Week Three

This week we talked about Moral panic and how it is generated.
The term moral panic was used for the first time by Stanley Cohen in 1972 to describe media coverage of Mods and Rockers in the United Kingdom in the 1960s
Moral panics are fueled by media. They fixate on a behavior or group, frequently a minority group, and they start representing it as dangerously deviant behavior. These exaggerated reporting create mass moral panic. They help define the group and give this group an identity. This only encourages more and more people to get involved.
According to Stanley Cohen; Moral panics revolve around a perceived threat to a value or norm held by a society normally stimulated by glorification within the mass media or 'folk legend' within societies. Panics have a number of outcomes, the most poignant being the certification to the players within the panic that what they are doing appears to warrant observation by mass media and therefore may push them further into the activities that lead to the original feeling of moral panic.
Some examples of moral panics are:
· Gun crimes
· Happy slapping
· Teenage pregnancy
· Film piracy
Moral panics are generated by rhetoric. As Brian Sutton smith describes it: “persuasive language” which attempt to convince the reader.

Rhetoric is an expression of values and beliefs and can take besides language other forms as clothing, behavior.. etc..

When you are applying rhetoric to games you can:
examine the rhetoric of representation of games
(What do people say about the game, trailers, the back of the box)
examine rhetoric within games
(Language, clothes, behavior express of values and beliefs)

I am going to apply both on the games sissy fight:

The sissy fight site represented the games as: “A playground war between a bunch of girls out to ruin one another's popularity and self-esteem. Bitchin'. The object is to physically attack and majorly dis your enemies until they are totally mortified beyond belief. You'll never come out on top without making the right friends, so be careful who you're nice to. Because in the end, only the shrewdest will survive with their social status intact!” another text said: “ the most ultimate and humiliating schoolyard popularity battle”
The pictures on the site showed one mean looking- and one crying girl.
It is represented as a very girly game (meaning.. a very colourful site with little hearts on the I’s)
The games own values were simple: grab, tease, scratch, as much as possible.. you can tattle on everyone and lick your lolly. But you have got to have a good timing.. for example: When you tease someone but nobody joins in you look like an idiot..

Rhetoric: As long as you are mean, sneaky and hurt as many people as possible you will make it (in life).