Video Games

Media messages have the ability to influence the attitudes, self-concepts, and values of a young person. One area that has remained relatively absent from the public discourse on diversity in the media is that of race and video games. There are a number of important issues that make this conversation important to parents, children, and the society at large. First, it is important to understand the influence that video games have on the gamer; further, given this influence on the gamer, it is important to understand the nature of the messages being sent by video games; and finally, it is important to understand how race is represented in these messages.

The media is a source of information, education, and entertainment for many Americans and is often cited as a pulse of American values. Mediated information extends far beyond television, encompassing newer, more controversial forms of interactive media. Among these interactive media are video games, which are threatening to replace television as the primary entertainment outlet for children. In fact, previous research found that adolescent boys average about 11 hours of video game play per week. Video games have evolved into a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry, with nearly three quarters of American households having a game console of some kind. This industry has drawn criticism from many parents, advocacy groups, public health officials, and scholars for the perceived harms of video games, such as higher rates of violence and aggression among males, and even higher obesity rates among gamers. Yet despite the fact that past research has indicated that violent perpetrators with shared demographics relative to media users may be especially potent behavioral models, very little research has examined the portrayal of video game aggression with regard to race.

The scant research into the issue of race and video games suggests that the majority of characters and heroes in popular video games are White, while Latina/o and Native American characters were practically nonexistent. White characters were also found to be the most common characters to carry and use weapons as part of aggressive behavior. The most common representation of African American males (80%) is as athletes, who were also portrayed as the most verbally and physically aggressive; however, the African American male characters were the least likely to exhibit harm when victimized, suggesting a nonrealistic response to violence and aggression. Unlike their male counterparts, 90% of African American female characters were victims of violence and aggression. Latina/o [Page 861]characters, exclusively found in sport games, were noted to express the most pain and suffering when victimized. Finally, Asian/Pacific Islanders were commonly found in fighting games as fighters or wrestlers as well as the antagonists in many situations. In many instances, these characters were not player controlled, but were characters within the game set to antagonize the player.

Recent research has also found that violent perpetrators in video games are almost always Caucasian or Asian. Interestingly, research further reports that Caucasian and Asian perpetrators are nearly always presented in a manner suggesting that their aggression is socially acceptable, while perpetrators of other ethnicities are just in their aggression in less than 2% of the violent interactions documented. This research also reports that White and Asian perpetrators are more likely to commit acts of extremely graphic violence than perpetrators of other races.

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