Understand how media audiences respond to media

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Audience theory
Hypodermic needle model
This theory is used to prove how easily media of any kind is able to change
peoples attitudes and behaviour towards anything that is said. This theory was
put to the test in 1938 America. The radio broadcaster announced that Martians
were attacking humans in the state of New Jersey, America. Even though the
listeners were warned beforehand that this bit of news was fake, they still went
into panic. People fled their homes and even cities to escape this untrue story.
This proved that media has a massive influence on people. Police, fire stations
and hospitals got many calls off the panicked population.
What the hypodermic needle theory did was inject citizens with what people
would consider is a triggering story whichll get a reaction out of the audience.
This is where the word needle came into the scene, because the media are
injecting the news into people. This theory led to a few assumptions. These
include:

Most humans reactions are the same/very similar to each others, which
isnt good in first person shooter games because, even though not many
people actually go out shooting people, they may certainly think it
creating more violence in peoples behaviour.
Media heavily influences everyone. Whatever is said on the media is
straightaway injected into people making them basically powerless
against what is said or done on radio stations, in magazines, on video
games. Its like people are brainwashed.
Anything which is said on the media is able to change peoples attitudes
and behaviour easily. On video games, people, especially younger people,
will be forced under the power the game has to almost control them. Their
behaviour may be changed to something more violent.
There are a couple of strengths and weaknesses on this theory. The main
strength being that the statistics are usually quite reliable and you can notice
any trends or links within it. However, audiences are starting to realise how fake
and untrue the media can be so nowadays this theory isnt always reliable.
Another strength is that you are able to get the results from a large number of
people, making it a fair result. The last weakness is that different people react
differently so its not always a good theory to use.
This theory was not applied in my game.
 Uses and gratifications theory passive or active consumption
Unlike the hypodermic needle theory, this theory is about understanding what
people do with media instead of what the media does to people. The uses and
gratifications theory is to understand the communication of the audience. So,
this theory is to find out why people use the media and what for and why they
choose certain types of media whichll give them what they want from
knowledge wise to social wise.
The audience in this theory have the power over the media in a way that theyre
interpreting it into their lives in a way that they want to, instead of the media
forcing itself into theirs changing their attitudes and behaviours.
Altogether, there are four main ways to focus on the actions when doing a study.
These include

The identification of being able to recognise the person or even a product

in the media. This could be a role model you have like a news presenter or
someone you aspire to like a radio presenter. In video games, you may be
able to recognise a character in the game and change yourself in a way
that you want to, to be similar to the character.
The next is the education, which is being able to understand something in
the media so the main way is studying peoples actions when watching the
news. To link this with video games, you may be able to educate yourself
about different types of guns.
The third way to entertainment. Video games should be able to give you
some enjoyment and pleasure whilst playing them so you want to keep
playing them. However, having a first person shooter game can be a bad
thing if it gives one too much joy, as they may want to become the real life
character if they interoperate the game into their life too much.
The last one is being more social. Pages or groups may form to discuss
their interests or hobbies with people who have the same interests as
them.
This may be applied in my game where my audience may want to become more
adventurous like the main character is. You may also choose to educate yourself
through the game on how to star fires as my game gives tips and tricks out to
the audience. Hopefully the players of my game will be entertained and enjoy
playing my game.

Reception study
The reception study was founded in 1970 and is about the audience
understanding the text of any literature. In the media give, the audience will not
be told about any hidden messages. The producers of the media (games) will
include secret and hidden messages for the audience to get. This tests the
audiences concentration and skill when playing the game. If the producers
manage to fit it in correctly, the audience will catch onto it with no problem. The
way these codes and messages can be shown is through actions, pop up
messages or any dialogue in the game.
After research, it was found that there are three main different types of
audiences when reading these messages. These are Dominant, Negotiated and
Oppositional.

Dominant is when, in a game, the player is able to decode the message,

accept it and can then play the game with this new information which has
been given to them. Its usually something which the public want to hear
in the game.
Negotiated is where the player understands these codes but doesnt do
anything with it, so they dont choose to accept the code nor reject it.
They may decide to question the code given, for example they may be
unsure whether it makes sense.
The last one is oppositional which is where the audience understands the
code but chooses to decline and reject this code due to it being against
what they believe is right. They have already made their decision and will
probably not change their mind about it.
This is also applied in my game as there are many hidden codes for my players
to solve to help them in the game. Theyre like little hints and tips.

Effects debates
Effects of exposure to explicit sexual or violent content
Each video game produced has to have an age rating on the game. This is
because if anyone under the age of 18 gets to play a very violent game with lots
of shooting in it like Call of Duty, they may be heavily influenced by it, thinking
that its ok to go out shooting people as they may see the main character as a
role model to them. Having a child play a game with explicit sexual content may
lead them to go as far as sexually assaulting someone if the game has violence
as well.
Every game has an age rating on them. These are usually created by PEGI which
stands for Pan European Game Information. It is widely used and recognised in
European countries. Ratings are important to have on video games as it tells you
whether the game is suitable or not for a certain age. The age ratings are 3, 7,
12, 16 and 18.
PEGI 3 is for all age groups. It may use some very, very mild violence
which is used in a more comical way such as cartoons like
Tom & Jerry. The game wont use any strong violence, frightening
scenes or bad language.

PEGI 7 is more or less the same as PEGI 3 with comical violence but
however, there may be frightening scenes with acception of how
frightening they are.

PEGI 12 uses slightly more graphic images violence wise, but it wont be
violence against human like characters, but more strange characters
like fantasy or characters which dont look like humans so animal-like
characters. There will be mild bad language and a slight bit of nudity.
PEGI 16 is games with more violence and sexual nature which is shown
in more realistic scenes like war scenes. Unlike the other two, this
game will use more swearing and bad language as well as showing
drug use and illegal activities.

The last age rating it 18. This is an adult game. There will be more
gross violent scenes and a lot more bad language with illegal acts.

Effects of advertising
Overall media advertising can have many impacts on teenagers especially.
Mostly negative, but there are a few positives. The point of advertising is to make
the target audience want to buy the product or the game. The way advertisers
make their adverts is by trying to prove that their product is the best type out
there. They will use many language techniques to grab the attention of the
audience so theyll become interested and some will stick their best reviews on
the adverts so people will believe its the best.

This is an advert for the game The Last of Us. The main image is of the 2 main
characters in the game with guns in their hands showing that its a first person
game. It has the PEGI 18 sign to show there is violent gore in it and only people
over the age of 18 are allowed to play this game. They have used 2 language
techniques being short sentences and a rhetorical question. The short sentences
are there because it shows some sort of tension and excitement. The rhetorical
question is there to make the audience think about the advertisement. When
they think about the answer of the question, theyre thinking about the advert
too.
The effect of advertising is how they are made. Some adverts are placed on
billboards which may be considered as distracting, and some may be shown on
TV which may be considered annoying. However, people who are interested in
that game genre being advertised especially will be interested, they may want to
buy the game or maybe they dont want to. It depends how interesting the
advert is to them and if it catches their eye.

Health concerns
Gaming may seem like a fun thing to do and most play games to relax at the end
of their day, but some people take advantage and playing games can turn into
an addiction. You feel like you have to complete that goal and then you can't stop
yourself from wanting to play on and on and on. This is an addiction. Being
addicted to gaming happens to up to 15% of gamers and is a serious issue. You
know you're addicted when you isolate yourself from the world, you become
irritated when you're unable to play, fatigue and migraines. These are some of
the game addiction symptoms. There has also been found a correlation between
game addiction and anxiety/depression and also sleep disorders which is the
worst thing for teenagers especially.

If you play a game a couple of times a week (a casual gamer) doesnt mean
youre addicted however. Youre only considered addicted if you show signs and
symptoms of:

Feelings of restlessness and/or irritability when unable to play

Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity or anticipation of
the next online session
Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent
playing
Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming
Fatigue
Migraines due to intense concentration or eye strain
Carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the overuse of a controller or computer
mouse
Poor personal hygiene
These health issues are all results of continuous gaming, which could come up at
any point in your life, so gaming can be very dangerous. My video game has
been targeted at casual gamers which are people who play the game but not
constantly. I dont want the responsibility of children having any of these
symptoms because theyre playing my game.

Censorship debates
On a website I found ( http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-video-games-be-
censored ) i found out that only 19% of people who have been on his website has
said yes to video games being censored, leaving 81% saying that it shouldnt.
When reading the comments posted as to why they should or shouldnt be
censored, I mostly found people commenting why it should be censored. Most of
the reasons why is because people believe that the video game will get into their
heads. There was one comment which said that it makes kids evil.

In this comment the person said that violent video games may lead to kids killing
family members. People have responded with the argument that peoples children
were already violent but their parents were too ignorant to notice meaning that
their child may have already had a mental illness which has gone unknown. A
news article to do with violent video games said that an 8 year old boy shot his
grandmother in the head in Louisiana. A child psychologist said that the boy was
influenced by Grand Theft Auto and said that the game is sort of like a shooting
practice as the graphics are so good and in the game youre shooting at a target.
The boy couldnt be charged because of how young he is so the authorities has
treated it as a homicide.
Another comment which is against video games being censored said video
games draws violent kids to them. They left a statistic which says that 42% of
kids play video games as it helps relieve anger and stress that theyve been
feeling. Another against the reason said that they dont understand why video
games have to be censored and are therefore different to books, poems and
songs on the internet which arent censored. I understand where they come from
as there are some sexual videos on websites like YouTube which show scenes of
nudity, violence and gore.

There isnt any nudity or much violence in my video game so I dont need to
think whether to censor my game or not. The only violence is the killing of fish
which my character may need to do, so in the PEGI age ratings I should make my
game PEGI 12 as it has animal killings but nothing too violent.