The Gate to the Fears in Violent Video Game Controversies Online
We welcome you to an overview of experts, games, parents and gamers concerned with the relation between games and reality
The controversy of whether Violent Video Games cause problems for kids and gamers in general takes place in different spheres on the internet. Here you find visual mappings of three of these spheres: the academic, the web in general and on Wikipedia.
The network of wikipedia sites that is somehow linked to the discussion
The map shows links from the Wikipedia site, ”Violent Video Games Controversy”.
The site is linked to more than 30,000 other sites, most shown by nodes on this map. In the middle is seen the base for the controversy.
The web corpus
This map shows who the dedicated sites of the controversy have linked to. Notice that the main sites here are the ones that treat video games in a more general matter, and not just the controversy.
The academic network of discussion
Here you see the major contributors to the academic side of the discussion. The authors Anderson, Ferguson, Bushman and Freedman are those that are referred most to and on the map we see how they refer to each other in their academic articles.
So, what we see in general from these mappings of different spheres online is that, some of the violent games (e.g. Mortal Kombat) have a big role to play. The page of concerned mothers that is very dedicated to the discussion are however not that visible in the map of links, which might tekll us something about the acknowledgement of them. Other actors became however very visible such as activists, psychiatrists and other experts. In the overview underneath you can click on the various main characters of the mappings of discussions to learn more about what they stand for. The characters on the right is those that are con (those that argue that there is no evidence that there is a link between violence in games and violent behaviour in real life), and on the left there are those that are pro (they fear that there is a relation). In the middle is a more neutral character.
JACK THOMPSON Januar 2008
“Take-Two shares have jumped approximately 12% today on this news. What the market is not factoring in, however, is the downside risk coming Take-Two’s way with the sale of this “Mature” game to kids, which is a murder simulator for violence against women, cops, and innocent bystanders”...
SHERLY K. OLSON
Grand Theft Childhood, 2008
"It’s clear that the ‘big fears’ bandied about in the press - that violent video games make children significantly more violent in the real world; that children engage in the illegal, immoral, sexist and violent acts they see in some of these games - are not supported by the current research, at least in such a simplistic form.
The Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence organization is dedicated to educating parents of the world's fastest growing addiction and the most reckless endangerment of children today:
Video Game Addiction and Violence in Underground Video Game Cultures
CHRISTOPHER J. FERGUSON
Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games Be a Force for Good?, 2010
”The news cycle about video games tends to focuses on three main phenomena: the release of controversial games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, unsupported statements by nonscientists such as Jack Thompson and David Grossman, and efforts to tie individual real-life violent crimes to violent games, despite evidence that violent crimes, including youth crimes, generally are decreasing.
LT. COL. DAVID GROSSMAN
Interview, Maj 2002
“Now basically, the children who've never played the violent video game before, when they have to kill somebody, they're thinking about it. It's a conscious, thinking effort. But, the children who've played the games a lot, and are very good at the games—there is no conscious thought; there is nothing but brain stem activity; it completely bypasses their conscious brain. The video game turns killing into a conditioned reflex”.
BRAD BUSHMAN
Artikel: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression, The Ohio State University, Dec. 2012“Playing video games could be compared to smoking cigarettes. A single cigarette won’t cause lung cancer, but smoking over weeks or months or years greatly increases the risk. In the same way, repeated exposure to violent video games may have a cumulative effect on aggression.”
CRAIG ANDERSON
Report of the Media Violence Commission, 2012
”One conclusion appears clear-extreme conclusions are to be avoided. Not every viewer or player will be affected noticeably, but from understanding the psychological processes involved, we know that every viewer or player is affected in some way.
JONATHAN FREEDMAN
“The original question whether playing violent video games causes people to be aggressive is certainly not answered yet. We must still ask what this finding means. Or, to put it in other terms, should the results of this research be interpreted as indicating that playing violent video games causes aggression. The answer to this question depends on the details of how the research was designed and conducted.”