{"id":294,"date":"2004-04-03T19:02:23","date_gmt":"2004-04-03T23:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoreti.ca\/?p=294"},"modified":"2004-04-03T19:02:23","modified_gmt":"2004-04-03T23:02:23","slug":"media-analysis-and-computer-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"Media Analysis and Computer Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

How are computer games presented to parents and teachers? The Concerns About Video Games | Excessive Playing<\/a> is one in a collection of resources available for parents and teachers at the Media Awarness site (search for games and you get more). See especially the work by Stephen Kline from the Media Analysis Lab at SFU, Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of B.C. Teens | Study<\/a>. The study comments on the disparity between the economic importance of games and the amount of research into the effects of computer games. On the whole Kline’s study and the Awareness site seems balanced – they avoid the sort of hyped criticism of “we’ve found another bad thing you didn’t know about” journalism.
\n
\nWhat is worrisome is some of the lesson plan materials. In particular look at this leading question from the Violent Video Games and Stimulus Addiction | Handout<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What’s the message?<\/b> Violent video games send the following messages:
\n*\tProblems can be resolved quickly and with little personal investment.
\n*\tThe best way to solve a problem is to eliminate the source of the problem.
\n*\tProblems are basically black or white, right or wrong.
\n*\tIt is acceptable to immerse oneself in the video game’s rule-driven reality without questioning the rules.
\n*\tUse instinctual, rather than thoughtful, responsible behaviors to react to problems.
\n*\tPersonal imagination is not an important problem-solving skill.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By contrast the handout presents other types of games as developing initiative, complex skills and so on. This is bullshit<\/b>. Is Monopoly any less a simplification of the real world that structures reality through rules in which one immerses oneself. That’s what a game is. Chess sends many of these messages. Imagine what the message of books and reading is:<\/p>\n

* Problems can be solved by staying at home and ignoring the world.
\n* The best way to solve a problem is to read what someone else says and not do anything.
\n* Problems all go away by the last chapter.
\n* It’s acceptable to immerse yourself in a fiction without questioning reading.
\n* Don’t respond at all, just bury yourself in a book.
\n* Your imagination doesn’t matter, only the imagination of great writers does.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How are computer games presented to parents and teachers? The Concerns About Video Games | Excessive Playing is one in a collection of resources available for parents and teachers at the Media Awarness site (search for games and you get more). See especially the work by Stephen Kline from the Media Analysis Lab at SFU, … Continue reading Media Analysis and Computer Games<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}