John Fiske (1987) states that generic conventions "Embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they were popular".
This statement can be applied to all forms of media, however I will be focusing specifically on video games. The statement basically says that all pieces of media can tell us about the world they were produced in (what is fashionable, what isn't, and what people considered conventional at the time). For example video games of the current generation would probably show a world where war is incredibly prominent (taken from the popularity of games such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honour etc.) as well as this we live in a world that is almost obsessed with the future, and where the human race will go (evidence being in games like Portal, Metro 2033, and Fallout).
In my plan and general ideas I have included aspects such as crime, the monopolisation of just about everything, high-rise cities and deprived sub-urban areas. Without even realising that I have conformed precisely into Fiske's theory, as these are all subjects with feature prominently in todays society.
The theory can actually be taken much further than this, with media also reflecting current fashion, the way different areas of society are represented, celebrity culture, ideologies of power and wealth being obsessively interlinked, and even the spoken language and how it has take shape at the time of production (different slang words used, the lexical ambiguity so often used in advertising).
No comments:
Post a Comment