Games vs. Cinema The battle for the ultimate propaganda medium.
Lieke Mandemakers, 3000680 BA Eindwerkstuk T. Poell 3 November, 2008
"This game knows too much about me. This game tells filthy lies.” Ender’s Game.
Political perspectives in movies have been heavily criticised in the last couple of decades. Ever since it has become common knowledge that Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union made extensive use of propaganda movies (for instance ‘Der Ewige Jude’) to indoctrinate the people with their vision, people have been extremely judgmental over any form of propaganda or particular political perspectives in movies. This is apparent in the fact that after World War II, a committee was formed in the U.S. to investigate and analyse films that were being produced. Just to determine if the content was in keeping with the government’s point of view, if not, they would step in and force the producer to edit the content. This intrusion by the government is a blatant show of power and shows how seriously political perspectives in films are being taken. Lately games are being used for propaganda purposes as well. Explicit political perspectives are very common in a lot of popular games. Without realising it, players are subject to (in most cases) a strong western perspective on political affairs. This becomes apparent for instance in America’s Army; a game fully developed by the American army, where you play an American soldier going on missions resembling real American military missions. To understand the nature of this ‘gaming-propaganda’ it is important that we look at it from a comparative perspective. In order to fully understand the concept of propaganda in games, we need to look back to propaganda in films. By comparing two different forms of media exercising the same purpose (to serve as a tool for propaganda) we can objectively determine the differences between these media, and how games function differently than cinema. In what ways can we recognize aspects of propaganda films in games? Is the use of political perspectives in games comparable to the use of movies for propaganda purposes? If so, what is the difference between these two? These questions lead us to the main point of this research paper: In what ways does propaganda in gaming emulate propaganda in films? Propaganda has always been a hot topic amongst academics. Amongst citizens, it is widely perceived as an evil tool to reflect the vision of the leaders onto the (blind) masses. Yet academics do not always agree with this. In a lot of research papers and analysis’ academics have tried to define what propaganda does, and what aspects of it are crucial for something to be considered ‘propaganda’: in short: What is propaganda? One of the most important researches done on the level of propaganda for instance is the piece in which Herman and Chomsky try and define in which ways propaganda work, and set up a model for analysing it. (Herman, 1) A lot of academics seem to agree that one of the prerequisites for something being labelled as ‘propaganda’ is the fact that the message is intentional. Propaganda always feeds a purpose. (R. Taylor, 8) Besides this aspect, propaganda aims to generate a certain effect on people. In order to fulfill the purpose it has, it needs to be able to influence the minds of the masses. It needs to have a specific effect on people. This aspect has been analysed on many different levels, including semantics (Fleming, 3-12), psychoanalytic (Hartman, 329- 346) and institutional (Welch, 1-5). Almost all of these findings have been done by studying film as a tool for propaganda. This is due to the fact that it has been film that has been most extensively used for the purpose of propaganda. However, gaming offers opportunities for propaganda as well. There have been various studies on the importance of political perspectives in the gaming industry and games. More and more academics are realising that gaming should be taken
seriously, because it can have implications on the ‘real life’ of these gamers. Besides games being used as training in all sorts of areas, (Suellentrop, 2) we can also recognize clear political perspectives in specific aspects of popular games. Especially narrative is a popular way of implementing beliefs in a game. (Parker, 4) More and more academics are beginning to see the importance and value of analysing games, especially in the area of propaganda. Yet we are missing a comparative approach to this phenomenon. It is recognised that games can carry political affiliations and perspectives with them in either story lines or institutional aspects, but to fully grasp the idea of propaganda in gaming, it is important to view this aspect of the gaming industry in comparison to cinema. We cannot completely understand it if we don’t look back in history and compare games to the most widely used medium for propaganda: cinema. This perspective has not before been explored and deserves to be researched. When compared cinema, we can recognize the particular qualities of games as tools for propaganda. In order to do this, this paper will be divided in three different parts, each of them answering a specific research question. Part one will consist of a content analysis and comparison between cinema and gaming. I will be looking at the ways in which the content in propaganda games functions in the same way as the content in propaganda films. I will be comparing techniques used in cinema-propaganda to those used in (popular) games. In the second part I will be focusing on institutional aspect of producing propaganda films/ games. I will be taking a closer look at the production of propaganda films and games and see if we can find any comparable cultural qualities between the two. The third part will focus on the aspect of the medium itself. Why is film so widely used for the purpose of propaganda, and can we maybe see these qualities reflected in popular games as well? As mentioned before the goal of this paper is to get a better understanding of propaganda and the possibilities of propaganda in gaming. To achieve this it is important that we look back to theories about the use of cinema for propaganda purposes. I will be comparing theories of different academics from different disciplines about propaganda in cinema to the political perspectives that can be seen in games. To illustrate my point, I’ll be using a number of case studies. One of these will be: ‘Der Ewige Jude’, a 1940 German propaganda film directed by Fritz Hippler. A perfect example of German nazi propaganda in its glory days, ‘Der Ewige Jude’ is a film in documentary-style portraying the so-called wandering, parasitical nature of Jews. I will also be referring to the army based recruitment and training game: ‘America’s Army’ (2002), owned by the American government. I choose this particular game because of its clear, blatant use of propaganda techniques, and the explicitly present political perspectives. These two cases will be serving as empirical reference points in a theoretical debate.
Missions, Guns and Politics: a content comparison between propaganda films and – games.
Cinema has been used for countless generations to teach and educate. Ranging from educational promos in classrooms to documentary meant to bestow on us certain morals, it has been widely accepted that the content of a film can somehow have an effect on our real lives. The same can be said for gaming. Academics as well as producers are realising that games can have a ‘real life’ effect on their players. We first saw this development taking place in the increasing amount of studies on violence in video games. Academics were afraid that the increasing amount of violence in videogames could somehow increase the aggressiveness in the children playing them. We can for instance see David Waddington trying to prove this fact. He is worried that the ultra-violence in video games might not only have an effect on the children, but might also be undermining the idea of wrongness (Waddington, 128). Children grow up with a warped image of right and wrong. We can easily see how thinking like this triggers other thoughts about video games as well. If violence in video games can effect the behaviour or thinking of the gamers, then who is to say other content-related aspects of a game can not? Countless of producers are discovering this as we see more and more ‘serious’ games hit the market. In different conventions around the world distributors and producers are exhibit their new ‘serious games’. This genre of games has as its main purpose to educate children and adults. In Suellentrop’s ‘Playing with our minds’ he explores the ways in which games can teach us things. Serious games get used for serious purposes. A good example mentioned is America’s Army, which originally started out as a recruitment tool, but grew to be a training facility as well (Suellentrop, 1). The content of games can have an affect on the ‘real life’ of its players. It can teach and educate them. As mentioned before, film can have the same effect. This is one of the reasons cinema has been so widely used for the purpose of propaganda. While we will be further elaborating on that in the third chapter, it is interesting to see what exactly makes film propaganda so potent, and what aspects does it contain that make it propaganda in the first place. There are different aspects of the content that define a film as a propaganda film. In cinema these aspects have been explored in countless research papers. One of these is Hartman’s ‘A psychoanalytic view of racial myths in a nazi propaganda film: Der Ewige Jude.’ As he describes it, propaganda tries to ‘exploit irrational emotional responses to visual scenes and commentary to change attitudes, values, and behaviour in a mass setting.’ (Hartman, 329) The film tries to change or shape the perspective of the audience by use of (mainly) visual cues. Hartman then continues to explore the ways in which a movie can accomplish this goal. One of the first things Hartman mentions is the fact that in cinema propaganda, movies make use of a documentary technique in order to make their assumptions and views look more realistic and true. (Hartman, 332) Propaganda movies particularly mix film images with real images to be able to tap into a state of emotionally laden thinking with their spectators. (Hartman, 336) Because of the mix of reality and fantasy, the movie taps into a dream/daydream psychology, in which ‘images connect with primary process.’ (Hartman, 336) The viewer is thinking with its heart, not reasoning with logic. This process is not uncommon in (popular) games. Specifically in America’s Army it is apparent that reality and fantasy are being thrown into one big mix of manipulative bloodshed. One of the themes of America’s Army is ‘realism’, which can be applied for numerous aspects of the game. ‘It [realism] could refer to the veracity of any number of real-
life elements: geographical environments based on real locations, accurate depictions of weapons that could only fire a certain amount of rounds before reloading, or ballistics that caused missiles to travel in arcs that replicated real world physics.’ (Halter, xiii) When carefully considered we can say that games have even more opportunity to easily mix reality and fantasy than cinema. Games are generally fantasy by default. You are ‘playing’ a character that does not exist in reality. Yet, as we’ve seen in America’s Army, this can be combined by realistic settings resembling settings in the real world, or using tools (in this case guns) that exist in real life and have to be handled exactly like it. (See fig. 1 and 2.) In this way, the player can be confronted with reality vs. fantasy at any given moment he or she is playing the game, as opposed to cinema, where real and fantasy images take turns one after the other.
Another interesting aspect that also gets mentioned in Hartman’s text is the fact that cinema propaganda often got used to demonise the enemy, because it made the job of killing that enemy in battle easier for people. (Hartman, 343) Killing becomes a reflex, and people don’t think consciously about it. The spectator was able to dehumanise his/her victim because of the demonisation of the target in films, they then see their target as ‘dolls or mannequins’ (Hartman, 343). We can argue that this aim of a propaganda film is even easier to obtain in games. In gaming, the player is already killing the supposed ‘target’ (For instance killing the Iraqi’s in America’s Army), and this way is even more likely to see future real Iraqi’s as ‘pixels’. Players go from shooting aliens and monsters in other fps-games like Halo or Resident Evil to shooting Iraqi’s in America’s Army and strangely enough this transition comes naturally to them. This ‘puts a new spin on the concept of “demonising” the enemy’ completely, and takes it one step further than cinema could (Halter, xii). In his paper written from a general semantics perspective, Fleming explores the ways in which propaganda abuses the six basic principles of general semantics of Wendell Johnson. (Fleming, 3-4) As an example, Fleming describes the way in which ‘name calling’ is used by a propagandist to give a negative label to whatever the propagandist wants other to view negatively. (Fleming, 4) He for instance labels a group as terrorist, even when there is no evidence for this. People respond negatively to the label terrorist, and the propagandist hopes that the people will then also respond this way to the group. He then also expects the subjects to form a negative opinion about the entire group, even though there are different people in a group. (Generalisation) Fleming explains how propagandists like to use a technique called ‘stacking cards’ to blind the masses about the real subject of their message (Fleming, 4).
‘Card stacking occurs when the propagandists selects and omits facts, distorts information, under- and over emphasizes, confuses, and uses every deceptive device available to “stack the cards” against the truth.’(Fleming, 4) We can recognize this aspect in the ways in which America’s Army got promoted as a recruitment-tool. As we can read in Halter’s ‘From Sun Tzu to Xbox’, the American military staged a publicity stunt at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2002 to promote their fps game America’s Army (Halter, viii) including a parachute drop with a real military force. The soldiers showed how ‘cool’ it is to save people, after which the game got promoted as the ‘next best thing to the army’. A direct link was made between the action-packed package of perfect teamwork and exciting rescue missions (which of course always end successfully) and the game which you can play to prepare yourself for that same ‘cool’, adventurous lifestyle. (Fig 3. and 4.) Complete with army-babes, the people at the convention got completely blown away by all the positive aspects of being in the army and playing the game, that nobody even second-guessed the opinions and facts presented to them. This is illustrated in the attention it got in the weeks following the E3. “No fewer than eight gaming publications bestowed best-of-show awards upon America’s Army following its pre-release unveiling at E3 2002”(Halter, ix). America’s Army became a hype; highly respected by gamers and very popular.
These techniques used for implementing political views in games are purposely not too explicit. We consider this to be an implicit implementation of political perspectives because of the fact players do not get lectured about political affairs. The perspectives are imbedded in the game itself, at no means does the game implement storylines, which actively talk about political affairs, and point out their point of view on it. The player only sees the political affiliation of the game back in the actual gameplay and mechanics of the game, not literally mentioned anywhere. As Parker mentions this would not work, it is not viable to inject explicit political story lines into games (Parker, 5-6). Players have too much agency while playing games. They can either work around or ignore it. It is therefore better to implement implicit politics into games. Because of their differences in form, we have seen films and games can function in different ways, even when fulfilling the same role: to serve as propaganda.
We have argued that in some ways games can fulfill the needs of propaganda better than cinema. This becomes clear when we look at the demonisation of the enemy. We witness that because of the activity required from a player while playing a game, the player is already getting used to actually ‘taking action’ against the so-called enemy. This takes demonisation one step further when compared to the passiveness of a cinema audience. Another way in which games seem to have the upper hand in functioning as a propaganda tool is the ease with which it can combine and mix reality and fantasy. Where cinema relies on mixing real images with acted ones to give people this mixed sense of reality, gaming has the ability to do this more in a more subtle way, by replicating reality. Instead of switching between reality/fantasy, like cinema does, games can let us experience both at the same time.
Politics of War, cultural qualities in times of propaganda.
In their explorations of ‘what is propaganda’, academics do not only consider the content as a determining factor. There are numerous cultural qualities that determine whether or not something is considered propaganda. One of the most basic prerequisites of propaganda is that it has to have a purpose. The content that gets produced has to be created with the purpose of serving as propaganda. This means producers of the film (or game) need to have the intent to use this medium for the facilitation of implementing their political perspective. When the content of a game or film is purposely political, or has a political affiliation in it, then this can be considered a form of propaganda. Therefore, whenever we recognize clear political perspectives in any media, this medium is intentionally used as propaganda. We can for instance read this in ‘Film Propaganda’ by Richard Taylor. He mentions that “Without purpose, ‘propaganda’ can have no aim and no direction, and without direction it can have no distinctive political function separating it from other social and political activities.” (R. Taylor, 8) This opinion is shared by Hartman, who (even though he uses a much more psychoanalytic way to analyse propaganda) mentions in his analysis of ‘Der Ewige Jude’: “… political propaganda is communication that has as its goal the arousal and exploitation of the mass audience’s irrational, emotional response to the propagandist’s message to change attitudes, values, and behaviour.” (Hartman, 330) It’s hard to determine whether some popular games are made with the intention to serve as propaganda. To do this we would have to first determine who is the real propagandist. Is it the producer, the distributor or maybe the designer? Because so many parties are involved in making a popular game, in order to be sure of any intent, we have to have a clear indication (like we see in propaganda films) that one organisation is the driving force behind it. In the case of America’s Army for instance, we do see this driving force clearly represented. America’s Army was developed by the American army to serve as a recruitment tool (Suellentrop, 1). How do you get people to join the army? Certainly not by letting them experience all the negative aspects of it. One of the recruitment methods of the Armed Forces is to try and get the individual to experience a utopian view of military life. This means not letting them know about any negative traits, but focusing on the positive aspects. The game America’s Army was purposely made for showing the kids how ‘cool’ the army is. It focuses on the exciting missions, teamwork and successes, rather than the complications, consequences and failures. America’s Army has as its purpose, to show the positive side of joining the army.
The similarities between institutional aspects of the production of propaganda films and games do not end here. As discussed before by many academics, another vital, situational, aspect of institutions that produce propaganda is the way in which propaganda only seems to be successful in situations of moral panic, ‘[it] operates best in situations of threat, danger, and demoralization’ (Hartman, 335). When we keep in mind that the most blatant use of cinema propaganda and state control over cinema took place in the Nazi-regime and the Soviet-era, we can assume this to be correct. In times of war propaganda is most called for, to justify the state’s battle and get the people to support and join it. We can witness this in the numerous films produced in nazi Germany for the sole purpose of demonising the Jews and justifying their eradication. An example of this being ‘Der Ewige Jude’ which ‘depicts a parade of negative stereotypes of Jews, and a series of distortions, lies, and myths about Jewish life, character, body, and mind.’ (Hartman, 332) Yet not solely in war has the use of propaganda been fruitful. The first notion of propaganda can be found back in 1500, when Pope Gregory XIII set up a commission of Cardinals charged with spreading Catholicism in non-Catholic lands (Welch, 1). ‘Modern political propaganda can be defined as the deliberate attempt to influence the opinions of an audience through the transmission of ideas and values for a specific persuasive purpose, consciously designed to serve the interest of the propagandists and their political masters, either directly or indirectly’ (Welch, 4). This does not only have to occur in warfare, propaganda can manifest itself in all kinds of forms, at all times. Games get released all the time, regardless of a state of war or peace. As we’ve mentioned before propaganda is most successful in situations of threat and danger. Keeping in mind that the biggest game-producers are located within the largest economic powers (such as Europe, Japan and America) we can assume that in the last couple of years there has been an incentive for propagandists to produce propaganda. Mainly America has been living in fear for numerous years, because of either the actual state of war (Kuwait, Iraq) or the threat of war. (After 9/11) The production of the American game America’s Army illustrates this. In 1999, the army’s recruitment figures were at a three-decade low. (Halter, xvi) The pentagon then upped the enrolment budget to 2.2 billion U.S. dollars a year, and called for “aggressive, innovative experiments” to increase recruitment. (Halter, xvi) That same year the ideas for America’s Army were born, in order to try and reach the younger population. When the game finally came out in 2002, “the Bush administration and political analysts still predicted a worldwide conflict with no clear end in sight, and American forces were already occupying two far-flung nations.” (Halter, xvii) Even when there was no official war occurring at the time, it is safe to say America’s Army came out during times of threat and danger, with the clear purpose of getting more young people to join the army. A last note Taylor makes while trying to define ‘propaganda’ is the fact that it needs to be targeted towards a certain audience. “Propaganda is aimed towards a particular audience and manipulates that audience for its own purposes” (R. Taylor, 15). It has to be received in the context it is designed for otherwise it would not work. In the gaming industry we witness this specific audience targeting of propaganda more clearly than in cinema. Not only does gaming-propaganda target a certain audience context wise, it also targets certain age groups. Whilst cinema is respectively popular with both older and younger people, and can easily be understood by both groups, games differ from this. Games are very clearly targeted at a younger audience. An audience that is familiar with the conventions of playing games. This ‘younger audience’ excludes the significant older audience who never learned how to use and communicate with computers, let alone for the purpose of entertainment. America’s Army
wanted to reach young people for recruitment; it chose the platform of games to do it in. This way the target audience would be reached. The above-mentioned cultural qualities define what propaganda is. We witness these aspects in cinema as well as the gaming industry. In some ways, the gaming industry functions differently from the movie industry, which directly relates to the ways in which propaganda in games work. We can clearly recognize the same qualities in both however. Both the gaming industry and cinema (at the time when propaganda cinema was most openly used) are run by a few big companies. This means they are easy to control, in the ways of what products are being released when, and how to reach the specific target audience. Both games and films are made with the particular intent to serve as propaganda. Even when games or films carry in them political perspectives, these have been put there intentionally, and in this way result into making the medium function as a tool for propaganda. If this purpose is absent, we cannot consider it propaganda. Without the purpose, there is nothing that sets it apart from any other political activity.
Cinema and Gaming Propaganda: Mass Media at its best.
Ever since the rise of the visual media, like film or television, they have been used as a tool to bestow political affiliations or perspectives onto the masses. The visual media, especially the ones being referred to as ‘mass media’ have particularly been used for this because of their renewing function on a lot of levels. An important aspect of mass media, especially the visual ones like film or television, is the fact that they have the ability to perfectly imitate and capture a certain reality and use that as a way to convince people of its truth (Ulricchio, 88). Out of these different forms of media, film is the one most explicitly and widely used for propaganda purposes. Lenin, Stalin, as well as Goebbels all remarked how cinema was the best medium to use for influencing the masses (R. Taylor, 16). It has been widely discussed why film in particular is so well suited to cater to the needs of propagandists. Taylor for instance mentions the fact that ‘cinema is a visual medium … It’s appeal is therefore universal, unlimited by considerations of language, literacy or culture.’ (R. Taylor, 16) People from all nationalities and social classes can understand cinema, which makes it easier for the propagandist to project his perspective onto the spectators. This is especially true for silent films, but even sound film makes a primary visual impact. These visual cues act on the emotional, more primitive and subconscious level of the audience’s awareness (R. Taylor, 16). Therefore, they do not judge with their intellect but with their heart. Not only cinema can be considered a visual medium, games work with visual cues as well. Cinema is considered to be more easily accessible because of the fact it is a passive, visual medium, resulting in the audience not having to have any knowledge to comprehend and ‘participate’. Even though games have certain language restrictions, often resulting in ‘missions’ or ‘quests` getting given in that language, they still have a strong visual component comparable to these cinematic visual cues. Both cinema and games are reliant on mostly visual cues to let the viewer believe whatever it is that’s on the screen. We can see examples of that in ‘Der Ewige Jude’ as well as in America’s Army. In ‘Der Ewige Jude’ it is especially the visually shocking scenes that people remember when they leave the cinema. It is these scenes that make the biggest impact ‘we recollect a film from its visual phrases: … the ritual slaughter in The Eternal Jew [1940] …’ (R. Taylor, 16). (See fig.5-7)
In America’s Army visuals are just as important. We can witness this in the amount of effort and time the game has invested into letting you see the army from one perspective only. The visuals work in such a way that when, even when two groups play against each other, they always see the other team as ‘opposing forces’ (Halter, xii). This means your own group always look like the Americans, and the other team does not. (See fig. 8-10) This visual cue carries in it a very clear American perspective on warfare. .
Another aspect that makes film the ‘one true mass medium’ is the fact that it’s the only medium of mass communication that gets received by the audience while they are at that time present in a group. Other mass media do indeed speak to a lot of people, but when the audience actually receives it, they are mostly alone or in small groups. This is for instance the case with radio and television. While the message still comes across to the people, it does not have exactly the same effect. Cinema speaks to the person while he is in a group, it ‘appeals to the individual as a member of a crowd’ (R. Taylor, 16). The spectator then reacts to the film as it would in a theatre, being very susceptible for not only his own emotions, but also the people around him. Like in a football match, when a single persons enthusiasm is aroused, the rest will then follow. In Nazi Germany propaganda movies were released into cinemas all over the country. The cinema was the only place in which the people saw these movies, and thus they were always in a group when watching these. Here we do see a slight difference with cinema and games used for propaganda purposes. Whereas one of the strong points of cinema propaganda is he fact that the audience receives it in a group, this does not at first glance seem to occur for games. Games are generally played by individuals, alone in their rooms. We cannot completely dismiss the mass effect though. We have to keep in mind that America’s Army is an online game. This means that although players are experiencing the game alone in their room, they do have contact with other people at that time. This makes them feel part of a group, better yet, it gives them the opportunity to also experience other peoples emotions while playing besides their own. As we can see in
America’s Army, players often communicate with each other to be able to finish missions successfully. This occurs specifically with the help of headsets (so the team members can speak) or chat functions. This means there is a certain factor there that resembles the mass effect of cinema. Although cinema has the stronger effect because we can see the reactions and emotions of other people and react accordingly (R. Taylor, 16), games can have this same tactic as well. In the 40’s and 50’s cinema was also considered to be a very reliable propaganda medium. Producing and distributing a film in Nazi-Germany or Soviet-Russia would cost a lot, which meant that the number of points where the films could be made was limited, and thus easy to control (R. Taylor, 17). Cinema was also considered reliable because of the fact that, unlike theatre groups, it ‘could be despatched from the centre to the periphery and the content of the performance could be determined and guaranteed’ (R. Taylor, 17). As was the case with cinema, games are very expensive to produce. The gaming industry has grown considerably in power and wealth over the last years. Some academics call it ‘the 21st century’s answer to Hollywood’ (C. Taylor, 2). Because games are expensive to produce, we witness a severe oligopolistic effect. Especially in the console department, the industry is dominated by only a handful of names (Williams, 44). In a way this resembles the cinema situation in the 40’s and 50’s. The game industry is also easy to control because so few names are actually in charge of the production. Games are also very reliable in their content. As with cinema, the content can be shaped and formed exactly the way the propagandist wants it. There is a determined and guaranteed end result. The propagandist can shape the game however he wants, before it is ready for distribution. Like with cinema’s editing, certain parts can be put in and certain parts removed, which makes it perfect for representation of whatever reality the propagandist wants to create. The medium specific qualities of cinema and games are important to explore because of the use propaganda makes of these qualities. Cinema and games are suited to use as a propaganda tool, although we have seen some differences in their functions. Both cinema and games are visual media. This means both are easily understandable for a large target audience. Cinema seems to answer this prerequisite better though, because of the passive nature of this medium, cinema is easier to understand than games, in which an active disposition is demanded of the player. Cinema is also a true mass medium in every sense of the word. People receive the message while being part of a group, this works slightly different in gaming. Most games are played by individual players, yet in for instance online games the player does have contact with other players. This means the group sensation is present, but not as explicitly as in cinema. Finally, cinema and games are both very reliable forms of media. They get dominated by a small ‘production-group’ which means it is easy to control.
Conclusion – Gaming, propaganda for the dot-com generation.
By comparing cinema- to gaming-propaganda we have seen that there are a lot of similarities to be found between the two. We also find that games function differently than films. In some ways this can add to the effects propaganda wants to accomplish. In the first chapter we have seen how content related qualities in propaganda cinema can easily be found back in games. In some ways games surpass cinema, because of the real-time action involved. Any cultural qualities involved in the production of propaganda cinema we can also find back in the production of games, although in most cases, less explicitly. While
there wasn’t always an official state of war, there has been a continuous state of threat in America, which could have easily attributed to the opinion of propaganda being necessary. There are numerous reasons why film is considered the most popular tool for propaganda. Its medium specific qualities add to the usefulness of using it for propaganda. More so than games, cinema is a true mass medium. In this way games do function slightly different, because of its individual play aspect. Yet we cannot dismiss the entire mass-medium argument, because of the fact more and more games are played online, and thus in groupform. Both cinema and games have completely different qualities and medium specific aspects that function in different ways, but the most prominent difference we witness in the fact that in games the audience is active, in cinema it’s passive. This has consequences for the purpose with which the medium is used. Games can be used more educationally because of the fact the player is already performing the specific task the game wants him/her to learn. As opposed to cinema in which the audience only receives the information and then has to act upon it himself. In gaming the producer can take the player by the hand and guide him while he is learning the tasks the game wants him to perform. As we have explored, in propaganda for instance this has implications for the demonisation of the enemy. Further research is needed however to fully comprehend the phenomenon of propaganda in gaming. While there has been a lot of receptive research for cinema, this needs to be done for gaming as well. We now know that, despite differences in certain qualities and aspects, games can indeed function as tools for propaganda in comparable ways to cinema. Yet we do not know in which ways the audience receives this. Is this political approach to games actually working, or are the players finding ways around it? Can we see a counter power take shape in any way? In short: what do players do exactly with the games that get handed to them? These questions need answering before we can properly evaluate propaganda in games. It seems gaming is more and more used as a platform to present and bestow political perspectives onto the younger audience. Because of the growing popularity of games it is the perfect way of reaching a generation that is growing up behind the keyboard or controller. Propaganda in gaming might very well turn out to be our future.
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