Unit 7 report LO2

A constraint is a limitation or a restriction on something to prevent something else

from happening within the media industry, there are many limitations, laws and
restrictions. Ethics are considered to be the things that are right or wrong. This
allows people to know what is okay to do and what isnt okay to do and these can be
things that are and arent against the law. Some things that are shown in the media
today would not be allowed in the media in the 1950s. For example, in the 1950s it
would be unethical to show nudity on media products because then, it would have
offended people. However, partial nudity is seen as acceptable in the present day.
Copyright is when someone has made something and it is copyrighted to him/her. If
anyone else was to take this and use it without the authors permission, then they
are beaching the copyright law. Privacy law refers to the act of the privacy of
information: Privacy refers to personal information, and this information is handled.
For example, if you were to fill in a form, how the information is handled and
disclosed and how it is collected all fits in to your personal privacy. Recently, in the
media industry this privacy law was the news of the world and the phone hacking. It
is said that the news of the world hacked into peoples phones and read messages
and listened to voice mails on various celebrities and the public. Finally, the Race
Relations act was established in the UK to prevent the discrimination of somebody
on the grounds of his or her race. The areas which this act acts upon or an individual
persons race, colour, nationality and ethnic and national origin. An example of this
happening in the media industry was in 2007 when the BBC was broadcasting the
big brothers services. There were racists comments that were aimed at one of the
housemates and the BBC broadcast this as they thought it would be an entertaining
thing for the programme.
Gaming sector: The representation of gender in the gaming sector. In the video
game sector of the media industry, there is a statistic that shows that 52% of people
who play games are women. The stereotype that is out there is that men are the
ones who play video games more than women, however, this statistic proves that it
is the other way around. However within video games themselves men and women
are shown to be different depending on what genre of game you are playing. For
example, the global hit game series, Lara Croft features a female protagonist, and
she is shown to have action packed adventures in lost ancient cities and fighting off
tribes of natives on unmarked islands. So, within this specific genre of video games
(Action/adventure) we can see that the female character is depicted to be strong,
independent, brave and willing to take anything on, face to face. However, if you look
at a game series such as Halo, that is also an action/adventure themed game series,
you will realise that the main character is a male known as John. He then grows up
to become Spartan 117. In this video game series, he is shown to be strong, brave
and intelligent. However, the most common thing we see about him is that he is very
independent as he decides to take on half of the Covenant on his own. (Covenant
A mixture of different alien species that aims to activate the Halo rings and destroy
all life in the universe)
Representation of religious beliefs: Concepts and elements of contemporary and
ancient religions appear in video games in various ways. Places of worship are part
of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires. Sometimes, games
borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2. I will be talking about
two examples for this section. The first, is the most recent horror game Outlast 2
which follows the lives of Blake and Lynn who are journalists. They want to go up
into a valley to investigate the murder of a pregnant woman but before they can
record the introduction, the helicopter they are in stalls and plummets to the ground.
As Blake, the player must weave his way around cult members (who are revealed to
be Christians) in the Valley who claim Lynn, Blakes wife is pregnant with the son of
Satan or the anti-Christ. Even though the story can be fun and interesting to follow,
it could seem offensive to some viewers due to it depicting a large number of
Christians to be cult members who are violent and abusive. Another example, is the
Call of Duty game, (Modern Warfare 2), on the 10th of October 2012, an article was
released saying that on one of the multiplayer maps, there was a picture and the
frame had Arabic writing on it, hinting at the Muslim faith. As the storyline themed
around fighting terrorists and saving the day, gamers began to think that this was
aimed for the Muslim players on the game, so its attention rose fairly quickly. Angry
gamers took to YouTube and Twitter, saying that they would boycott Infinity Ward
(The games creators) if they didnt remove the text. The company released a
statement shortly after saying "We apologize to anyone who found this image
offensive. Please be assured we were unaware of this issue and that there was no
intent to offend."
Linguistic Usage: When playing video games, the ones that are aimed at older
audiences have a few words that should not be heard by children. A university report
shows that the aggression in teenagers is because of the bad language used in
video games. The study found that some teenagers began to accept such bad
language and irrational behaviour is considered to be normal and that all teens who
play similar video games act in a similar way. That is why games have age ratings
on them. The Call of Duty franchises state specifically, that the age rating is 18+,
therefore, in order to play those games, then you have to be aged 18 or over. So,
overall, in the situation that teens are open to bad language because of these
games, people started to blame the teens parents for letting them say such
graphical games.
Accessibility: Video games are made for anyone and everyone who want to play and
enjoy them. Weather people are blind, colour blind or deaf, there is something out
there in the gaming industry that can benefit them. For example, every year a huge
gaming event is held at a chosen location around the world (called E3), at these
events, Microsoft have the Accessibility arcade that are made specifically for the
disabled. Also, Infinity Ward, who made the very first Call of Duty and the modern
warfare franchise, added a colour blind option into their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
game and that allowed people the change the settings of the game so that it suited
their needs. Ever since this happened, more and more games have been adding this
feature into their coding. There is also an example of disabled people being ignored
in the gaming sector due to them being disabled. At the Pax-East gaming event, a
man named Steve Sphon, who is in a wheelchair handed a piece of paper to an
employee at Rockstar games (This company made the Grand Theft Auto titles.), and
he said when he handed over the paper the employee said Thank you, sure Ill look
at it later and didnt look at Steve to even notice he was in a wheel chair. After the
employee took the paper, he continued to turn around, scrunch up the paper and
throw it in the bin. Steve then took to social media to tweet about this and got a large
amount of attention from both normal app users but Rockstar themselves as they
wanted to know what happened. Steve was eventually invited out to the Rockstar
headquarters, where he gave a few lessons on accessibility and also helped design
the accessibility on games such as L.A Noire, and help get back on trach for Max
Payne 3.
Professional body codes of practice: The head for the codes of practice in the
gaming sector are called VSC (Video Standard Councils) and they regulate
everything that goes on within the gaming sector. They are an administrator for the
PEGI age rating system. On the VSC website, it states that they offer a membership
to anyone supplying age restricted content. Also, the Gaming Rating Authority (GRA)
is a sub-arm of the Video Standards Council (VSC) and they exist specifically to
licence the release of 12, 16 and 18 PEGI rated video games in the UK.
A legal constraint is something that is restricted because of the law. For example, in
everyday life you are legally constrained from making libellous claims about another
individual. Or another example is that a doctor cannot claim that he or she is a
miracle worker as that would not be accurate.
The broadcasting act of 1990: The act contains a provision on the regulation of
independent television. This was a law passed by UK parliament in order to crate
legal framework on electronic communication.
Official secrets act of 1989: This act is an act of parliament within the UK and it
replaces section 2 of the Official secrets act of 1911, thereby it removes public
interest. In 2011, the metropolitan police were seeking a court order under the official
secrets act, make Guardian disclose their confidential sources about the phone
hacking scandal.
Obscene publications act of 1959 and 1964: This act states that it is an offense,
whether for gain or not, any content that would deprave and corrupt, those likely to
read, see or hear the matter embodied in it. A few example of games that are
banned are: Manhunt 2 This was banned because of the graphic excessive
violence and cruelty within the game. The Punisher When the game was first
released, it was banned in the UK due its objectionable content, but after the
company that made it asked the BBFC to further mask these scenes it was
unbanned and given an 18 rated certificate.
The human rights act: The human rights act is a law that was passed in 1998 and it
lets you defend your rights in UK courts and compels public organisations. It states
that you have to treat everyone fairly, and with dignity and respect. This act relates to
the media because it allows you, as a human to have your rights respected at all
times. For example, no one is in the position to criticize you, or is allowed to treat you
unfairly based upon a certain belief or factor.
The privacy law: This is law that deals with the regulation of storage, information,
and the use of personal information about individuals. In 2008, the Formula One
boss, Max Mosley won 60,000 in his privacy action against News of the World after
they claimed that he had been involved in a sick Nazi orgy. He sued the media
tabloid for grossly invading his privacy.
Copyright and the intellectual property law: The copyright and intellectual property
law is where whatever is produced by a certain individual or company, they have
copyright rights over that for a certain amount of time e.g 5 years. An example of the
copyright. An example of a breach in the copyright law was the star wars vs battle
star galactica. After the success of the first star wars movie, Universal saw a chance
to green light their own sci-fi property, Battle Star Galactica. Twentieth Century Fox
felt that the show was edging to close to star wars and filed a suit for copyright
infringement.
Libel law: Libel law is a form of defamation used by print, writing, pictures, signs,
effigies or any other form of communication that is embodied in physical form.