In 2011, Jane McGonigal, a visionary game designer wrote the book
entitled Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can
Change the World. This book ultimately reveals how we can exploit the
power of games to boost global happiness. In this book she argues that
the power of games can be used to fix what is wrong with our world i.e.
real world issues such as poverty and global warming. She also gives
examples of how some games have already changed the following sectors:
business, education and non-profit organisations. This book was written
not only for gamers, but also non-gamers alike and ultimately states
that the future belongs to those amongst us who have the ability to
understand, design and play games. But is what McGonigal reveals
in her book honestly true? Is reality really broken? And is gaming
really going to “make us better”? Firstly, I think the fact that
globally we play around 3 billion hours of video games in a week speaks
for itself. So many of us take a step back from reality and into the
world of video gaming to seek some sort of happiness from all the
problems that surround us on a daily basis. Not only this, but more
human effort and attention is going into designing these artificial
worlds just so that people can continue to lose themselves in a world
that is nothing like our own. More time is going into creating new
worlds than into trying to fix what is wrong with this one, and some may
argue that this is the case because there is no solution to many of the
major problems we face. Thus, it is easier to just create a new,
virtual world where things aren’t so bad and we are happy. So in this
sense yes, reality is broken because video games are what make us
happier at the moment and there is more of them than there are solutions
to world hunger! McGonigal explains how games can change the way
we approach things we know we should be doing to make a “better” life
for ourselves. We crave, she argues, “satisfying work” that allows us to
be “optimistic about our own chances for success”; that involves
“social connection”; and that allows us to feel “curiosity, awe and
wonder”. Could gaming make us better? Well I think there is some
element of truth in this. If nothing else, what gaming shows us is that
we are capable of doing something. We spend so much time and effort
into creating characters and doing things we probably wished we could do
in reality; and this to us seems more meaningful than much of what we
do in our everyday lives. However, if we put the same amount of effort
into our daily lives as we do into creating a virtual world for
ourselves then maybe reality wouldn’t be so bad. If you could do it in a
game, I’m pretty sure you could also do something similar in reality.
Thus, we would be happier with our own lives, not within a virtual world
that is non-existent. I don’t think we really need a virtual
world to make us happy, but I do understand why some may think that
gaming is a way to “global happiness”.
Citizen journalism is based upon public citizens “playing an active
role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and
disseminating news and information” - S. Bowman and C. Willis, 2003
Society
today has seen an increase in citizen journalism. New media technology
has made it easier for ordinary people to become ‘citizen journalists’
and for others to access citizen journalism. Citizens are the ones who
tend to report breaking news more quickly than traditional media
reporter. With social networking sites, and the increasing prevalence of
mobile phones, citizens can report on stories as soon as they happen
especially if they are present at the scene. Many see the rise in citizen journalism as a good thing. It is
believed that ordinary individuals can add a wider berth to stories as
they can provide information that may not have been made available to
the public otherwise. They can do this by creating a blog, or commenting
on a post. It’s a way of ensuring that the “truth” gets out. Peope tend
to not trust mainstream media too much, and there is an increasing
tendency amongst individuals to go onto news blogs rather than read
mainstream newspapers.
Social media allows citizens to bring “breaking news” to others, before mainstream media gets the chance too. “Most
people are still happy to rely on mainstream news organisations to sort
fact from fiction and serve up a filtered view, but they are
increasingly engaged by this information, particularly when recommended
by friends or another trusted source” – Nic Newman, 2009 Citizen
journalists also give out information that is clearer, and straight to
the point. They give a basic view on something rather than try to hide
the truth in amongst fancy vocabulary. It is because of citizen
journalism that I think we are becoming more of an information society.
But is the rise in citizen journalism necessarily a good thing? Some
argue that it is not. In some instances I agree. Citizen journalists
are not trained; it is not their job to report on current events.
Whereas a trained journalist has to follow rules and regulation an
ordinary citizen does not. They do not need to find credible sources to
back up any allegation they might make in a blog or an article. If they
wanted to they could make up an event or a situation in their head and
write about. It is often found that such stories are often related to
race. I remember reading numerous articles claiming that Barak Obama is
not only a secret Muslim but that he also was not born in the United
States. Even though these articles are clearly false, it has not stopped
citizen “journalists” repeatedly reporting that these allegations are
true! “Legitimacy may be unknown with a blog or user-created
site and, indeed, there have been cases where individuals have gamed the
system, deliberately posting material they know not to be true” – John
Kelly, 2009 Personally I know there have been numerous rumours
spread across social networking sites about the deaths of famous
celebrities which have all turned out to be vicious rumours spread by
people.
When Mark Zuckerberg first founded Facebook, I am sure he did not
think that he would be giving a stage to Arab protestors so that they
may express this anger with the starvation, unemployment and corruption
going on in their countries. I also do not think that he intended for
his social media website to become a battleground for authorities in
Tunisia and web activists. But this is exactly what has happened! The
results have been devastating and have been some of the most violent
demonstration the country has ever seen!!
We use Facebook to
update our relationship status or to upload pictures of ourselves, they
use Facebook to upload videos and Twitter feeds of the street
demonstrations that are going on around them.
“We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”
There
have been some outrageous pictures uploaded onto Facebook of police
brutality and this has only angered people more. Social networking sites
have become centre stage for the “marginalized Arab masses”. It has
become a place for them to share their anger and to spread their message
all across the world – the message against censorship. Thus it would
seem as though social media has acted as an “important resource for
popular mobilization against the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali” (Todd Landman, 2012).
Wael Ghonim: “I want to meet Mark
Zuckerberg one day and thank him, actually. This revolution started -
well, a lot of this revolution started on Facebook. If you want to
liberate a society, just give them the Internet. If you want to have a
free society, just give them Internet”.
It is not just Tunisians who have taken political advantage of social
networking sites. Algerians, Palestinians and Egyptians have too! In
Egypt Twitter and Facebook, those tools were used to coordinate and spread the word about the demonstrations that were scheduled for January 25, 2011.
However, it has been argued that social media and the internet in
general is not enough to cause a revolution and overthrow a government.
“Europeans and Americans were quick to label the uprising a ‘Twitter
revolution’” says Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times, “But Tunisia's
uprising was made possible not by the internet, but by widespread,
pent-up anger at Ben Ali's family-run kleptocracy- feelings that
extended to the military”. Nevertheless, it is obvious that social media
did play a significant role in Arab revolutions!
On a slightly
different note, in Britain, recent reports have argued that social
networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could help improve the
overall security of this country. It has been argued that police forces
should co-ordinate their forces online and ensure the 24-hour staffing
of social media accounts. With the police keeping a close eye on
different social networking sites, they may also be able to respond more
quickly to active situations such as the 2011 riots by “crowd sourcing”
events as they happen.
"I think that for democracy to survive and thrive, I think we need a
vigilant media. You know, we now have a lap dog, thrill up our leg,
a**-kissing, suck-up, lapdog media. How do we have a thriving democracy
when people can't get accurate, fair information? That seems to be hard
to me." – Sean Hannity
Do I believe that the media is biased? Yes, of course. But I don’t
appear to be the only one who believes this! In a recent survey, in
which 1,054 people took part, only 9% believed that there was no overall
bias expressed though Sky News. Evidently Sky News appears to display
the strongest political bias of any major UK news broadcaster, while
Channel 4 appears to be the most politically balanced UK news
broadcaster.
Media bias is a worldwide phenomenon. For example, in China, there
are certain programs that are allowed, and other ones which are not. The
same goes for stories, while some may be written others must just
simply be ignored. In doing so, China is really attempting to control
thinking, so that the people of China think about the world in a
particular way. This helps the government to sustain control of its
people.
The following video is titled The Propaganda Model and the Mainstream
Media: Debate and the Liberal Bias. It is a debate by Noam Chomsky; a
individual who strongly believed that it was the mainstream media’s
responsibility to “shape, determine and restrict... how political and
social debate can occur within the public discourse” (Marks, 2012). In
this sense, the media is in effect a “propaganda organ for the elite”.
According to Chomsky and Herman the elite “regularly take advantage of
media routines... to manipulate them into following a special agenda”.
If
this is true, (and I believe it is) then the media is simply here just
to serve the interests of the powerful and privileged. We are by no
means getting all the facts or even both sides of the same story in some
cases. We simply get the information those in power feel we should get.
A trustworthy media, I think not!
Media owners such as
Rupert Murdoch use their media empire to propagate their personal views
and shape the opinions of the public in matters of politics and foreign
policy. According to journalist Sasha Abramsky, Murdoch:
“has
– and uses – the power to make’ and break politicians and his papers
‘have consistently opposed the peace movement, trade unions, progressive
social programs … while supporting the death penalty, lower taxes at
any cost and hawkish foreign policies”.
To be honest, I
think it is very difficult for journalists to obtain objectivity or
impartiality anyway. All journalists have a political point of view.
This is not something they automatically leave behind when they step
into their job. I would like to believe that respectable journalists are
well informed about the subjects they are covering. In believing this I
would further argue that it is near-impossible to be well informed
about a subject and not have an opinion. As Brian McNair also explains
in News and Journalism in the UK, objectivity should be aimed for;
however it will never be totally achieved. John Ryley, head of Sky News,
told an audience at the Cambridge Union that the impartiality rules
governing British news broadcasting should be abandoned!
