Assessment 1 - Summer Work Essay - Max BRADBURY

  What have you learned about your own media use and how you access news content?

   One of the pieces of news that I learned over the summer holidays was that Chris Evans, the American actor who plays “Captain America”, has willingly asked to extend his contract to extend his time playing the superhero. I was already aware that the actor was sceptical about continuing work with MARVEL studios, and I would check the MARVEL website every couple of weeks to follow the story. It was only when someone shared a “Cinema News” link that I checked the official website again, and found out the extent of the truth of the shared story. Occasionally I do read the “Cinema News” links that are shared on social media if the headlines are interesting, but for a story such as this, I will only check the official cinemas studio websites to see of the story has facts behind it. I know that the MARVEL website is a trusted source as it updates each piece of news from the studio regularly, and it always tells readers how much of the facts they can use as some stories are mostly rumours. Sometimes “Cinema News” actually directs you to the studio homepage so that you can read the actual story, but sometimes they do write about the story themselves. With the Chris Evans story, I began to research how much the story would affect the studio and the plans for the upcoming movies. I found that the story conflicted with comic book lore, as Chris Evans’ “Captain America” dies at the end of the Civil War series of comic books and is replaced by a different character. If the studio follows this lore then the story will be changed in a large way. I’m still following the story with interest as I want to keep up with the studios plans for the story aspect of the cinematic universe.

   The second piece of news that I found was about the gaming studio EA wanting to be less discriminatory with its main characters. Before I read the headline, I knew that EA’s games have mainly white casts, besides its sports games, and any one from any other culture seems to be the ones in the most danger. I only read the headline for this and the first few lines of the story before I learned what I wanted to know. EA says that it will start developing games with a more significant multicultural cast, and it will try and appeal more to other cultures. However, with the reputation that EA has, no doubt that the black guy will often be the first to die in future games. I got the news from a gaming newsletter that was shared on social media, and I highly doubt that the page that shared the story actually read it. They read the first few lines like I did and decided it was going to make EA look like the best company ever. I do trust the story however, because I read back through the news-letter’s previous news and it was very accurate in what it said. I accept the fact that EA would try and be more multicultural, but I wouldn't trust them to use fair representation, as they do have a habit of making stereotypical characters and scenarios, meaning the story as a statement from EA shouldn't be trusted, but the story is very accurate and can be trusted. This is very different news than what I would usually search, as I don’t follow what a company says, but I mainly follow game development stories.

   The third story I found this holiday was a link to a story about the royal couple Will and Kate having a third baby. I put this into my work because it was entirely based on a rumour and the British internet went crazy for it. There was no proof in the headline and the link below it that it was a legitimate story, as I don’t think that the journalist was really a truthful person. I know that the royal family like to breed but even I know that it’s stupid that people will believe that the royal family have the time or privacy to make a third tiny baby. I’m not the biggest fan of the royal family anyway, so I immediately dismissed the story as “not important”, because I don’t care about who’s on the throne or who rules the country, so long as they stay out of the way of how the society works. I think most people can agree that the royal family only appears every couple of weeks in some important event or memorial to make it look like they have a purpose. The story, even though it came from a non-trustworthy source, was probably believed by thousands. It may even be true, but the Big Media hasn't confirmed anything, and they’re always the first to try and brown-nose the royal family to keep their funding.

   The final piece of news that I came across this holiday was that a game has been taken down from the Steam game workshop due to its highly racist content. The game, “Slave Tetris”, is exactly what it sounds like. The arena is that of a boat, and you have to play Tetris with slaves, to try and make them fit in the boat. The company that made the game claim that it was from an educational plan. I can see where they came from, as it is a true fact that slave boats had limited space and they had to be forced into small spaces. However, “Slave Tetris”, from what I found, has little context, so you’re basically just playing Tetris with slaves. I found this story to be very enlightening, as now we know what to expect from games such as this. I find it really unfair that the company that made the game managed to get their game onto the largest PC gaming platform in the world without someone realising how racist the game was before. I think the larger side of this story is how Steam was heavily criticised for allowing the game to be buyable to the public for however long it was up. They claimed that they saw the educational side of the game and put it up for sale. The game has been taken down from the workshop. I’m not entirely sure how reliable the link was on social media, as I didn't read a lot into it. It falls into the place that most games do, that racial slurs are either ignored or are acceptable to a certain extent because it’s what people are used to. I didn't really do anything with this information. I didn't complain. It wasn't my place to complain. The issue had been mostly resolved by this point.