Year 13 Media Studies Homework for Miss Davies

Answer these two questions about these two trailers:

1. Do you believe that the Media promotes violence?

Black Ops 2 - The clip is not really promoting violence, because the events shown are not everyday type things. It's not like any person can just get their hands on the weapons and stuff shown on the Black Ops 2 trailer. It's not like when you get shot in real life you can just respawn and run around again. The trailer is violent and although a similar sort of thing can technically happen in wars it isn't quite so glamourised as Call of Duty makes it seem. It could however make people think that in a way they can get away with being violent. The diegetic sound within the clip says 'techology got stronger, but we got weaker'. In a way this sort of shows that the violence shown in this game is like properly technologically advanced, so it's not exactly promoting violence because it's not likely everyone has the equipment to mimic what they see in the game. It also says 'They'll always need men like us, those who are willing to do... What others cannot.' In a way this also shows that it's not promoting violence because not everybody can do what is shown. However, in an indirect manner, if you were probably a bit strange or something then that line could also make you want to be one of those men, who can do it even if others can't.

Grand Theft Auto 5 -  This trailer could actually be seen to be promoting violence more than the Black Ops trailer, because the violence in this trailer is much more realistic to the everyday person. There is not too many scenes of violence within the trailer, although the game itself is pretty violent. The trailer shows simple violence such as hitting and shoving people, this is more achievable for normal people who don't have things like guns, so in a way it could be more impacting than black ops.

None of them really promote violence, it massively depends on individual differences as to whether a video game is going to make someone think they can get away with being violent or not, and lets be fair many of the people who play video games are teenagers and that's a difficult age really.

2. How do the clips represent violence?

In the trailers there are explosions ,guns, shouting, and scenes that represent a battlefield. These are common things that you'd think of when you think of violence and each clip, particularly Black Ops shows these well. Both of them are set in a city, which makes it more down to earth and everyday (in a way, especially in GTA). There is physical violence displayed in Grand Theft Auto from person to person, this shows that anyone can be violent whereas in CoD it is shown to be more military and not for everyone.