Jenny Berisford Research Report Proposal

Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine - exploring testosterone due to the natures of sex and violence as topics in my essay. 

I contacted Games Art tutor Sharon to see if there was nay further reading that she could suggest to me:

Gender Butler, J., 2006. Gender Trouble. New ed. Routledge, New York. 

Cassell, J., 2000. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, New ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (There is a later updated edition called Beyond Barbie & Mortal Kombat also) Chess, S., 2017. Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity. Minnesota University Press 

Chess, S. (2014). Youthful white male industry seeks "fun"-loving middle-aged women for video games—No strings attached. In Carter, C., Steiner, L. & McLaughlin, L. (Eds), The Routledge companion to media and gender (pp.171–172). New York, NY: Routledge. 

Consalvo, M. (2012). Confronting Toxic Gamer Culture: A Challenge for Feminist Game Studies Scholars. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 1. Retrieved July 30, 2018 from doi:10.7264/N33X84KH. Condis, M. (2018). Gaming masculinity: Trolls, fake geeks and the gendered battle for online culture. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Characters/Avatars  Banks, Jaime and Nick Bowman, 2016. "Close Intimate Playthings? Understanding Player-Avatar Relationships as a Function of Attachment, Agency, and Intimacy". Onmediatheory.blogspot.co.uk. Web. http://onmediatheory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/close-intimate-playthings-understanding.html 

Bogost, I. (2015) Video Games are Better without Characters. The Atlantic. Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/video-games-are-better-without-characters/387556/ Calleja, G., 2011. In-Game: Immersion to Incorporation. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 

Hefner, D., Klimmt, C. and Vorderer, P. (2007). Identification with the player Character as Determinant of Video Game Enjoyment. In: Ma L., Rauterberg M., Nakatsu R. (eds) Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4740. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 

Jørgensen, K. (2010) Game Characters as Narrative Devices. A comparative analysis of Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect. Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture. 2010; 4 (2). Available at: http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/article/view/vol4no2-13/192 Lankoski, P. (2011) Character-Driven Games Design: A Design Approach and Its Foundations in Character Engagement. Taik Newman, J., 2012. Videogames, 2 ed. Routledge, London; New York. 

Stuart, K. (2014) The identity paradox: why game characters are not us, but should be. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/the-identity-paradox-why-game-characters-are-not-but-should-be 

Taylor, Nicholas, Chris Kampe, and Kristina Bell, 2016. "Me and Lee: Identification and the Play of Attraction in The Walking Dead". Gamestudies.org. Web. http://gamestudies.org/1501/articles/taylor The games journals Game Studies and Games in Culture are both good sources too. 

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=9ccea116-7e61-4052-b4c1-5b9bb7c4dc4e%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=70541&db=nlebk

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/norwicharts/detail.action?docID=1912575

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1555412016679584?journalCode=gaca

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/norwicharts/reader.action?docID=1977962&ppg=1

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

“An in-depth view of the way popular female stereotypes were reflected in—and were shaped by—the portrayal of women in Disney’s animated features.   In Good Girls and Wicked Witches, Amy M. Davis re-examines the notion that Disney heroines are rewarded for passivity.“

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/interactive-narratives-and/9781317268437/

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/norwicharts/reader.action?docID=5288351&ppg=1

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/norwicharts/reader.action?docID=5610258&ppg=1

Recommended by course librarian Lindsey Crush

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=9&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=846633&db=nlebk

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=8&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=653667&db=nlebk

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=7&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=79467&db=nlebk

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=6&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=682548&db=nlebk

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=5&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=1576850&db=nlebk

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=3&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=1918485&db=nlebk

https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?vid=11&sid=156748b8-f5b7-4868-b23c-f25cae7ee927%40pdc-v-sessmgr06&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHNzbyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#AN=nua.9781942952992&db=cat06378a

This book speaks on the history of violent video games, and counters the argument that violent video games are inherently bad.

In 2005, Hilary Clinton was introducing the Family Entertainment Protection Act, which made the already existing ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings board have more significance; as it meant any retailer found to sell video games above the age rating of the child buying would have fines and have to face community service. Clinton argued that through research we had found that Violent video games were increasing levels of aggression and lowering children’s IQ’s, stating that we needed to regulate violent video games in the same way in which we regulate porn, tobacco, and alcohol. She was quoted saying “If you put it just really simply, these violent video games are stealing the innocence of our children.” The bill however never made it out of committee, the court stated that video games are an art form and even if they depict violence they should be treated the same as literature, film, and fairy tales. The book argues that Hilary Clinton among many other politicians had more of a care about the effects of violent video games than they did about other pressing issues affecting children such as hunger, mental health reform and the Iraq war.

The book brings up the topic of moral panic, a phenomenon by which a society develops of fear of a scapegoat which is blamed for a real or imaginary social problem. For example, video games being the scapegoat for antisocial and violent behaviour. Historic examples of moral panics include waltzes, it was believed that the close proximity of the dancers would encourage sexual promiscuity, and even the bible was a source of moral panic. This happened in the 1950′s with comic books, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham argued that comics not only encouraged delinquency, but homosexuality, therefore arose the Comics Code Authority; no nudity, no graphic violence, no profanity, law enforcement were never allowed to be shown in a bad light, and good had to triumph against evil every time with no sympathy for the bad guy. Companies that did not adhere to the code went out of business, but as time went on and the moral panic behind comics had died down companies began to drop the Comics Code altogether. Rock music was another moral panic, the book argues that the 21st century moral panic is violent video games. 

There is a really interesting argument surrounding the case of Nathan Dunlap, and African American teenager who shot up a chuck e cheese where he had once previously worked. He played a game called Hogan’s Valley and shortly after committed the crime which resulted in the death of four employees. In the Police Chief quotes, nowhere was it mentioned that Dunlap played violent video games, the violence was blamed on himself and the community in which he grew up. Horrific acts of violence by white kids violates the idea that youth violence is a minority/urban phenomena; James Ivory at Virginia tech argues that when white youths commit crime we tend to look for external explanations. When Dunlap committed a horrific act of violence it was because he was full of rage and a product of the community of which he comes from, whereas when a ‘nice’ white youth commits a crime he must have been brainwashed by an external factor - video games.

The argument of whether violent video games are bad may not seem that important, but it is deeper than that, it is about the regulations and censorship behind it; blame video games enough for increase in crime and then the government gets to censor an art form. 

The book also speaks about the inaccuracy with which testing the effect of violent video games and violence were conducted(pg.52); games that had not very violent content at all were used in the tests and the questions were often loaded. By their guidelines for what made a game violent, pac-man counted as a violent video game.

The idea of Grand theft fallacy - due to the inaccurate studies of whether video games encourage violence etc and the moral panic surrounding video games a psychiatrist nearly managed to clear a guilty man of murder by convincing the jury that the murder happened as a result of self defence, as the teen victim had a history of playing GTA, and the defendant was acting in self defence as the violent video game playing teen came at him violently. This information was all proven to be inaccurate and the suspect was convicted, however, it is a scary example of how the statements made around violent video games can come to play in some very serious situations with very real people and very real consequences.  

The heat effect, there is arguably a correlation between ice cream sales and murder rates, however this does not mean that ice cream is responsible for people's deaths, (correlation doesn’t equal causation) it is found in this  example that heat often increases violence, therefore heat is the 3rd variable in this situation and the culprit instead of the ice cream. This could be a similar case with gaming.

pg, 151 “thanks to virtual characters who look and move like real humans and have compelling stories to tell, what constitutes ethical and moral decent behaviour in a video game is far more murkier than it was when we were playing {pacman}”, The Milgram experiment but redone years later with a virtual participant, gave evidence that we do care about virtual characters.

Many players of Mass Effect are likely to choose the morality option that fits in with their own moral code. 65% of players tend to choose the paragon (moral) path but 35% choose the renegade (immoral) path. pg. 152

pg. 154 an experiment in the same game but half the participants played as bystanders and the other half played as part of a terrorist group, the latter experienced a lot more guilt, actually resulting in the argument that playing violent video games can teach people morality as it makes you experience the guilt of committing a certain act. Video Games allow us to become more morally sensitive to others. In film, witnessing something to happen to someone else as you are less likely to feel guilty as you are not the one perpetrating the crime, however, in video games, you may be the perpetrator of the crime, therefore video games are the most accurate format with which we can explore morality.

pg. 156 and pg 157, there is no doubt that the more we are exposed to violent media the less emotionally we respond to it i.e. the experiment about exposure to clockwork orange for example. However this is true for the next time we view violent MEDIA, not an implication that it desensitises us to REAL LIFE violence.

What makes a video game violent? If it is a character intentionally hurting a character that intends to avoid being hurt, then technically a video game such as pacman IS a violent video game.