Cultural texts are viewed by Raessens (2005) as ‘as open texts that different groups of
viewers interpret differently, depending on social, cultural and other
contexts’. This short and concise quote from Raessens demonstrates that in the
domain of ‘interpretation’ the culture that
surrounds you as well as the social situation that you are in can determine how
you view things, in this instance how you view games.
As I am not much of a gamer I found it more challenging than
usual to write a blog post this week. The first game that comes to mind when I
think of interpretation and culture together is the Grand Theft Auto series. As
well as the fact that this is one of the only games that I’ve played, the
violent nature of the game makes it an interesting one to analyse in terms of
interpretation.
According to Turner (cited in Raessens 2005) ‘culture, as
the site where meaning is generated and experienced, becomes a determining,
productive field through which social realities are constructed, experienced and
interpreted’’ (Turner, 1996, p. 14). Grand Theft Auto continues to be one of
the most popular game series created with sales continuing to sky rocket and a
new game set to be released this year. Devine and Squire wrote an article
which explores the meaning of race and violence in Grand Theft Auto and
interestingly enough it found that ‘that players use their own experiences and
knowledge to interpret the game’ proving the fact the game is differently interpreted
by each player.
The violence in the Grand Theft Auto games drew criticism
from the NYPD association president Pat Lynch as he said that ‘being involved in a
shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to
send to young people’ (PVC world, 2008). Yes, understandably this is not
the ideal message to send to young people but isn’t a game just a game? The
argument could go on forever of the harm that violent video games does to its
players but the domain of interpretation seems to me to be right on the money.
References
DeVane, B., Squire, KD, ‘The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ <http://website.education.wisc.edu/kdsquire/tenure-files/10-DeVaneSquire_revised.pdf>
PC World 2008, Rants Begin About Grand Theft Auto IV, <http://www.pcworld.com/article/145460/article.html >
Raessens, J 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture, Handbook of Computer Game Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pg 373-388
Image References
www.hdwallpapers.in
arjungirotra.blogspot.com
Hi Jaime,
ReplyDeleteI also did my blog post for this topic on Grand Theft Auto and found this to be an enjoyable and accurate reflection on the game. You exemplified the case study well, but perhaps could have gone into more depth on the topic. You could have gone into a bit of detail about the negotiated, oppositional and dominant readings of race, gender and class in the game and your personal reflection on them, however this may have proved difficult as you yourself said you are not much in to gaming culture and probably haven't had that much experience with the game. A good post overall, keep up the good work.
I think that your choice of game for this topic was a good one. You said that you found it difficult to write your blog on this topic, and it comes through in your writing. I felt that you were a little bit vague when stating the topic and how it related to Grand Theft Auto. You use a lot of reference and evidence which is excellent, but it made it a little bit difficult for me to see what your main point was. Your images and writing was very good, and overall I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteHi Jaime,
ReplyDeleteThis blog post was a bit brief in that because you couldn't really bring out your own personal experiences with this game, leaving a lot of your scholarly references without explanation. As I myself have only played Grand Theft Auto a few times, I would have found the same amount of difficulty that it seems you did to delve into specific ways in which this game can be related to Raessans 'domains of participation', as stated in the blog topic.
Your use of image was great, as well as the link to the article that was included which added slight depth to your argument.
Overall, it was a good attempt at this weeks topic and I commend you for a great game choice. Well done.