rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is defined as the art or study of using language effectively and persuasively. Or as Brian Sutton-Smith defines its as “A Persuasive discourse, or an implicit narrative, willingly or unwillingly ,adopted by members of a particular affiliation to persuade others of the veracity or worth while ness of there beliefs.” (Salem, Katie and Zimmerman, Eric (2004) Rules of play, Game design fundamentals)

But How is Rhetoric used in the world of digital games?

We can examine rhetoric of the representation of games. To look at the rhetoric of the representation games we must understand that the rhetoric demonstrates the values and beliefs of the author Video games gain a bad press. An example of this was in February 2004 Warren Leblanc (17) killed his 14 year old friend. It was revealed that this murder was executed in a very similar way to the Game “Manhunt”. The Media caused a Moral panic and attacked games such as Manhunt. This is when the media fixates on one group or behaviour usually a minority or sub-culture (in this case violent games . The Media uses Rhetoric to cause a moral panic. The media can use crude rhetoric such as “Ban these evil games” or they can use subtle rhetoric which is the opposite of being crude. This is relevant to video games and it can cause campaigns against violent games and video games in general. Another crucial side effect of a moral panic is that it does attract additional ‘deviant’ individuals to the sub-culture. In this case because of the bad press of Manhunt it put the media spotlight on it saying it was a bad game. Many people wanted to see why it was a bad game so bought it. Many people like playing violent games so therefore bought it. This is known as the deviancy amplification spiral.

We can also examine the rhetoric within games. The Rhetoric within games are different for every game albeit some very similar. For example if we look at Halo the objectives of the game are to defeat the enemy by killing the enemy and destroying enemy structures. The Values of the game are if something attacks you attack back. And the solution to all obstacles is a weapon and tactical fighting. So therefore the Rhetoric would be that shooting and killing is acceptable and forgiveness is not. Does this then suggest that the creators beliefs are that shooting and killing is acceptable? I do not believe so. Surely the creators values and beliefs are that he believes that games should be entertaining, and that violence in a reality created on a computer is acceptable? I believe That the creators of violent games do not believe that shooting, killing and being in organised crime is acceptable.

This therefore all links to the representation of games and bad press that games shouldn’t receive bad press and that rhetoric Is a very persuasive and important part of the video gaming world.