Week 7 blog topic: Vidya Gaems

v.Stuart Hall (1973) wrote about the active role of the audience, distinguishing between three types of reading strategies used to interpret texts – the dominant-hegemonic reading or preferred reading, the negotiated reading and the oppositional reading. Examine the representation of gender, age, class, or race in a game you are familiar with and give a brief account of that representation in the game from all three readings.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is a hugely successful sandbox game with near limitless map size and opportunities for different forms of play such as competition, narrative, co-operation. Featuring tennis, golf, submarine exploration, shooting, racing or even going to the movies with an A.I "friend". The depth and breadth of activities available allows for multiple readings to interpret the game as a text. 

Stuart Hall (1973) discusses 3 patterns of interpretation by an audience which he suggests that  "exhibit, across individual variants, significant clusterings" (1973, pg. 58): 

- A dominant preferred reading which reflects hegemonic order of meaning reflected closely to the encoder-producers intended message. 

- A negotiated reading that, while remaining within the structure of the encoding of the producer, the decoder-audience is adaptive and oppositional to a limited degree in regards to an audience's local conditions. 

-And a third oppositional reading which is wholly contrary in decoding the hemegmonic-dominant encoding. 

Hall (1973) puts these categories together to help structure the ways a text can be interpreted and misinterpreted between encoder/producer and decoder/audience as he notes that his theory "also helps to deconstruct the commonsense meaning of 'misunderstanding' in terms of a theory of 'systematically distorted communication'" (1973, pg. 59).

Image: www.gamerevolution.com, promotional screenshot of 3 playable characters 

GTA V can be read or decoded according to any of these three patterns as I will attempt to explain. The game follows 3 male playable characters through their careers in both legal and criminal ventures (mainly criminal) within the city of Los Santos which is based on RL L.A. It features a complete world swirling with attempts of satirical L.A. elements from billboards of fake over the top movies and products, Vinewood (Hollywood) Boulevard complete with sidewalk of the stars, satirical clubs and businesses as well as the representations of L.A. typical characters, aspiring actresses, celebrities, yoga instructors, muscle beach, surfer burnouts etc. 

First the dominant preferred reading most importantly would be to accept the satirical nature of the game decoding the intended humor as funny, the social commentary as accurate and taking on the packed messages of redemption and ideas of success and achievement. The characters would be understood as extensions of the player in that the audience would identify with at least one of the three male characters and make decisions, within what is allowed in the game, that would reflect their own ideas of their identity. The world would be seen as a clever satirical mirror of reality.

A negotiated reading would be decoding the game as fun, enjoying some satirical elements but progressing through the game frustrated by the lack of representations of women and uncomfortable with presented stereotypes. While also perhaps playing the audience might skip sections that do not find mesh with their personal conditions. Avoiding characters that offend them and making decisions within the game that would go against the presented typical intended action of the character like making the bloodthirsty lunatic character buzz around on a moped delivering pizzas or drive a taxi. Make the old man thief go mountain bike riding and basejumping avoiding the prostitutes and "rampage" killing sprees.

Image: Promotional wallpaper, sexist message much?

An oppositional reading would reject any satire at all. The patriarchal hegemonic messages of submissive, weak, women's representations or lack of any powerful women at all within the game could be read as explicitly sexist. The social commentary and  jokes would be not understood as critical or amusing but oppressive and direly offensive. The game could be played oppositionally by rejecting the narrative, skipping every cutscene and interpreting every action as strictly a sad attempt for male empowerment, constructing mayhem and adrenaline virtualisation to experience power they crave due to the pathetic powerlessness over their own lives due to class division.  

References:
Hall, S. 1973, Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham [England: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, 1973. 

Image 1:
http://media.gamerevolution.com/images/misc/grand-theft-auto-v-review-2.jpg

Image 2:
http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/GTA-V-Celebrates-Fourth-of-July-with-Lamar-Tracy-and-Jimmy-Wallpapers-2.jpg?1373006759