CRITICAL INVESTIGATION PROPOSAL

Working title

How and why do games like 'GTA V' negatively impact youth audiences?

Angle

What impact are these increasingly violent adult games having on the teens and kids that play it, is this just a moral panic or can games like GTA V influence kids in reality? 

Hypothesis

Video games are psychologically damaging for young people, and audiences have become increasingly vulnerable to the effects of screen violence.

Linked production piece

Music video showing the stereotypical representations GTA V has.

MIGRAIN

Who is being represented? In what way? By whom?

California USA is the main representation of the game, mostly dominant in male representations and male being the dominant gender in the game Rockstar don't focus much on females other than them being dumb or sex objects. Rockstar also create funny, comical parodies of celebrities and institutions like Apple and Burger King by creating their own version iFruit and Burger Shot.

Why is the subject being represented in this way?

The main characters are represented as dominant people that kill, steal and control the large city of Los Santos, this is because they are made to be us, the players, ensuring that we are in their shoes. Therefore by making them dominant, it shoes that the player controls the game.

What are the dominant images and iconography, and what is their relevance to the major themes of the text?

GTA V marketed their game with posters of a female in a bikini on the beach, this female had no role in the game at all, her face didn't even appear in the game, they used the term "Sex Sells" and it worked.

How is the narrative organised and structured?

The story of GTA V is structured just like a movie, the game contains many cut scenes and has loads of mise en scene that relates to the narrative. Its also very clever as in the beginning of the game you are given many clues to what's going to happen but gamers have no clue about what's going happen

How are characters delineated? What is their narrative function? How are heroes and villains created?

The characters are a main part of the story, there are three main characters, in the world of GTA the characters are all full of sin, but it is up to the player on how evil or kind they want to act within the 

To which genre does the text belong?

Video Game

What are the major generic conventions within the text?

Playing as three characters in a open sandbox game within a parody city of California.

What are the major iconographic features of the text?

The amount of violence and profanity in a video game.

What are the major generic themes?

Robberies, Drugs, Sex, Theft, Violence.

To what extent are the characters generically determined?

The characters are all determined to make a lot of money, they face a lot of problems when committing their crimes which change how their relationships build.

What is the institutional source of the text?

Rockstar Games

In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which produced it?

Rockstar Games has always kept its role of creating the most realistic adult games filled with crime narratives and allows players to commit crimes, they will always stick to this method.

What are the major values, ideologies and assumptions underpinning the text or naturalised within it?

The main values and ideologies would be the free world and criticism of violence and drugs.

What criteria have been used for selecting the content presented?

The selection for content was that GTA V can control people with its power and ability to brainwash.

To whom is the text addressed? What is the target audience? (Demographics, Psychographics)

CDE Demographics, aimed for the youth but also adults due to its popularity and it being a old loyal franchise.

What assumptions about the audience’s characteristics are implicit within the text?

That if the youth play this game, they are more vulnerable to the game influencing them to things like crime, drugs and violence.

What assumptions about the audience are implicit in the text’s scheduling or positioning?

That one of the three protagonists, Trevor fits the role of the more average player, because he is crazy and does whatever he pleases.

SHEP

Apply the Wider Contexts (Social, Historical, Economic, Political) to your text/topic, including at least three bullet points on each one.

Social:
This game has a massive audience, meaning that almost everyone has heard about the game, this means that it was a major topic of discussion for months which led to the build up of the game, almost every teen was talking about this game, which is why it gained $1billion in 3 days.

Historical:
This release of this game was historical itself, just like all the other releases gta v have made in the past, they manage to break records each time with ground-breaking figures of sales, not only are the figures revolutionary but also the game itself, they always manage to push the limits within technology and create a vast realistic game each time within every generation of gaming.

Economic:
As the game was able to generate a lot of cash it led to suppliers and local stores also generating more profit, local video game store "Game" had a high push in sales and pre orders due to the release of GTA V, also, the online version of the game itself has its own in game community, where players are able to buy their own weapons, buy clothes and apartment to customize their personal character, this allowed for an enhanced pleasure of escapism and realism.

Political:
This game has been politically criticised since the birth of grand theft auto, this game and others in the franchise have been banned in many countries before and has always been negatively shown on many news platforms, the only time the news gives a good image of gta is only for the reason that it breaks record sales all the time.

Issues/Debates

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using the Media A-Z to help you think about this:

• Representation and stereotyping - GTA V always empowers the steroetype of females and how they are all simply representations of sex and they are all seen to be dumb and annoying, for example in gta v, its the first time females are part of the story, such as one of the main characters micheal has a wife and a daughter, the wife is represented to just use micheals credit card for stupid shopping and is shown sleeping with the tennis instructor, the daughter, Tracey, grows up to want to be a porn star and enters a talent show dancing inappropriately.
• Moral Panics - This game has created a large moral panic for parents worldwide, many news industry's and law firms have tried to sue the game as they believe it is a murder simulator and that it is influences children to kill police, do drugs and commit crimes.  
• Ownership and control - Owning this game is big for teens, as its such a big game everyone wanted to be a part of its release. Also, the game has a on-line version in which owners can participate in, rockstar games continually update the economy in bringing new features and events each time, this allows the users to never get bored of the game.
• Regulation and censorship - The game also has a lot of explicit content in which children and parents of children will find very disturbing to view, back in the early 2000s for the release of San Andreas, rockstar games wanted to make sure that the game wasn't a Adult rating but just a Mature rating, but they failed in doing so throughout the years, now Gta games are 18+ and they would never believe it still gets such high amounts of sales. 

Theories

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using keywords/specific theorists' names from the Media A-Z:

• Gender and ethnicity - Gender Consumption, The Way That Gender Affects Our Consumption Of Media Texts. - Ann Gray Suggested That Women Prefer open Ended Narratives
• Audience theories - Pleasure, Escapism, Uses & Gratifications.
• Genre theories - Richard Dyer (1973) Suggests That Genres Are Pleasurable

Research plan (media texts, academic texts and websites)

Media texts
What your main focus will be:
Grand Theft Auto

Other media texts
Call Of Duty
Saints Row
Halo
Gears Of War

TV documentaries
BBC One - Panorama, Addicted to Games? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlmj0
BBC Three - The Game Changers http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06ccjn9/the-gamechangers
BBC Two - Are Video Games Really That Bad? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06cjypk

Academic texts/books
Barrie Gunter: The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked (1998)
James Newman: Playing with videogames (2008)
Nancy Signorielli: Violence in the media: a reference handbook (2005)
Peter Vorderer, and Bryant Jennings: Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences (2006)

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World

Video Gamers

Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds

Internet Links
1. At least FIVE from Media Guardian or Guardian Culture or another newspaper website.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/09/grand-theft-auto-guardian-leftie-play
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/16/grand-theft-auto-v-on-pc-review-rockstar
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/04/five-reasons-why-grand-theft-auto-v-has-sold-45m-copies
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/13/lindsay-lohan-manuel-noriega-suing-video-games-legal-view
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/28/lindsay-lohan-sued-for-publicity-claim-grand-theft-auto-makers
2. At least FIVE from university websites/academic papers online. Use Google Scholar as a starting point.
http://gac.sagepub.com/content/3/3-4/264.short
http://nms.sagepub.com/content/17/10/1624.abstract
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10714410600552902?journalCode=gred20#.VhbOunitE5M
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/1520281053850866#.VhbO4XitE5M
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14650045.2010.538875#.VhbO7nitE5M

3. Any other relevant sites/articles - the more the better.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32825385/grand-theft-auto-firm-sues-bbc-over-daniel-radcliffe-film