This is a cartoon I featured in my article a few days ago. It was made as war propaganda but it also conveyed the feelings of a nation as a whole. I also mentioned that scholar, Malavika Kamaraju, thinks that video games are the newest form of this propaganda. First, a quick opinion.
I am not a fan of the Modern Warfare series. It's contrived and really one of those over done pieces that I hate to even pick up unless I am renting it. I don't think that Treyarch is intentionally trying to convey a feeling of war on to the populace. So lets look at some game video.
This is the opening sequence in the first MW. The fact is, our current adversaries in conflict are Middle Eastern of origin. It doesn't make much sense to open this game in the Philipines or Vietnam. I can also understand how mass market media, is used to convey an idea or opinion.
One of the basic prinicipals of Sociology, are the theories of in and out groups. As something becomes popular by the in group, other fringe people have a tendacy to include themselves. Opinions expressed as art are really no different.
This is a scene from Postal 2. I don't think the creator nor anyone else intended this to be propaganda. It does convey an idea about what is occuring around us in our day to day lives. The almost ubsurd shit that we deal with and what we go through as a people. Is it propaganda?
Propganda, according to Webster's, is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Every art form does that, unless you make something generic like Mario or dogs playing poker. Ironically, people leave Kojima out of this article.
Every Metal Gear game, has been a war game with an anti-war sentiment. It's been an attempt to reach players with concepts like the control of nuclear arms, the child soldier issue, and other complexities of war. In a sense, these are propaganda. They are trying to convey a message and change an opinion.
It's even gone further than that. South Park, Family Guy, The Simpsons, and a lot of other prime-time television tries to reach an audience. They do this be conveying a view on a hot button issue and it's really an idea that the populace agrees on. Really, it's everywhere.
We live in an age with all sorts of propaganda. Advertisements, Kony 2012, and all of the other stuff that comes with social media. I counted yesturday, from noon till midnight. I was hit with over 5500 images that tried to change my opinion. The true stength of people, comes from forming their own opinion.
It's hard to do when you have everyone screaming their shit at you. Even I do it. I have an agenda and I try to sway people's minds. All I really want from my readers, is for them to make up their own minds. When I worked for my high school paper, I created a little game.
I don't do it anymore but maybe I will someday. I would make phrases from all of the capitol letters at the beginning of sentenances. You put them all together and got, a really dirty joke. I might try it again but my opinion is for you to have your own unique opinion not influenced by anyone else.
