Assassin’s Creed: regulation, harm and offense and the effects model

Harm and offense - Assassin's Creed Mirage

• Realistic graphics depict realistic violence
• The animation is clearly motion captured, allowing for a realistic mode of address
• High draw distance situates the audience in a realistic world and allows us to experience the violence from both near and far
• Splatters of blood 
• Slit throats and stabbed chests constructs a realistic representation of violence 
• Realistic sound effects emphasise the violence
• High level of murders: we see ten assassins in two minutes 
• Imitable behaviour. Climbing, jumping and dangerous students may lead to audiences emulating these activities, in particular very young people, and vulnerable adults 
• Uncomfortable and shocking representation of domestic violence/violence against women 
• Although the game is rated PEGI 18, footage from the game can easily be accessed on Youtube with no restrictions
• The game depicts graphic murder. However, the target audience have had these representations normalised through exposure. This process is called desensitisation. 
• Graphic depictions of murder
• Use of blades to commit murder has real life analogues 
• MES of bloody spray
• Jumping off buildings: imitable behaviour. May influence children and other vulnerable people 
• The entire gameplay is focused around violence and creating opportunities to commit murder 
• Domestic violence 
• Vandalism and destruction of property 
• The Middle Eastern setting perpetuates certain racist stereotypes, for example the representation of evil henchmen…

Desensitization

When audiences are continually exposed to messages, for example violence and representations of violence, they typically accept the message over a long period of time. This idea of cultivating ideologies can explain why games that used to be considered shocking are now accepted by the public at large 

The Bobo doll experiment 

The Bobo doll experiment was conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and studied patterns of behaviour associated with aggression.

Bandura hoped that the experiment would prove that aggression can be explained, at least in part, by social learning theory. The theory of social learning would state that behaviour such as aggression is learned through observing and imitating others. The experiment is important because it sparked many more studies about the effects that viewing violence had on children. 

Geert Stienissen

Issues with the effects model and the bobo doll experiment

• A completely unnatural environment, that may provoke unnatural responses
• The video shown does not resemble mainstream media
• The bobo doll is clearly a toy, and bounces around when you punch it 
• It is an experiment on children. Children are easily manipulated 
• The bobo doll experiment purports to show a relationship between viewing violent media and violent reactions. In a laboratory setting, violent responses were quickly and effectively cultivated through showing young children footage of a researcher hitting a doll.
• The experiment was conducted on young children, who are particularly impressionable 
• Not every child or person will react in the same (active models of audience engagement) 
• The bobo doll is a big balloon punchbag that invites violent reactions
• The experiment only considered immediate and straightforward effects
• The kids were provided with weapons that they had already seen in the video: highly leading and instruction
• A one way path: hit the clown, no consideration of repercussions
• No consideration of the lives and conditions of the children 
• The woman resembles an authority figure, which legitimises the ‘violence’ 
• It’s an experiment on children, and the children are placed in a highly set up and unrealistic scenario
• While games like AC: Mirage may not have an immediate negative effect on it’s target mature audience, it may instead help to cultivate an ideology that violence is an acceptable solution to a range of situations

Moral panic - A mass movement based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behaviour or group of people is dangerously deviant and poses a threat to society's values and interests. Moral panics are generally fuelled by media coverage of social issues. (Oxford English dictionary)