After investigating these magazines, Miller found that male characters are made to be protagonist or hero, be more muscular, have more skills, hold more weapons, and have an overall dominant power. Females are frequently portrayed as auxiliaries.They are also more sexually attractive as they wear more revealing clothing. Comprehending the messages within these games is a significant path to understanding the effects games and magazines may have on our overall manners and dispositions as male and female.
The article goes onto describe how mass media is capable of influencing many behavioral social standards that involve body image, sexual behaviors, self esteem, and gender identity.
"Studying video game magazine articles is important because this is a separate media than the games themselves. Knowing what kinds of images video games articles portray is important,just as it is important to study other types of magazines, movies, songs, and other media." (Miller)
Content analyses of video games and video game advertisements have consistently found that women are underrepresented, more frequently sexualized, more attractive, less powerful,and dressed more scantily than males.
As Karen Dill's Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young People's Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions notes, one may find that women are scarcely represented in video game magazine articles and advertisements, with less than a quarter of featured photos of video game characters in these magazines being female.
"Consistent with past content analyses of video games that found most popular games to be aggressive, we found that the great majority of video game characters (77%) in game magazines are aggressive." (Dill)
Both articles point out a woman's potential to become socially depressed or obtain lower self-esteem levels if they are exposed to some of the articles and images within the magazines. Researchers observed how media can influence the negative behavior patterns of women.
"Women who are exposed to images of “ideal” (e.g., very thin) women in the media report increased levels of body dissatisfaction, negative mood and depression, and lower levels of self-esteem as compared to women who are not exposed to these images. The influence of the media on young women’s body image have led researchers to speculate that media might also play an important role in negative behaviors such as eating disorders." (Miller)
Miller's findings in video game magazines suggest the development of gender roles and attitudes of the human kind. Note that because of this, females may feel that women are too submissive and need a man to save them. The idea that there are subtle amounts of girl characters in games and even less female protagonists or heroes could also be disheartening to women. Males who see this portrayal of females could possibly develop adverse attitudes toward the female gender. Characters of both genders: female and male could understand the woman character's part as the idea that women are not important and can't be heroes. Hence,
"women will have to idealize male characters or endorse the more stereotypical female portrayals." (Miller)
Even if the majority of both men and women play games, the game companies aim to please an audience that is dominantly male. Thus, game magazines often accentuate the female's violence, sexuality and overall attractiveness.
As Karen Dill notes, "Sexualized and stereotypical sex role portrayals Females were categorized as sexualized/curvaceously thin if the image portrayed was consistent with Harrison’s (2003) curvaceously thin appearance ideal (e.g., large breasts and small waist) and if the figure’s sexuality was stressed such as by showing cleavage, wearing provocative dress, or displaying provocative poses, postures or facial expressions. For example, a female character from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas licks her lips in a sexualized manner, while bending over, revealing tan lines and a tattoo under her bikini top."
Even throughout magazines, the sexual discrimination of even both genders can be shown. It's important to notice these things as advertisements can be just as effective as actually playing the game itself. From the way images are layed out in the magazines to the amount of content featured with in the articles themselves, all have effects on how we as women and men portray the world and the roles we're "supposed" to live by as genders
"Analyzing magazine articles provides more detail than analyses of either brief game play or advertisements used in past studies and thus allowed for greater exploration into the roles and appearances of characters."(Miller)
No comments:
Post a Comment