Persuasive Argumentative Blog Post 10/30/15

In my documentary, I will initially explore the question of whether video games cause violence. I will then do into the impact that a generation of violent video games has had. In my presentation, I simplified many complex ideas, such as the the idea that video games are a scape goat. There are a lot of factors that go into that viewpoint. There are many reasons for pushing away the attention from guns to video games, and recently there has been a shift to using mental disorders as a new scapegoat, but not in the same sense of the word. And I certainly don't have enough of a political background to dive into understanding the shift, and what it means for both the video game industry and mental health, Both of which are related to one another in a completely different manner.

Another idea that I simplified was desensitization. I very quickly went over what desensitization does and doesn't mean, and how it can affect a population. But I did not go into the mechanisms through which individuals become desensitized. There is also the idea that you become desensitized to more than just violence. This looks into the trash talk and incredibly obscene language used in games. This sort of thing is not limited to violent games. It can be seen across the board. The language used by video gamers is not a product of video games alone.  As a society, obseneties have become more normal than they have been, and one would think that trash talk is a by product of this, not a mechanism. And so on.

So you see, there was too much oversimplification in my presentation, and in my documentary I will try to focus on these 2 main points. I will investigate further these ideas and try to come up with my own ideas as well. Which will be based heavily on research and my own experience with gaming culture.

Research Question 10/5/2015

With the topic of the Muslim community in mind, there are many different aspects that I might expand on. One of which could be the following: What does the careful treading of Muslims in America mean for the country. This research question is not refined, but it is a beginning point. I hope to generalize it to something that relates back to Muslims. I'm just not entirely sure yet how I will achieve this goal. I will most likely be using the library research as the topics related to such a question have been a hot topic for the last 10+ years. I think I will craft the essay with a introduction that explains the terms within the reaserach qustion, and then actually looking into the question in the body. Meaning that I will give examples of the delicate ground Muslims walk on, and then I will talk about the actual question and what it means.