Moral Panics, Hypodermic Theory and The Passive Audience

In groups we had to focus on an area within the media that has previously caused public outrage. We did this using the 'xtranormal' website to create our own presentations and discuss the information we had found out.

Colombian High School Massacre
An issue was discussed that violent video games are influencing destructive and dangerous behaviour among youths.Both the suspects of the High School Massacre were regular players of the games, but actually began to have restricted access as punishments, so therefore this contrasts the outrage the media have brought up. Something else to bare in mind was that the media reviewed the game 'Basketball Diaries' which was very controversial and violent but actually named it 'impressive' and it then went on to have thousands of downloads in 2006. Another argument to support that they boys were influenced by this game is that they actually began to get creative and started posting their own destructive work online. Violence throughout this game was also seen as a good thing as murderers are repeatedly praised by Satan.

Facebook
The social networking site Facebook now has over 400 million accounts created worldwide. The media realise that it is a very common place to socialize and keep up to date with everything that is going on in the environment around us. The issue that has been raised is the lack of security, and the availability to access of almost everything. The site is very vulnerable to children that are signing up more and more now a days. Another problem that seems to have been pointed out is the fact that if someone wants to disconnected them self from the social area, Facebook are always going to have hard copies of personal information which has been previously disclosed. Examples of outrage caused by Facebook is the women who had her identity stolen for 17 months and the teenager which advertised a local gathering which then ended up 21,000 people confirming their attendance. A couple of other bad examples of the website are cyber bulling and people losing jobs due to boss's and employee's seeing inappropriate information.

Call of Duty- Airport Level
This game was said to have negative contributions towards destructive, anti social behaviour.  When a player becomes part of the game at this particular level they are able to see through a terrorists eyes and commit actions such as gunning down people within a Russian Airport. The game actually states that it does not force players to carry on playing these levels but they must keep up with the terrorists to succeed in the game. Something that appears to be a good factor of the game is that they don't actually get rewarded at the end of the level.

Manhunt
After this game was released it was said to be extremely controversial as the aim of the game is to kill innocent people. The media announced that the game had a high influence on violence and killing which also was leading youths into a life of crime. A boy in Leicester was brutally murdered by his best friend who was a regular player of the game itself. The game was then band in New Zealand but surprisingly not in Britain. It seems the media's bad portrayal of the game actually helps sales as this is a form of advertising.

Paranormal Activity
The horror film sent over lots of rumours to Britian before the actual release in this country. These consisted of things such as it being 'banned, driving people crazy and even to the extreme of suicides. The media complained that the film was far to scary after being named by several press as the 'scariest film ever made'. Outrage was raised as the knock on effect from the film was said to be health problems and people continuously scared to leave their houses. Consequently this attention from the media was nothing but success for the producer as it lead to huge amounts of publicity.

Rap Music
Several rap music and musicians have caused problems with their music in the media. It's been said that they are corrupting children with the music they produce. The music has been called brainwashing as it can be listened to over and over again which eventually may even be called a 'sleep state'. The problem is that listeners are dwelling on thoughts of the music and the topics are always trending. When explicit warnings are being put on the covers of Cd's this is just an even bigger influence for the public to purchase. When the stars talk about drugs, domestic violence, alcohol this may get into peoples head that it is the okay thing to do as it is repeatedly being sung about.