Yesterday when I went for the tutorial session, I had gone with confidence to put a question across being well informed and ready to learn about the topic. Personally, the first perspective was self-informed because it was based on personal experiences and studies which I had come across. It is because it seemed that there was an apparent hesitancy among most video game players to be labelled with the term ‘gamer’ which carried with it a negative connotation like those found being socially awkward, unhealthy, and unattractive.
However, the tutorial discussions opened me the possible biases in my approach. Maybe I, too, have been too focused on views that go along with my own experiences failing to take into big picture account. This made me explore into more varied sources.
My investigation resulted in an interesting discovery that, throughout the years, the stereotype of a gamer has changed. A decade ago, gamers living in Great Britain and the United States were regarded negatively as they had the highest scores for such items as ‘unpopular’ and ‘socially incompetent’ (Miriyagalla, 2023, p.293). However, with mainstreaming, this negativity was significantly dampened, though there is a hangover of this negativity in particular towards gamers playing violent video games (Miriyagalla, 2023, p.293).
This led me to another important aspect – a relation between violent video games and real violence. Contradictory to popular belief, researches like those of Williams and Skoric (2005) on MMORPGs found no significant evidence of a relationship between violent gaming and real-life aggression. When all is said, players also revealed no possible increase in aggression and argumentative behavior after the stimuli was a violent game such as “Asheron’s Call” (p.217, 228).
Now I am now in a position to narrow down my area of focus from these revelations. It is not only the problem of general perception of gamers, but an issue that hovers over the heads of those who play violent video games. This leads me to reframe my research question as: “How we can effectively change the public perceptions to reduce the lingering negativity towards the gamers playing violent video games?”
As I move forward, I am becoming more aware of the need to conduct my research with an open mind and ensure that I delve into thorough, unbiased investigation.
*Edit (30 Jan, 2024)
Yesterday’s tutorial with Zuleika really pushed me to think – why do we have these stereotypes about gamers, and who set them in the first place? It’s curious how the media has shaped our view of gamers and how that’s changed over time. And it’s not just about how gamers were seen, but also about how they’ve come to see themselves. Also just wanted to add, when I was revisiting some articles today, I’ve got to read more about “The Proteus Effect” – it’s fascinating how our digital selves can influence who we are in the real world. I’m definitely going to dive into these two different ideas more. Who knows where it might lead?
References
Miriyagalla, U. P., Kashima, E. S. and Stukas, A. A. (2023) ‘Stereotype content of players of violent and non-violent games’, Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 26(3), pp. 287–298. DOI: 10.1111/ajsp.12558.
Williams, D., & Skoric, M. (2005). ‘Internet fantasy violence: A test of aggression in an
online game’, Communication Monographs, 72(2), 217–233.