions with tenuous links to Grand Theft Auto. A chapter is given over to the story of two teenage stepbrothers who decided one night to shoot at passing cars with their parent's rifle. They killed one man and seriously injured others. When arrested, one said that GTA3 may have given them the idea. Though this incident could be a starting point for enquiring into the nature of video game violence and copycat crimes, its treatment here is relentlessly soft-focus. The story tails off with no-one able to make any sense of the whole thing, least of all Kushner. There's no attempt to analyse, and really there's no story - just a family tragedy, bulking out a book on Rockstar."
Stereotypes in the game. 

Females are vain and overly concerned with their looks. Society is painting womankind with one large make-up brush. It is ironic because the majority of the messages prioritizing appearance for women come from the media. Sure, their are some ladies with an unhealthy preoccupation with their looks, but in actuality, more women are moved by worthy causes like caring for their family and community.

They are weak. Women can be quite tough. Unfortunately, womanhood has been labeled “the weaker sex.” How many men could endure hours of pain as their nether regions are being torn open? Some call it torture; women know it as child-birth. Studies have even found that a woman’s perception of pain may be stronger than a man’s.

Women are emotional. Yes, we may have been raised to embrace tears instead of fearing them. Have you ever heard a parent telling a little girl to stop crying or suck it up? Although, despite popular opinion, a 1998 study at Vanderbuilt University found that women and men express the same degree of emotion. The only difference is that women are more likely to express that emotion through outward cues, like facial expressions.
These are some of the stereotypes that are portrayed 

Dyer’s Utopian Solutions the first theory worth bringing to bear in unlocking what video games offer is Richard Dyer’s utopian solution theory. This has a relatively simple premise: entertainment texts offer audiences a utopian or perfect ideal that they can access through media consumption. This ‘utopia’ is in contrast to the imperfections and difficulties audiences face in their own social lives. In short, escapist texts offer quick wins and rewards that fix the gaps in our social and emotional needs. In real life, clear rewards are rare and much harder fought for.

According to Dyer, the predominantly male audience is offered an energetic escape from the sedentary lifestyles that most males are involved in their place of education or work. Likewise this allows male audiences a means of asserting dominance upon a virtual battlefield with their tactical movement and skill in handling virtual weaponry. The rewarding of this dominant and physically capable behaviour is a means of the audience becoming the most masculine male they can be. This is a form of masculine self-actualisation.

Rockstar’s Manhunt was banned in Australia, New Zealand and Germany for the charge of sensationalising violence and indulging torture – but what authorities missed was the game’s Orwellian temper, with an omnipresent dictator (an ex-film director) forcing the player through a series of ‘scenes’ for his snuff film. The repugnant acts of violence, rated on a 1-5 scale for audience satisfaction, is clearly mocking of a Big Brother culture, and the game’s bleak social commentary means that the violence is supposed to be barbaric – our emotional investment depends on it. Largely misunderstood, the game was even removed from UK GAME shelves in 2004 when it was implicated in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah – recalling the earlier blame of Child’s Play 3 (Bender, 1991) in the torture and murder of James Bulger.

All of the above articles are from Rockstar Games, Rockstar Games are the company that are also behind GTA, as they have been part of many games that have had a negative or have been very explicit in what they show, could show a trend between the violent games that are released and who is releasing them. On the other hand, as Rockstar Games have been a successful business for so long they know what their customers want in games, thus they have reason to release, such as GTA and Manhunt.