Informative speech: structure and delivery techniques

¶ … Speech

Video Game Violence

A beautiful opera aria fills the air while tires screech and a woman screams as the bright yellow cab jumps up on the curb and slams into her, coming to a halt practically on top of her body. As she struggles to come to her feet, a male figure gets out of the cab and walks around it towards the woman, a baseball bat in his hands. He mercilessly begins to beat her, continuing until a pool of blood begins to spread from under her now motionless body. No sign of the police anywhere, and the rest of city traffic just keeps flowing by without seeming to notice. This scene takes place countless times every day, and it is much closer than you think -- possibly as close as your very own living room. This scene is just one example of the extreme violence portrayed in the Grand Theft Auto video game series, which is itself just one of the many violent and graphic video games that are currently flooding the market and avidly being played by people of all ages.

There is no doubt that violence is depicted more often and more graphically in the media today than at any other time in human history. This is primarily do to the fact that media is far more present in our lives today than ever before -- from radio to television to video games, computers, and the Internet, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been marked by major developments in access to communication and media. In his testimony on media violence before Congress, Dr. Henry Jenkins notes that we now live in a hypermediated culture. There is so much media around us, we cannot help but be at least slightly desensitized to the things we hear and/or see every day. From violence to the ever popular use of sex in advertising, things that used to be off-limits are becoming increasingly bold and risque as it takes more and more to get our attention. Violence portrayed in television and films is one thing, however, but violence in a video game is a horse of a different color.

In video games, the violence is carried out by a character under the player's control -- that is, one is not simply witnessing the violence on a screen, but is actually participating in the creation and carrying out of this violence. The American Psychological Association's website notes that media violence alone can be enough to desensitize people, especially children, and may even make them more likely to engage in behaviors that are harmful to themselves and others around them. It is very likely that video games greatly increase this effect because of the participation they require. In the Grand Theft Auto series, for instance, beating and even killing innocent pedestrians is rewarded with cash and points for a job well done. While most people have no difficulty separating the fiction of the video game from real life, these games can have serious consequences for society as our natural disgust at such behavior is diminished through even fictional rewards.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this theory -- several prominent school shootings have been ostensibly linked to video game playing -- but real scientific evidence is also emerging that suggests a more subtle but similar effect. In one study, college-age participants who had spent time playing Wolfenstein 3D, a first person shooter computer game, "punished" their opponents by subjecting them to loud noises of high intensity more frequently and for longer periods of time than participants that had played a non-violent computer game. In the words of Dr. Craig Anderson, one of the psychologists and researchers who conducted the study, "violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations."

Basically, time spent playing violent video games is time spent learning life skills that could be detrimental and counter-productive in real world situations, and could even replace more socially valuable skills sets and methods of problem solving. This problem is reflected in -- and exacerbated by -- attempts to label and identify violence in video games and other forms of media. Steven J. Kirsch, author of the book Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence, identifies the Entertainment Software Rating Board's system as the most effective, but points out several significant flaws. First, games rated "E" for "everyone" are really only deemed appropriate for children ages six and up, and can contain large levels of violence -- as much as ninety percent of game play. Furthermore, the term "violence" is not defined well at all, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board only reviews footage of video games provided to them by the video game producers, without actually playing the games themselves. This provides a greatly diminished capacity for the board to perform its stated purpose, and gives parents less control and awareness of the types of activities their children are exposed to.