The Connections: Life, Knowledge & Media

What are your childhood memories of December holidays?

       

Do you remember green trees, Merry Christmas greetings, and mistletoe? 

              

                Or did you celebrate with a menorah, dreidels, or a kenora? 

These very relevant, and revealing, questions are the beginning of this week's article, The Connections: Life, Knowledge and Media. This article was different from previous articles in the manner it included both questions that delved into personal history, but also a very broad teaching of several theories that are applicable to this field. Most interesting were these theories, which elevate the topics of our class to another level, dare we say, to some high-caliber academia.

Looking back at the first questions, the article states that individual answers will be a "critical element in the establishment of your personal identity and your sense of where you belong in your neighborhood, school, community and culture" (8). Looking at it from a personal level, I was lucky to have had some cultural openness during the December holidays, since I attended a school with a large attendance of Jewish kids. Many a times I have played with dreidels ("Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay; and when it's dry and ready, the dreidel I shall play"), lit menorahs, and celebrated the eight days! In my opinion, nothing is better than that, since they receive a gift per day, not only one! The article continued to delve into more personal history, while at the same time punctuating the text with theories such as the Social Learning Theory, Social Self, Liberation Theory, Cultural Competence Theory, Fabric of Oppression and Cycle of Oppression. Along with these theories, the article delves into how individuals react to, and are shaped by, the media. This special arena is highly applicable to our class, as video games are an integral part of the media.

Intrigued by this idea, I thought of applying the questions in the article to video games. The first media activity asked the number of Asian American characters portrayed. Applying this to video games, I have played games with Asians, but not to the extent of other characters. Albeit, I am not saying they do not exist, but they are also not predominant. Another media activity of the article was the analysis of women's appearances. With the standards they showed, most of the characters that I have seen in video games are vixens or damsels, heavily buxom, petite waist, etc. Granted, I don't play an abundance of video games, so I began to question myself, and decided to do some research to back up my thesis. So far, what I have found, seems to support this stipulation. A NewScientist article states that compared with the US Census, the characters of video games are highly misrepresented. The article can be found in the Tech Section, but I am including the charts below.

It's interesting to note how the elderly are almost not represented at all, even though they are a growing number of video gamers! Also this data supports that white males are mostly represented in video games, with the last graph showcasing the stark difference between the representation of Hispanics and their population percentage.

Once again, we must reconstruct our knowledge of the world to accurately portray all individuals!