Saturday 24 February 2007

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is persuasive language. It is often used in order to encourage others to reason with your way of thinking. In this sense a persons values should be made evident if someone was to use rhetoric, as they would be attempting to engage their listener to their line of thought.

When relating this concept to games it is predictable that the producers of games will use rhetoric in order to consciously interpellate their target audience. Advertising would be a good way to draw in the desired players by using the necessary components. For example, the official 'Medal of Honour: Heroes' website is able to successfully attempt this by using rhetoric such as 'prepare for your finest hour' (EA Games website). Accompanied with exciting visual images and a black background a sense of adventure is instilled in to the audience's imaginations, consequently encouraging them to cohere to the values of the creator- kill or be killed! These values are continuously reemphasized while playing the game. Messages alerting you, the player, who has already been killed and by which opponent urges you to quickly take action or else it is suggested that your fate is sealed. The short intervals of play time, promotes the value that it is the survival of the fittest and that there is no room for second thoughts. There is simply only one objective- to kill!


These values are strongly contrasting to the values in which 'The Sims' producers are encouraging. The entire goal of the game, which is to achieve material success through delayed gratifications, promotes values which are similar to the Protestant work ethic. In this sense you are compelled to work hard, where the rhetoric of the game could be considered to persuade the audience that material gain in good. Such ideological messages could be perceived by Marxists such as Gramsci to be 'maintaining the status quo and promoting capitalist ideas', by making the values within the game seem legitimate and normal (Rulter and Bryce 2006: pg 152). Therefore, such values exhibited in the game are able to support Gramsci's thesis of hegemony.

Gramsci's concerns can also relate to Stanley Cohens's concept of Moral Panic. Considering that we live in a media saturated environment, ideological values and this notion of rhetoric are difficult to escape. Especially from excitable children who can fixate on the most trivial of things. Unfortunately computer games are one of these things, where the concern today is that the overload of violence in the mass media may 'desensitize young people to the real world' (Beck and Wade 2004: pg 52). Moral panic can quickly be created through over stimulation by the media, often exaggerating the truth by playing on the public's fears. This process can be referred to as the Media amplification spiral and can ironically help boost game sales if a particular game has received allot of attention. 'Manhunt' is an example of such a game which became a house hold name after controversy in 2004. I personally feel that influences such as rhetoric in games are powerful, but cannot be considered contributing factors for illegal activity. A possible explanation to why someone may want to imitate something they have seen in a game is because they cannot distinguish between reality and fiction!

.EA Games Website. Retrieved on 24th Febuary from the World Wide Web: http://www.ea.com/psp/medalofhonor_heroes/
.Rulter, J. and Bryce, J.(2006) 'Understanding Digital Games', London: SAGE Publications Ltd
.Beck, JC. and Wade, M. (2004) 'Got Game', Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing).

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