Video Game Violence

This semester, in teaching video games in Media Literacy, I felt like I shortchanged the topic a little bit, since we’re running out of time and I was only able to dedicate 8 days of class (and one of them was the day before Winter Break) to the topic. Despite this shortened period, there is a massive amount of information available that could be covered to understand the importance of this topic. Over the next week, I hope to update several times to discuss several topics concerning video games that I covered in class.

Questions to ask: Do video games make kids more violent? Does it teach violent behavior? Does it teach a type of problem solving where the answer is always violence?

My belief is that on some level, this is the case. Two experts on this subject are professors at Iowa State University, Professors Douglas A. Gentile and Craig A. Anderson. They have a PDF format of a book chapter available here.

I certainly don’t want to summarize the entire 20+ pages, but it’s excellent, and I will outline a few of the points these two men bring up.

First off, they bring up several studies, including a very interesting longitudinal study that almost demonstrates that at least among children, violent video games do indeed increase a kid’s chances of being a violent kid. It uses several groups, and in doing so attacks very clearly the idea that it’s not JUST that violent kids tend to play violent video games.

They also look at this as a risk factor for violence, which to me seems like a very intelligent way to do it. They make the analogy that video game violence is a risk factor for real life violence similar to smoking being a risk factor for cancer or heart disease.

They lastly make several public policy suggestions that you may or may not agree with, but they all still very much deserve to be read.

One thing I found particularly interesting was a quote that reads: “Little research supports the idea that children aged 7 or above are more vulnerable to the effects of playing violent video games than adults.” So in short, this statement implies that 7 and 8-year-olds are just as likely to become more violent due to viewing video games as adults are. So adults are not immune. I was able to reach Professor Anderson to ask about this. When asked how this assertion was tested, whether by some type of brainwave activity testing or if it actually was a study that watched adults for aggressive behavior, Prof. Anderson stated: “The quote in question refers to experimental studies (which show
short term effects) and correlational studies that assess a whole
range of aggressive behaviors. Brain activity is not aggressive
behavior.”

When then asked if he believed violent games should be banned completely, he does state he’s unwilling to make such public policy statements, but that he does push for education about the ratings system and the harmful effects.

When I come back to post next, I'll discuss MMORPGs(Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). There's fascinating research out there about them and I'll be sure to get something posted by week's end on this topic.

Internet Reliability: How Wikipedia is Trying to Become the Most Reliable Website on the Internet

Wikipedia is, by its own words, is a “multilingual, web-based encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.” Wikipedia’s influence is becoming greater and greater, as almost any search you do on Google, Ask, MSN or any other website invariably returns articles from their encyclopedia near the top of the list. They currently make the claim of having 9.1 million articles in an astounding 252 languages. The very idea and meaning of the word “wiki” is that it is a program that allows users to easily update and edit parts of the program. Therefore, Wikipedia, by its very name is the encyclopedia that can be easily edited and changed by almost any user.

The results of this are twofold. This approach is what makes Wikipedia so powerful, influential, and large in scope. However, it also leads to potential issues of reliability of information. Our childhood lessons tell us that everyone has a right to their opinion and that no one’s opinion is better than anyone else’s, but the reality of the fact is that opinions aren’t what a person is looking for when looking in an encyclopedia. Facts are. So the real issues are: When you create an encyclopedia that is of the scope and importance of Wikipedia, how do you ensure that the information is reliable, how do you decide what information is relevant and important enough to be listed as fact, and how do you ensure that the system isn’t compromised by the very thing that makes it great?

Wikipedia has loads of information on their website discussing how they attempt to keep the overall quality of their articles as high as possible, but in order to gain a greater perspective of how Wikipedia operates and what measures they have in place to ensure the highest quality possible, I came in contact with Daniel Bryant, a volunteer who was willing to generously dedicate some of his time to answer questions.

Matt Talken: What measures are taken to ensure reliability and accuracy on your articles?

Daniel Bryant: Wikipedia is only as reliable as the external sources on which it relies. Fortunately, Wikipedia is very regular about citing its sources (far more regular than many other publications). If an article does not provide citations, then it may or may not be reliable and a reader should use their own judgment. Students should never use information in Wikipedia for formal purposes (such as school essays) until they have verified and evaluated the information based on external sources. To enforce this requirement, one of our three core content policies is about verifiability, seen at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability>. The premise of this is that the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth and that editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. Unfortunately, as Wikipedia is a work in progress, some articles don't meet this requirement (in fact, many don't). For some that do, see < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles>, which are considered Wikipedia's best work as vetted by the community through a nominations process


MT: How do you differentiate between accidental mistakes that people make when editing pages and intentional vandalism?

DB: We have people who are considered 'vandal-fighters', who patrol the list of recent changes seen at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges> and revert vandalism. There is some general crtieria for what is considered vandalism and what isn't, which can been at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism>.However, the common sense application revolves around whether the edit was malicious and made in bad faith, or an accident made in good faith. Wikipedians are expected to assume good faith until/unless there is evidence to the contrary. That being said, edits which are not 'vandalism' but are also not 'helpful' are also reverted, however more courtesy and discussion are afforded to such situations.


MT: How often are articles being updated? Do WP employees check each and every one of these articles?

DB: Wikipedia has very few "employees" (estimating it'd be fewer than ten), but rather rely on volunteers like myself. I am unsure about statistics regarding the amount of updates being made, but to check the number of recent edits to any individual page click the 'history' tab at the top of it.


MT: What are the guidelines for whether a topic is important enough to warrant having a posting?

DB: Our primary notability criterion is the main bar for inclusion. It is viewable at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability>, and is often quoted as "[a] topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Our guidelines on what is a reliable source obviously plays a big part in this; it can be seen at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources>.


MT: What are some of the most interesting examples of article vandalism that you've seen?

DB: You get your average inserts of four letter words up to entire spiels about totally random stuff, some of which makes me laugh. Some of the better ones are noted at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Silly_Things>, although it may give students ideas :)


MT: Are there any new ideas/theories on how to help make wikipedia even more reliable? Anything that will be tested?

DB: The biggest and most notable proposal (which I discussed at length with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales when I met him on his Australia tour earlier this year) was <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions>. It's opposers say it inhibits the Wiki model of "being easy for pages to be created and updated", while supporters say that for Wikipedia to improve *quality* rather than *quantity* it needs to happen. My opinion is the latter, but at the moment it hasn't been implemented because there is no consensus amongst the community as to how it would work.

MT: Looking at the "flagged revisions" article, it sounds like a good idea in theory, but I want to make sure I understand what it means. Am I correct in understanding that if this were implemented, anyone could submit updates for a page, but they wouldn't necessarily just happen, but instead would be submitted to a group of people who would decide whether the changes would be made or not?

DB: Yes, your reading is perfectly right. Obviously the bone of contention is this deviates from the standard Wiki model, which is that anyone can edit (still remains) and the changes are immediate (no longer occurs).As the community could never reach a consensus about the above, it was never agreed upon who would be able to "approve" revisions. The proposed setup for rights was detailed at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions/Quality_versions#Reviewer_rights>.

MT: How do you deal with controversial issues? What safeguards do you have against issues becoming too incendiary?

DB: One of our three core policies is that all articles need to be written from a neutral point of view, seen at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view>. This is non-negotiable with all articles. Furthermore, we have an even stronger guideline when dealing with biographies for people that are still living (or recently deceased), seen at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons>, as it is widely acknowledged that this area needs special attention and extra-strong provisions for removing poor information.


MT: A specific instance of the above question is involving the KKK page. What are your feelings on the fact that the KKK article on wikipedia links directly to the KKK's website? Is this responsible posting of information or could this be seen in some way as a validation of hateful messages?

DB: The content of Wikipedia pages, including external links, is determined entirely by our volunteers rather than any official editorial team. Links are generally reserved for sites that have significant content beyond the scope of an encyclopedia entry, and should be limited to only a few per article. These are usually official or academic sites; other categories such as forums and personal fan sites are discouraged. In this case, consensus would probably exist for including the website in the external links (where Wikipedia consensus is how decisions are made). For what reason, I have no idea, although I do share some concerns. However, linking to external sites is not a form of validation of the messages portrayed there, especially in the case of linking to the official website of the subject of the article (in the case of the KKK). This is noted at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links>, I believe.


MT: An article I noticed recently with a neutrality dispute was the article on former Governor Zell Miller. There seems to be a long-standing dispute of its neutrality. The issues seem to be documented pretty well on why it was originally labeled as such, but I've got two questions about this: First—After years of rewriting, is there still really a dispute and what specifically can you point to if there is reason for a dispute? Second—Is there any behind-the-scenes information you can tell me about how these issues are dealt with, or is the documentation on the talk page pretty much it?

DB: Disputes are resolved via our dispute resolution processes, noted at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution>. It is not uncommon for disputes to take months to resolve, and in some cases never be resolved. Wikipedia is often considered a battleground (which we try to dissent from, see < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND>), but in such cases people are often entrenched in their views and compromise becomes impossible. The Wiki model works on compromise, which is occasionally its' downfall.

MT: One other issue that came up in some of the links you’ve sent me is the idea of bots on wikipedia. One article on the site states: "Sysops are authorised to block unauthorised bots on sight. Spam bots should be treated equivalently as vandalbots." Are there bots that are authorised to make changes on wikipedia? If so, what exactly is the purpose of these bots?

DB: Yes, there are bots. They are approved for use by a small group of experienced users (I'm an inactive user of said group) after discussion. The < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot_policy> page is helpful.They do all sorts of tasks which would be impossible, impractical or just plain annoying to do by hand. There's bots that revert blatant vandalism (eg. adding "fuck you" or similar, total blanking of pages), some which swap over templates which have been depreciated, and others which distribute newsletters and bulletins to those who have signed up for it. Bots can be flagged or not flagged - having a bot flagged means the bot won't show up in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges>, so flagging is used for uncontroversial and frequent edits, so that the recent changes page doesn't get clogged up.

MT: So these bots are basically doing a lot of the repair work that would otherwise take most of the users’ time to repair. As a followup on the question I asked earlier about dispute resolution and the Zell Miller article, how are these issues handled while they're being disputed? Is the article reverted back to its previous state before the dispute or is the disputed information allowed to stay out there until the dispute is cleared? It seems like if it's allowed to stay, this could be a loophole, allowing a person to get his or her own point of view out there for potentially an extended period of time, knowing it could take months for the dispute to be resolved. It seems kind of like the problem with ancient Greek democracy. It's great because everyone gets a voice, but nothing could ever get done potentially.

DB: In disputes, there is no hard-and-fast requirement for reverting the page back to the original version. With the exception of where defamatory/strongly negative material about a living person is concerned, an article is protected (locked from editing) on the version it is found on by an administrator if users are constantly reverting each other - this is commonly called an edit war: < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_war>Wikipedia disputes are resolved through consensus and negotiation. Although it is true everyone has a voice, if that voice is one against one hundred as a result of being unreasonable, patently false or whatever other reason), they won't make any headway - it's kind of an augmented form of natural justice. If both parties are being reasonable, they should work towards a mutually-acceptable compromise agreement through processes of negotiation, mediation and general discussion. We have appointed mediators (of which I am one of) who can assist if the two parties/sides can't negotiate effectively by themselves.



Mr. Bryant’s answer paint a picture of an encyclopedia editable by anyone that certainly has its problems, but the problems are ones that are being handled in a very efficient manner. Wikipedia does a lot with just a little. They have very few actual employees, but instead use volunteers who are willing to put a little time into the wikipedia concept to make it the best resource it can be. With the volunteer help they receive and the bots they use to fix simple vandalism issues, Wikipedia may not be the most reliable source on the internet yet, but it certainly has a model for success and it has a dedicated group of volunteers who work hard to make it as reliable as any “wiki” could possibly be.

Random Thoughts and Musings

Soon I'll get around to posting some of the really cool stuff I've compiled for my Media Literacy class, but until Christmas break, this blog project probably won't take off as much as I'd like it to.

However, I did want to post some of my observations, both for my own records and on the slight chance that anyone actually has found this blog on the WWW so far, for your sake as well.

Below are a list of things my colleague and I did that I feel were mistakes in our first ever semester design of our curriculum and how they can be done better for the future.

Mistake #1: Many of the unit assessments early on were production type assessments.

What I mean by this is that the actual final assessment for both the advertising unit and the television unit was an actual commercial or short clip of a television show. While the commercials and TV shows were usually amusing and the students seemed to have a lot of fun doing them (at least those groups that finally got everyone to the same place at the same time and didn't have infighting about various situations), it seemed like many of the things that we tried to actually accomplish in our readings about and viewings of different genres and aspects of these two forms of media was thrown to the wayside when it came to actually producing each medium.

Some of this was probably the fact that I didn't really have any type of model for the students to base their work off of, and some of this might have been an early attitude of thinking that Media Literacy was going to be "the blow-off class."

In replacement of this production idea, my belief is that a research basis should exist for the assessments. One of the research studies that one group did concerned itself with what percentage of different types of magazines was advertising. It may or may not astound people to know that over 50% of most women's magazines (I believe the example in particular was Elle) are ad pages. Doing some type of research study, either about advertising, as I've previously mentioned, or about kids' or even adults' media usage, such as how many kids have a MySpace page, or how many people think of wikipedia as a reliable information source, could be far more valuable educationally than having kids make a commercial where they chug down an entire gallon of Sunny D (Although such an ad would surely be amusing).


Mistake #2: Making a "Literacy" class into a "Literature" class during the film section.

I agree with my colleague in designing this class that the film section was one place where he and I could get back into more of a comfort zone, since we did more literary analysis than study of the genre and how to understand how the directors and producers try to manipulate both the medium and the viewers. However, that's the role of a film class. At time of this post, there is no film class at DeKalb High School, so it's certainly not the worst thing in the world that it was temporarily a film class, however, our week long study of The Matrix didn't really fit with the overall concept of the class and it actually extended our film unit two weeks longer (three in the case of my colleague) to the point that we've had to make the choice to sacrifice part of the video game unit, which was one of the big draws of the class.

The film unit of this class should have explored mostly documentaries and films that are obviously politically charged. The change in the documentary genre over the last two decades is a fascinating thing and would be vastly interesting to study, and seeing as most of the changes are inspired by the fact that documentaries weren't entertaining enough to grab mass appeal before, it definitely fits in with the idea of a Media Literacy class (it could be brought in under the overarching concept of what media has done to our attention spans).

Other films that would be perfect for this type of class are politically charged films, such as Wag the Dog, about a Hollywood-studio created war that deflected attention away from a President's moral misgivings, or The American President, about a Democratic President in the 90's who has to engage in a moral war with the Republicans after issues about his morality come up due to a sexual relationship with a lobbyist. V for Vendetta is another film, that while I personally have not seen it, supposedly has political statements concerning issues that have arose over the last 6 years.

Other things that could be studied include how films about wars are handled. Now, after the public opinion has turned on the War in Iraq and on a smaller scale against the War on Terror, we see a new influx of movies coming out that, from their previews, seem to show these wars in a much more unflattering light.

These are Media Literacy issues. As much as I enjoyed teaching Greek mythology and Christian symbolism and allegory within The Matrix, it didn't belong in the class.

Mistake #3: Classroom setting.

To start out, both my colleague and I were scheduled in a business lab at DeKalb High School, fully equipped with (I believe) 24 operating computers and a teacher workstation that could lock student computers, monitor what they're doing, and broadcast what I'm showing on their screens.

This software, as great as it sounds, worked very poorly. In addition, while many students handled the possible distraction of having a computer in front of them very well and either ignored the computer when it wasn't helpful, or utilized it to type notes and look up elaboration on issues I brought up in class, others used the computers to look up silly "Caturday" pictures, ESPN stats, or their favorite guitar that they hope to buy someday.

Outside writing up disciplinary referrals for every student, there was no obvious way to break the attention sucking powers of the computers. Even in a Media Literacy class, anything I talk about is no where near as entertaining or cool to them as their favorite online game or reading reviews about the new Ibanez they're saving up to buy.

Having said that, the computers have been invaluable at times. Having easy access to a computer lab is very beneficial to a Media Literacy class, in my opinion. In fact, the very issue of why the kids, in what SHOULD have been the most interesting class they've ever had (they couldn't even pay attention when we were specifically dealing with how shows like Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy are examples of satire that deal with cultural and political issues with varying degrees of sophistication), couldn't pay attention IS a Media Literacy issue. However, as long as the computers were in front of the students, I had to deal with either being the ignored teacher or the totalitarian teacher who wrote students up for looking at ESPN.com.

The best thing that happened was when a neighboring class complained during our film unit that we were too loud, moving us temporarily to another classroom. Being in a standard classroom changed the dynamic completely, and where previously students would become transfixed by what was on their computer monitors, they would actually actively engage and participate in class discussion.

These three mistakes are things I've definitely learned from and when I get a chance to teach this class again, likely next fall, I'll certainly be correcting them.

Introduction

Welcome to my new blog!

Media Literacy is "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms." as defined by wikiversity's Media Literacy page, found on my links list on the right. To be more specific, my concept of Media Literacy is teaching students the concepts they need to understand how they interact with media, how different forms of media influence and manipulate both them as well as the rest of us.

In our 21st century, media-driven world, we are exposed to thousands of advertisements, news stories and perspectives on the world and students need to be taught the critical thinking skills necessary to make their own genuine judgments on what to listen to and what to ignore.

This blog will be used to:

• Provide another voice advocating for Media Literacy in every school in the United States.
• Provide ideas for teachers that either currently teach or are interested in teaching Media Literacy as a whole or even individual lessons.
• Provide a central location for all of the resources I personally use for teaching Media Literacy, both for my own use and for the use of anyone interested in utilizing any of my ideas.

The last topic to address in this introductory post is the title of this blog. Waiting for the World to Change is a John Mayer song on his album Continuum. If you don't know the song, check it out. It's a fabulous song that points out all the reasons for having Media Literacy. Of course, the song advocates "Waiting for the World to Change" instead of taking an active role in it. My purpose here is of course to take the active approach. So here's to a bright future of Media Literacy!