Symbolic Violence in Video Games
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Abstract
This paper seeks to address the study of the configuration of learning matrices among users of the video game The Sims and its impact on everyday life. It aims to observe the presence of features characteristic of symbolic violence.
The central objective is linked to the need to detect possible forms of concealment in apparently non-violent games to which children are often exposed.
Interviews were conducted with boys and girls, and the results were analyzed using, as a point of comparison, the essay Para leer al Pato Donald by Dorfman and Mattelart (1972), which analyzes the transmission of cultural patterns through children’s comics.
The results showed that new technologies are tools with a strong impact on the configuration of learning matrices, and that through them behaviors are conditioned in which symbolic violence gains greater force than other types of violence, such as physical or psychological violence.
The greatest difficulty in the research process arises from the characteristic of the game itself, which does not present features of explicit violence and therefore goes unnoticed by the adults who are generally responsible for controlling the ludic activities in which their children participate.
In different exchange experiences, new concerns emerged regarding the importance of symbolic language, not only in video games, but also in other activities related to the Internet and computer technology.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The author/s grant exclusive license without temporary limit for the manuscript to be published in Cuadernos-FHyCS edited by Humanides the Faculty of Social Science, National University of Jujuy.
References
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