Tag Archives: iniative

“YOU DO NOT CASUALLY PLAY THIS GAME, JUST AS YOU DO NOT CASUALLY TAKE HEROIN”

..said Pat Puller, mother of a 16 year old boy who shot himself through the heart after playing Dungeons & Dragons.

This fantastic quote originates from this article, published January 27, 1985. It jumped out at me as it is an intriguing example that fits into the ongoing debate regarding moral panic and the ability of the media to influence audiences. Arguments for and against the ability for Dungeons & Dragons to drive young people to commit suicide are included in the article, with the spokesperson for the game, Dieter Sturm, saying “this is a game. It’s make believe.”

New media has been freaking out concerned parents since the printing press. Time and time again, this debate this brought up, for example after the Columbine shooting in 1999, when two boys were said to have been influenced by violent media to go on a shooting rampage at their school.

David Morley, in an entry on ‘Audience’ in New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, outlines that in the past audiences were largely assumed to be passive entities, which I think is an assumption that Pat Puller, and others who believed that Dungeons & Dragons was as dangerous as ‘heroin,’ was making.

This may be an interesting case study to look at in regards to Project Brief 4.

[1] David Morley (2005), Entry on ‘Audience’ in New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Ed. T.Bennett, L. Grossberg & M. Morris (Wiley-Blackwell), pp.8-10.

The Art of the Interview – Masterchef Style

In the spirit of Louise’s lecture on ‘the art of the interview,’ I decided to focus this post on the function of this ‘art’ in one of my favourite guilty pleasures – you guessed it, Masterchef.

The interviews in this show, as with most reality TV shows, are interesting because they are recorded after the action has occurred. It’s always a bit strange to see a contestant talking how much they want to win a challenge, when you already know that they already know if they won or not. It’s a prime example of interviewers asking the right questions to get the response that they want. Moreover, they have already been assured to be ‘good talent’ because the casting directors for the show have made sure that the contestants work well in front of the camera, and the other contestants.

Masterchef is the only reality TV show I can watch because of the high production quality, which also extends to the settings of the interviews. They are recorded in a controlled studio environment, where the lighting and sound is manipulated carefully, and the backdrop relates to the show (usually cooking utensils or something else relevant).

Of course, this type of interview is different from, say, interviews for a documentary, but it is still an interesting example to look at.