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Open Access to Journal Article “America’s Army: “Playful Hatred” in the Social Studies Classroom”

Learning from Violence- Analyzing Outcomes of “Training” Video Games

By IGI Global on Sep 30, 2013
Contributed by Ann Lupold, Discipline Manager

Organized killings and massacres have occurred within society since mankind began. When trying to define “Why?”, the media typically identifies similar possibilities influencing such criminal behavior: neurological or chemical imbalances, lack of proper medication, mental stress and anxiety caused by victimization or bullying, and the prevalent influence of violence in the media. Violent entertainment and video games have become a particular target under speculation for playing a role in criminal acts of violence that have occurred in recent years.

Learning From Violence- Analyzing Outcomes Of “Training” Video Games There are connections between mass killers and violent video games. A friend of the Navy electrician who recently shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard reported to The Los Angeles Times that, “if [Alexis] had anything obviously bad about him, it was that he was a 35-year-old man playing video games.” According to the FoxNews’ article ‘Training Simulation’: “Mass killers often share an obsession with violent video games. Movie theater gunman James Holmes, anti-government radical Jared Lee Loughner, who killed six and injured 13 at a constituent's meeting in Arizona, and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Oslo, all were active video game players.”

Ironically enough, the US government actually designed a similar game to be used as a recruitment tool for the Armed Forces. Available online to the public, “America’s Army” has many characteristics of the violent games potentially influencing users. The game constitutes a “mimetic” experience that encompasses real-life Army codes, regulations, and behaviors, approximating an authentic military experience, including realistic missions that inevitably involve violence.

The journal article “America’s Army: “Playful Hatred” in the Social Studies Classroom” written by Mark Pearcy of Rider University, USA, considers the educational role of such mimetic games, practical impediments to its inclusion in classrooms, and the conceptual demands the use of such games may place on teachers and students. Additionally, this article considers the ideological barriers and arguments against the educational use of games like America’s Army. Finally, this article connects the experience of America’s Army to Douglas’ (2008) concept of “playful hatred,” calling for a reconceptualization of the term towards a more competitive and pedagogically useful approach.

The author states, “Games have been criticized regularly for their violence, and castigated for their presumed connection to real-life violent acts. In 2005, the state of California attempted to ban the sale or rental of such games to minors, a law that was recently struck down by the Supreme Court (Egelko, 2011, p.1). Critics and advocates alike cite mountains of often-contradictory evidence regarding the impact of these games, mostly regarding the impact of violent and graphic imagery on children (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley 2007). But most of these arguments revolve around whether or not such impact is discernibly negative, and little attention is devoted to the prospect that there might be educative value in such experiences.”

“I think it’s the wrong question -- whether there is a link between mass shootings and violent video game play,” Dr. Doug Gentile, a research psychologist and associate professor at Iowa State University, told FoxNews.com. “I understand people want to look for a culprit, but the truth of the matter is that there is never one cause. There is a cocktail of multiple causes coming together. And so no matter what single thing we focus on, whether it be violent video games, abuse as a child, doing drugs, being in a gang -- not one of them is sufficient to cause aggression. But when you start putting them together, aggression becomes pretty predictable.”

America’s Army: “Playful Hatred” in the Social Studies Classroom, featured in the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations, is being offered for open access for the month of October.

Click here to view the full article.

Individual journal articles are also available for purchase through IGI Global's InfoSci®-OnDemand, which allows full-text searching through our entire collection of thousands of research articles, book chapters, and teaching cases. Refer to the previous link for additional information, or contact cust@igi-global.com.
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