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Art-Void
Hired Hero
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posted March 03, 2009 11:43 PM |
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Moral Panic
A few days ago I found an old essay that I wrote during my final year at the university. The essay was about Moral panic or criticism of a new media phenomenon in the Swedish public debate. It is interesting to see today's sometimes harsh criticism on computer games from a historical perspective. I hope that some of you will sheer your thoughts and experience of the debate elsewhere in the world. My thoughts here are not the original paper, The essay was only the basis for how I came into this topic.
It seems like it's rare for a month to go by without a story appearing in the popular press in which the frequent enjoyment of violent games by today's youth is linked to a specific violent act. Behind the press reports, the academic community has been engaged in a hot debate over whether the evidence supports a connection between the violent content of games and any behavioural effects.
The majority of individuals critical of video games are above the age of 35, mainly by parents’ organizations, psychologists and politicians. The funny part is that they oftentimes admit to not having directly experienced the games. It is worrying how both politicians and the media criticize an entire generation of choice of culture.
Most definitions of moral panic suggest it occurs when large segments of society uncritically blame a phenomenon for undermining their society's order. Violent games act as a "folk devil”, allowing society to assign blame in a case where the root causes of an issue actually are a component of the society's order.
This quote is from an article in The New Zealand Herald.
"Superintendent Bill Harrison, national manager of police youth services, says youth violence rates have jumped in the past two or three years throughout the Western world, coinciding with the rise of new products such as the Xbox".
In response I found this funny quote on another website from Matta, New York.
“The Iraq war was started because G. W. lost a match of Counter-Strike!”
Christopher Ferguson draws an analogy to food allergies, writing that violent games "could be arguably synonymous to peanut butter: a perfectly harmless indulgence for the vast majority, but potentially harmful to a tiny minority".
The violent games are not alone to be pointed out as the worst threat to younger people’s development of right and wrongs. Before the games we had a long debate about the potentially harmful video. The new media was heavily criticized in Sweden, foremost by the movie "Chainsaw Massacre" (1974). The violent elements created headlines all over the Swedish media landscape.
Some of you may have heard the expression “Stockholm syndrome”. The syndrome was first named by Nils Bejerot, well known Swedish psychiatrist and criminologist. Anyway this, so called, intelligent man had even some things to say about comics in the early 50’s. I don’t know if there is a English word for what he called “ett mentalhygienskt problem” (literally translated to English: “a mental hygienic problem”). The problem according to Bejerot was that comics provoked violent behaviour and made young people illiterate.
"After 30 years the problem still remains. We responsible people must take the fight against cultural degradation, especially amongst the young people of today". This point of view was written in the early 80’s and is still popular amongst Swedish “cultural police”. Some people never learn from history 
Over the years, comic book genre, music, video and computer games suffered a lot of scathing criticism from the cultural police. However, there is no obvious quantitative evidence that can be present to confirm that the ethical and moral criticism that has been can be defined as a moral panic. It might as well be called criticism of a new media phenomenon.
Marshall McLuhan argues that the first comic books that came out in the thirties was neither coherent nor literary, but they were easy to understand attracted many young people. The elderly, who never could understand that a comic book can be as interesting as a surrealist art exhibition, was hardly ready to realize that the comics was as exotic as illuminate manuscripts from 700's. When they do not understand anything of the genre, they could hardly discern something of the content or sentence. Abuse and violence was the only thing they seemed to notice. With its naive literary logic, they expect a deluge of violence. Or, they claimed that the actual crime was due to the comics.
Much of the criticism of the media has been uninformed and attacks misguided. In some cases a little more than an outbreak of irritation and anger at the situation, in which media products are used as scapegoats 
Each time a moral panic occurs it brings discussions about what is right and wrong. What is morally correct and what is not? It is in this spirit that we can understand and see the positive aspects of the moral panic. They question the community we live in, what ethical and moral rules we want to live for. Thus, the moral panic leads to positive reactions; although it often ends in that it was fiercely discussed at a specific time sooner or later it gradually infiltrates into society and becomes a natural part of it. When we look back on history the harsh debates can be difficult to understand and also seem ridiculous 
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DeadMan
Known Hero
The True Humanitarian
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posted March 04, 2009 03:54 PM |
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Video games don't cause violence, capitalism causes violence. Even if you disregard the wars and imperialism that come along with it, think about this. A kid's parents are at work all day, and the kid is at a terrible school or day care. When the kid's parents are at home, they're tired - and worried about losing their jobs. Then, perhaps, one of them does lose their job, and descends into alcoholism. And the kid becomes much less stable and thus may become more violent.
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I don't matter. You don't matter. But we matter.
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Art-Void
Hired Hero
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posted March 04, 2009 09:22 PM |
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Exactly my point... NO one has the right to blame the problems of society on the content of various media. History repeats itself over and over. The moral panic against computer games nowadays is the same as the moral panic was against the comic books when they started to become popular. I think the critics underestimate the intelligence of young people when the critics say that that young people commit acts of violence just because they play computer games. The vast majority can distinguish the difference between what is fiction and what is reality. To suggest otherwise is just ignorance in my point of view.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 04, 2009 11:04 PM |
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DeadMan has a point, even though it's hidden in his anti-capitalist rhetoric. The cause of violence is often instability in the family.
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Eccentric Opinion
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 02:02 AM |
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Quote:
The issue boils down to desensitization. The more we watch violent movies, play violent games and watch graphic news broadcasts, the more we get used to it. It desensitizes us. We become more used to it and thus for some individuals it becomes easier to actually commit such acts given the right oportunity, scenerio, etc...
Thanks to 4chan, I'm desensitized to a great number of terrible things. Yet I'm not going to go out and do them. 
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Eccentric Opinion
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted March 05, 2009 02:26 AM |
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Quote:
The issue boils down to desensitization. The more we watch violent movies, play violent games and watch graphic news broadcasts, the more we get used to it. It desensitizes us. We become more used to it and thus for some individuals it becomes easier to actually commit such acts given the right oportunity, scenerio, etc...
But the thing is is does violent media cause desensitization or catharsis?
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Protection From Everything.
dota
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 09:11 AM |
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Desensitization ist just ONE part of it. It's paradoxically the belittlement or trivialization of violence that does the trick. It starts with violent fistfights: people hit each other repeatedly, in the face, in the gut, they bang chairs on each other and so on, and after 5 minutes of that all they have is usually a black eye or sore knuckles or something.
Same with car crashes.
But worst is of course what happens with shootings. If someone in a movie is hit, well, it's a bit like having been stung by a big mosquito or something. A bullet wound will stop no action hero from carrying on whatever they were meant to do. Recently there has been a "realism update": if people are hit by bullets (especially the victims meant to die) you might see the "blood vapour" around the entry wound.
So the problem has been (and is still) that we (and especially the last and before last generation) have been used to a growing level of sheer violence in movies and games, but to make it "suitable" for under-aged the violence is "edited", so that it looks completely harmless.
Now think about the impression a kid gets from watching all that stuff: Violence all around - AND NONE OF IT IS OF ANY CONSEQUENCE. That's why seemingly brutal things happen in school nowadays.
Now, note that there would not be this plethora of violence movies and games if you had to show things realistically. Movies and games were all unsuitable for under-aged and there wouldn't be many. We know that because the 70s had a trend like that. Horror movies got real gross: maneater and such stuff, but that stuff got banned fast, and the thing is, if you've seen one you've seen them all.
I mean, imagine that every movie would see promiscuitive heroes. The heroes would have sex with everyone suitable, 14-year-olds, grandmas, who cares - there would never happen anything, no pregnancies, no aids, no vd, no law, no consequences; no relationship either, just flitting from one adventure to the next, but to make it suitable for kids you'd of course not show explicit pornographic sex scenes or something. What behaviour would you expect from kids?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 09:45 AM |
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JJ: Depends on a kid. I've watched and played all kinds of stuff as kid and never draw any conclusions from them, nor followed any of the particular motives. It was fiction to me, even when I was 6yo. Not all kids are easy to brainwash.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 10:23 AM |
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That's not the point, is it? Of course it depends on the kid. No one said, ALL kids will start beating the crap out of each other. It just means that this will make such a behaviour somewhat easier. The trouble here are not the comics and the stuff that is immediately obvious as being FICTION. The trouble is the stuff that looks REAL. And when I say "kid" I don't mean 6-year-olds.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 10:28 AM |
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what age, then?
and yeah, some kids may pattern after what they see, I agree. Rare case, though, or at least that's what I suspect. 
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 10:55 AM |
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10-12 year-olds who are looking for a role model (for example, because they have none and are dearly in need of one).
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Art-Void
Hired Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 03:54 PM |
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My intention wasn’t to discuss in which degree media has an influence on people or not. In this matter I’m convinced that different media do have an influence on most of us, more or less. However, I do not think the media is to blame for crimes in the society or that young people are unable to distinguish between what is fiction and what is reality. I would like to return to talk about in which extent the moral panic exist in society. The moral panic often too much importance to details in media content and misses the bigger picture, leading to misunderstanding quite absurd forms of critic. As I mentioned earlier, criticism and moral panic (in some cases) can generate useful debates about moral and ethical issues, which can lead to something constructive.
People interpret stories and games and movies on the basis of their experience of “real” life and not the opposite. Six years ago I made a study on how children interpreted comics like Pop-eye, Asterix, Bamse (Swedish comic about a bear). In these examples all the main characters consume some form of stimulants to solve their problems, spinach for Popeye, magic potion for Asterix and honey for Bamse. For example, if the characters consumed stimulants with a needle instead they wouldn’t be allowed for small children even if stimulants had been the same. All children know that there is nothing in spinach that makes you strong as Pop-eye but they don’t care about this details; they are just interested in the story. I know that you can not compare a “childish” comic with violent computer/video games but I believe that the psychological process in how the content is interpreted must have some similarities. Most people that play violent games have no real life experience in shooting other people and therefore they don’t see this as a reality.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 05:06 PM |
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You seem to miss the point.
To make it more clear: let's say that basically all action movies would feature female heroes and instead of being shot or beaten they'd be raped in a way that would belittle it that way that the heroines wouldn't really register it, had no trouble coping with it, wouldn't look in the least fazed and could be raped five times in a row and still manage everything necessary to get things done.
The thing is, that exactly BECAUSE rape is not within the normal experience horizon of a 10-year old a picture would be formed about it: that it's not SUCH a big deal, that it's basically like getting an injection with a syringe or something like that. So that IF someone is raped in real life it goes, so what?
Same with violence. SO WHAT? Someone got beaten up? So what?
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Art-Void
Hired Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 05:42 PM |
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Edited by Art-Void at 20:15, 05 Mar 2009.
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@JJ I absolutely agree with you that there is content that may be inappropriate for children, but that is not my point. I also agree with you that children can have a hard time understanding what the see which in some cases can have severe consequences.
In my starting post I didn’t talk about children, I talked about younger people and youth. I should maybe have clarified that by youth I was talking about 13-15 years old and not small children. Sorry for that 
@Father Thank you for your support 
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted March 05, 2009 07:07 PM |
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Influence of media? Well, the political influence is huge. In Poland, people are brainwashed by media loyal to ruling party, for example; the station TVN is strictly loyal to the ruling party, and before elections, they published royal amount of bad stuff about opposing party. The society's mood has changed dramatically because of that, and the opposing party lost 20-30% approval. Ofc not instantly, it was a slow, deliberate and - painfully obvious to neutral people like me - process.
The truth is, both parties follow similar manifesto and are both right-wing. And are both pretty inefficient.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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kipshasz
Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
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posted March 06, 2009 12:05 PM |
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Society is always looking for scapegoats. Ussually its things like video games, manga/anime(Hellsing, Elfen Lied and similiar), comic books and so on. Those things can't defend for themselves. So it's easy prey for 'high moral' retards who are too blind to see that they are the problem. Most of those parent organisations consist of office rats who care only for themselves, and their jobs. They are interested in their kids when something bad happens. Most of teen crimes are commited just due to the lack of attention from their parents. So... Why to blame something else, when you are the problem?
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"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 06, 2009 02:50 PM |
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It's the parents' fault for not bringing their children up better. And, above all, it's the kids' fault for being such idiots.
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Eccentric Opinion
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kipshasz
Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
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posted March 06, 2009 03:02 PM |
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Quote:
And, above all, it's the kids' fault for being such idiots.
Good point. There are other ways of getting their attention
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"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
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