Thesis in a nutshell
OK, so I dropped the ball on following up on that whole Internal
Discrepancy thing, I just couldnt get excited about it and right now I
have the luxury of being able to wait until I do.
In the mean
time, I spent the weekend out in the woods with the new members of my
uni’s outdoors club and found myself answering “so what exactly is your
thesis on…I know you’ve explained it 27 times already but still…”
way too many times. So, I have to attempt to clarify for myself and the
people who ask me, what my thesis is on - in simple and to the point
terms.
So here’s attempt number 1
This is an exploration
of the differences between how Counter-Insurgency is presented to “the
masses” in Computer-Games-As-Story vs. how experts suggest how
Counter-Insurgency should be conducted. It looks at how insights
provided by First Person Shooter games which attempt to re-create
realistic scenarios in fun ways might not be counterbalanced by insights from real life experience and the details
of actual and successful real life missions. It will then attempt to
look at how this incomplete view may be affecting public policy,
war-to-peace transitions, peacebuilding and prioritizations in
politically motivated military actions surrounding Insurgencies. I hope
to bring in opinions from military leaders, soldiers, political
analysts and commentators, game designers, naratologists and
ludologists and of course gamers themselves. Yes, I do plan on playing
(at least the demo of) the games I am analyzing as part of research.
This paper is not intended to add to the pile of literature on “Gaming does/does not have a causal link to violence”
arguments. I am not a game basher not a defender, rather this is an
attempt at looking at more abstract and “fuzzier” outcomes of gaming.
It’s way too long and still rambling.
For
millenia people have told stories to (indirectly) pass on knowledge,
moralities, and entertainment in the form of situational insights. This paper will look at how the insights
presented in the storyline of First Person Shooters (intentional or
not) may be affecting public perceptions of one of the most common (and
well funded) foreign actions the US government is currently involved in
in developing countries - Counter Insurgency. I want to see how (in)complete the insights
gained may or may not be, how military leaders and game developers feel
about their role vis-a-vis FPS-as-story, how political commentators and
analysts see public policy being affected by this and how people-as-
and soldiers-as- gamers feel about the impact these games have on their
perceptions of on-the-ground military actions taken as part of a larger
Counter-Insurgency program. In an attempt to break from the “games
(dont) cause violence” debates, this paper will intentionally deal with
perhaps “fuzzier” areas of analysis rather than attempting to find a
(dis)provable causal link.
I’ll let that sit for now, I
know, it’s still crap and confusing, but I want to move back to reading
about China’s new Counter-Terrorist training program using CounterStrike and the commentary being provided on it. It’s much more interesting 