Rhetoric

Crawford and Rutter (2006, page 149) suggest that 'digital games can be understood not only as texts but also as cultural artefacts, which are given value, meaning and position through their production and use."" This statement links with the idea of Rhetoric. Rhetoric in its simplest form can be defined as persuasive language. Rhetoric is often used within the media, as the media has such a wide influence over society it can promote the speakers values and beliefs to the rest of society.

In relation to video games rhetoric is often used, we are just often unaware of it. A game that i played that i thought was a good representation of rhetoric was Scarface: The World is Yours. This is because the game focuses on promoting the values of the American Dream. Scarfaces aim is to become wealthy and powerful, this is a strong value held within a capitalist society, and he is allowed to go about this in any way he wants for example killing people and stealing off them. The use of rhetoric in this game allows the gamer to think that the only way to be successful in their lives is to be wealthy. However, we in reality would not go about in achieving this in this way.

The Scarface game is not the only game that is available to us that promotes capitalism, games such as Grand Theft Auto do this. I played Grand Theft Auto: Vice city and realised that in fact it is not unlike Scarface, especially in the way that you have to create an empire and make lots of money to be successful and gain rewards. The values and beliefs that are expressed through these games reflect those that are installed in our society today, and the media is often the main way in which they are presented to us. Theorists such as Marx and Gramsci have suggested that the Media is an 'ïdeological conditioning device' that tricks te majority of people into believing in and not rebelling against the dominant ideology which is Capitalism.

Marx has suggested that "those who own the means of production, thereby, also ,control the means of producing and circulating the most important ideas in any social order" (Branston and Stafford 2003, page 118). This is strongly suggesting that it is only people with power and money that can influence us as a society. This is shown in the video games that i have played as the values within them are there to reinforce the dominant ideology.