Video games 7: effects model

The effects model and how it applies to assassins creed

The effects model was proposed by Albert Bandura and it states that media has a direct effect on us. Representations in media are really important because audiences can copy the representations that are shown in the media as these groups can think they need to live up to their representations or labels given to them by the media, or on the other hand these groups might want to go against the representations and defy these labels. As many games have violence in them I will use violence as an example, violence is in video games like the assassins creed and the Call of duty saga's as younger audiences like to lay games that excite them and what is more thrilling than violence to a ten year old boy. Watching violence and playing with games that glorify these violent acts can make audiences think that its normal behavior, repeated scenes of violence can make these audiences act as they see making it crucial that we have rating systems to prevent children repeating the acts they see in violent video games.

One issue with this effects model is that when these kids grow up having watched all these violent acts then they will want to listen to aggressive music and maybe become criminals, or they could become pacifists to make sure they don't become like the characters they play thus defying a label that the media has given to these who play these games. The hypodermic needle model is a passive audience theory, the ideology of the producer is pushed at the audience.
Another flaw in this theory is that for a game like assassins creed the players are really unlikely to try to recreate what they have seen like jumping off of high buildings and using illegal weapons as they will still have common sense and know that the video game is just meant to be enjoyed while playing it. Most of these kinds of games have story lines where in which the characters need to take down an evil organisation and in real life this takes more to do than just shooting some bad buys, the world is more gray than gray scale.

Albert Bandura proposed this theory along side his research into how repeated actions affect children. Bandura came up with a study that had children watch the actions of an adult as they interact with a bobo doll (an inflated clown) and the test was to see how the child would then treat the doll afterwards. He found that the children who had seen the adults react aggressively towards the doll would then act more aggressively as it is a repeated behavior. 

One key example of this model is that of the columbine shootings that were thought to be bought on by the shooters having played or watched Doom.

The effects model and assassins creed
The game affects its audience by presenting the idea that violence is the solution to any issue when in reality just by stealing money from some large conglomerate doesn't make you the good guy unlike in many of those games. These games imply that stealing and looting as well as murder can happen with no consequence, in fact characters can often level up if they do pillage and murder. Stealing is the most likely trait that players are likely to pick up as they play the series of games because the game can actually teach kids to steal as best they can through the story lines and such. 
This might cause concern for teachers and parents as kleptomaniac kids can really be an issue for society especially if they play these kinds of games and get a hero complex and heroes never tend to get a glorious ending. Another worry for parents might be the animation of the story lines as they can be quite graphic depictions of stuff like decapitation and general death, weapons that these characters use might be concerning for parents as children might want to then get these weapons as their favorite characters use them and these kids want to be like their heroes.

The game however does have positive affects on the audience as for example in these games characters face many challenges and kids can learn perseverance through trial and error as in a game if they die they can just try again later. Character development makes players learn life lessons through first person game play, audiences can clearly see messages through out the series that people should help other people and that by helping other people you can become a better person as well as leveling up in some games.