Retorhical Argument

Video games and their impacts have been hotly debated for a number of years, particularly violent video games. Games such as Grand Theft Auto appear to promote everything from carjacking to randomly murdering an innocent bystander just because you can, sparking debate that seems to renew itself every time a new game is released in the series. The most general form of this argument simply asks if video games are good or bad for their players. On one side, there is the belief that video games, and particularly those that are violent, are bad, especially for children. On the other, it is believed that video games are relatively harmless in the long run, and potentially even beneficial. The importance

Since video games have been introduced, video games have been accused of contributing too many atrocities, and acts of violence. News outlets paint video games as being a source of which some acts of violence happen. Yes, violent video games have become more popular, meanwhile becoming controversial, but still there exist no links between aggression and video games. The University of Bologna says that “owning videogames does not in fact seem to have negative effects on aggressive human behavior” (Koffler par.7). Meanwhile, news outlets keep on missing the point on how beneficial video games are. Video games do not contribute to violence, can be educational, and they can improve us in different ways.

A huge controversy in today’s society is violent video games and their behavioral effect on the children and adults who play them. Violent video games have been blamed for bullying, school shootings, and even violence towards women. Many have fought that violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence, and that they are teaching the youth that violence is an acceptable conflict-solving strategy. Other sources have stated otherwise. The 2004 Secret Service has stated that only one-eighth of attackers have exhibited interests in video games. Violent Video games do not cause violent behavior or behavior problems because it has not been proven that there is a link between violent video games and behavioral issues, playing video games provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and reduces violence in young children, and violent juvenile crime has actually gone down since the violent video game popularity has increased.

The paper discusses how violent video games affect a person's behavior and if they manifest violence and show aggression in the real world after playing such video games. I learned that not all people who are exposed to video game or media violence turn violent. I think it depends on the person if he wants to get influenced from the game, to mimic what the game shows. This is just like the next source, discussing about what kind of behavioural problems violent gaming brings about.

Over the past few centuries,video games have become a great leisure and hobby among kids of all ages and cultures. With the advancement of technology, video games have advanced highly in its realism and genres. This high type of advancement brought the video game industry to a multi-billion dollar industry. However, with realism, comes negative effects as well. Ever since the creation of violent or “mature” video games, there has been a constant debate on whether it will increase violence in the player. Although, not all video games are violent, and just increase skills in a player such as hand-eye coordination. Nevertheless, there is research going on for the link between violent video games and youth violence. The question is which event happens first in the sequence, do violent video games aggravate a person’s violent behavior, or does a person get rid of their anger through playing violent video games? Either way, violent video games are not beneficial to our society.

Dietz, Tracy L. (1998). An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behavior. Sex Roles, 38(5/6), 425-442).

True or False: Violent videogames cause children to become more aggressive. Sorry, that was a trick question. Despite much bandying of statistics and loud talking by critics on both sides of the argument, the real answer is that there is no real answer—at least not one that’s been proved scientifically (Zipp). Video games are an appealing target for a public figure in search of a crusade. Movies and music have energetic advocates, but it’s hard to find anyone who will defend games for their artistic value, or even on the grounds of freedom of expression. Usually the strongest argument made for games is that they are harmless fun (Koffler).

Maxine Kingston wrote The Woman Warrior: A Memoir of a Girlhood Amongst Ghosts as a non-fictional story that relates the common Chinese folktales (or “talk stories” as she calls them) she was familiar with from her youth combined with her own personal experiences as a Chinese-American. Each chapter is given to a separate woman who influenced Kingston’s life in a memorable way. The theme of silence and voice comes up frequently throughout the text, but is increasingly evident in the first page, as the novel opens up with the narrator speaking, “you must not tell anyone” (Kingston 1).

This suggests that the Gender Role Theory is still very active today (Theory that defines a gender by their actions, traits, etc). This is why so many men act this way because not only does the media/society influence them, it's also the parents who play a big role too. The consequences of this is that men tend to be more violent and ruthless towards one another as a result of the stereotypes they were taught. The irony of this is that society/media/parents despise violence...and yet the main reason why its happening is because of their influences. Being a man doesn’t mean we have to act or behave a certain way because in reality, that's not who were truly are.

In their research of violent videogames and the effect on children, they have found that “the simplistic belief that exposure to media violence will lead directly to individual violence is clearly wrong.” (Kutner, Olsen, 2008) I am going to ask you to look deeper than this. I assert that although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it.

Austin Grossman once stated,” Video games are a huge, incredibly popular, world-transforming medium.” The question is, does this powerful source have a positive or negative influence? With the many benefits, that out rule the negative effects of violent video games, like increased intelligence, enhanced social skills, and strong friendships, the choice becomes clear. Although some may think violent video games have negative effects, the positive effects are more prominent.

In this paper, the representation of women in video games is examined and its effect on players explored. Women’s roles in the game, violence toward women, and physical characteristics of the characters is included. Next, the effect of these factors is measured in two instances, on both men, in regards to tolerance

Ken Schroeder’s 1997 article, “Halving Fun” showed that when confronted with questions concerning the appeal of these games many will say that they enjoy doing things that they “could never do in real life.” In fact, a ten-year-old girl was quoted to say, “a video game with someone smashing a guy’s head in is not going to make the kid go out and smash their friend’s head in (73).” So whether or not they are desensitized to the violence does not necessarily make them more prone to it.

Over time video games have drastically changed its contents and through the use of media it has become very popular among the people of all ages. The article, “An Examination of Violence and Gender Role Portrayals in Video Games: Implications for Gender Socialization and Aggressive Behavior” by Tracy L. Dietz portrays the impact of video-games in gender roles in our society. Through the usage of samples in the experiment shows that the video games tend to have more male characters rather than female characters. In this article Dietz illustrates that the video games that are being played by today’s youth present an overwhelmingly traditional and negative portrayal of women and that the development of gender identities and expectations among youngsters may be affected by these portrayals. The article also goes to demonstrate that boys and girls rely upon expectations about both masculinity and femininity to interpret interaction and to develop expectations for themselves and others. The author argues that there exists a correlation between the portrayal of women and the use of violence in the video games, and I agree with his claim, because I have been raised in a culture, where female character’s role in the gaming community have been completely overshadowed by the dominant male figure.

In this paper, I will be discussing and reviewing many literatures in regards to the effect of video game violence on people. Players range from all ages, but for this paper, I will be discussing the different effects of video