The Social Effects of Media Violence Tutorial Task

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech Shootings in which 32 people were killed by a lone gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, 21-year old Sydney man, Ryan Lambourn, sparked outrage by creating a game based on the massacre. This week, you’re asked to take a look at the game for yourself, here: http://googumproduce.com/flash/vtech_riaa.swf. How do you respond? Is this game unethical? Also, take a look at the various media responses to Lambourn’s game here: http://googumproduce.com/vtechresponse.php (keep in mind these clips have been collected by Lambourn on one of his web pages). What do these responses say about how the relationship between games and violence is currently portrayed in the mainstream media?

For a little more background on Lambourn’s game and its impact, click here. For tutorials, make sure you’ve at least looked at Lambourn’s game and have thought about your response to it.

Media Clips for the ‘Media Violence, Moral Panics & Videogames’ Lecture

Here are the full versions of the clip’s used in this week’s lecture. The full Daily Show clip focusing in video-game violence and Congressional hearings in the US:

(The Videogames bit of The Daily Show starts at 1:30 into the clip.) The Coca-Cola advertisement based on Grand Theft Auto: