Analysis of Comments on IGN Article Titled "Why
Real-World Morals Have No Place in Video Games”
IGN is a website dedicated to news, review and information
on an assorted range of video game consoles. Over the years this website has
been in existence this range has grown to include movies, television shows and
mobile phone apps as well as articles relevant to the industry (Internet Gaming Network, 2012) . One such article
published by IGN at the URL of http://au.ign.com/articles/2012/08/20/why-real-world-morals-have-no-place-in-video-games
on the 19th of August 2012 was titled “Why Real-World Morals Have No Place in
Video Games” (Biggs, 2012) . Like most articles
published by IGN this article had a comments section at the bottom of the page
for people who have signed up as members of the site to make comments on the
content of the article. As of the 27th of October 2012 there are 505
comments that have been made on the article however for the purpose of
analysing the discussion that takes place on IGN articles only a small number
of these comments will be analysed. The section for analysis has been copied by
Nicholas Blaxell and reposted on http://thoughtsoneverydayinteraction.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/data-presentation.html
(Blaxell, 2012) on the 3rd of
October 2012.
The section of comments chosen for analyses consisted of the
earliest posted comments. This consisted of the earliest nine posted comments
and the replies that they had received by the 3rd of October 2012.
This section of the comments was chosen regardless of the ranking or relevance
of the comments as it follows a historic pattern of post and reply much like a
spoken conversation and thus provides a relevant and hopefully accurate record
of how the conversation between the commenters on this article progressed.
This data was chosen as by analysing the data source and the
interaction taking place in the comments section of this article a person would
learn numerous things including about people who use the IGN comments section, about
people who have an interest discussing the morals of video games. Also to learn
more about the interaction that takes place on comment sections of articles
posted by IGN, to learn about the methods, style and patterns of communication
used to communicate between the members of the IGN community and to learn about
the language, content and flow of discussions, including the continuity of the
discussion and random changes of topic that occur on IGN the IGN comment
sections of their articles.
A common misconception of online communication is that of anonymity.
Anonymity must be contrasted with identity. Sometimes when people interact
online, such as in forums and comments threads such as those used by IGN there
is a belief that no-one really knows who a person is as they are identified by
a screen name and the people they interact with do not actually know them in
person. However this is a misconception as not only can websites and Internet
Service Providers (ISP’s) identify the computer being used to communicate with
the website - as can government agencies - there is also the ability for people
to put common links together to identify someone. Many of these screen names
have profiles which can be used to identify some personal information. This is
also the case with IGN although the people whose comments are being analysed in
this data set had not placed any personal information on their IGN’s forum
profiles beyond age and the state in which they reside. This makes it difficult
for the casual observer to identify them however if the user uses the same
screen name numerous sites then it may still be possible for the average person
to piece together information from other sites to identify them.
Online communications, such as the IGN comments thread on
this article have their limitations though as the people reading the
conversation taking place are forced to interpret the message from the written
words alone. This makes it difficult for people with poor written
communications skills to communicate via the comments thread on IGN’s articles (Crispin, 2008) . Where there is no
body language or other non-verbal signals to clarify the message greater
diversity in how a person chooses to interpret a message may lead to
misinterpretation as for example a comment that is intended to be sarcastic may
in fact be interpreted as genuine and thus miscommunication will occur
(Kendall, 2002, p. 167). However in order to assist in clarifying emotional
inferences in text based communication emoticons and the use of capital letters
have become a popular way of assisting in this clarification and emphasising
emotional responses like humour. This is shown by ‘zonda777’ usage of all
capital letters when commenting “THERE IS NO ESCAPE” in an attempt to add
emphasis to their comment.
Comment forums such as this also have the limitation that
you don’t know who is or will be reading your comment thus you cannot target
your message towards a specific audience and that if you do target a message
towards a specific person you have no way of knowing when or if they have
received the message and replied (b00036796, 2011) . This is shown
frequently in the data source when a person replies to or comments upon a
previous post by agreeing or disagreeing with what is being said but they do so
in a general way that shows that they do not expect the person to whom they are
replying to actually receive and acknowledge their comment. This refers to the
response presence or the lack thereof that is a part on online communication
methods like IGN’s comments threads on article. Due to this the conversation
often time deviates out to many singular comments and although later posters
may refer or respond to a comment there is little ongoing communication between
the participants in the conversation. This
results in minimal formation of relationships although alliances can be seen
where different screen names argue the same points of view or agree on similar
ideas as in seen by the in the first comment by ‘DarkPsycho_PS3truthh’ and the
responding commenters.
Linguistic metadiscussion refers to language and specific
terms that have a specific meaning and are thus used in a specific context.
Linguistic metadiscussion is interesting in its usage in the comments on this
article. Linguistic metadiscussion seems to be commonplace in computer-mediated
chat situations. Interestingly enough linguistic
metadiscussion was barely utilised in the chosen section of the comments of
this article. However I do see a link to socio-cultural talk. Socio-cultural
talk is similar to linguistic metadiscussion as it refers to words and terms
that are either specific or have a specific meaning to a social or cultural
group. This includes the usage of linguistic metadiscussion terms such as
abbreviations and more general ways of speaking which are commonly used amongst
those with similar interests and thus identify a socio-cultural group ( Beacco,
Coste, & Piet-Hein, 2010, p. 14) . The cultural group
that IGN targets is that of computer gamers, who have access to an internet connection
and can read English. In respect to the specific comments being analysed ‘Officerpup19plus3i’
uses sociocultural talk through the use of the word trolls (which in this case
refers to people who stalk online communication forums and make negative
comments about other participants or comments designed to upset, annoy or
insult people who may frequent that forum, not trolls, the species that exists
in in the traditional fantasy sense) and ‘MasZiv3DynamiC’ usage of the word
fail. In this context the word fail still has its native meaning but has become
such a commonly used term by those who frequent online communication that it could
be seen as blurring the lines between sociological talk and linguistic metadiscussion.
One of the great debates surrounding online communication is
that of public vs. private communication. Unlike spoken communication, online
communication leaves a record of all activity that is communicated. This record
allows the communication between people to be viewed long after it has taken
place and as the communication can be copied and stored elsewhere even if the
original post were deleted, as is assumed to be the case with ‘lllFreqEteQlll’ comment
saying “Oops, double post”, an copy of the original communication may still
exist and thus a permanent record of the communication can be created and
utilised at a later date in a way that could have positive and negative
consequences. Some websites have privacy restrictions allowing only certain
people certain levels of access in an attempt to protect information. As does
IGN in regards to their members signing up for profiles so that they can make
comments on articles (Internet Gaming Network, 2011) . However the comments
on this article are in the public forum. This leads to questions that must be
considered when analysing the comments made by the individual posters on this
article. Did the person who made a comment realise anyone could read it and if
they did then did they make a comment assuming a specific audience would be
unlikely to read it and would they not have made the comment if they knew a
particular person would read their comment? These questions can be asked in
regards to ‘THEHORGANATOR’ and their comment “I came here to jerk off! :D”.
This is a comment made where the assumption can be made that the comment was
made due to their belief in their own anonymity and that they would not have
made the comment if they were aware that people such as family members would
view this comment. This of course is an assumption based upon expectations of
behaviour however ‘THEHORNAGATOR’ may feel comfortable making comments like
that fully aware that the comment is a public comment and that people who know
them may read the comment and identify them as being the one who made it and
the social implications of this comment. There is also an issue of the
ownership of a comment. Are the comments being analysed the property of the person
who typed them or are they the property of IGN, as this was the site on which
they were posted? Who holds copyright right rights to these comments? This is
an area that is still under debate in many countries and due to the nature of the internet not having any national boundaries these
questions are yet to have a definitive answer (Future of Privacy, 2012) .
The comment made by ‘THEHORGANATOR’ is also an example of
how the conversation deviates away from the focus of the article. However it
can be noted that this deviation only occurs for 3 or 4 member’s replies before
someone posts a comment to bring the conversation back to its focus. A
potential reason for this could be that people post comments based upon the
article and not upon the current conversation or it could be an intentional
effort to restore the focus of the conversation.
This link’s into Erving Goffman’s theory of facework. Facework
in relation to the data example is limited due to the anonymity of the
participants and the fact that it is likely that there will be a delay between
someone commenting and a response and that due to this delay they may not
recheck the discussion thread to see the responses however the basic principles
still apply. The basic principle of facework is that through evaluating one’s
self and other individuals in a particular group setting, one engages in actions
that are indicative of one’s particular point of view, these actions are then
judged by others based upon social norms, expectations and stigmas. (Unknown_Aurthor, 2010) There is a desire to
present a positive face (a positive social standing) and not a negative face,
to save face (earn back a positive social standing after an experience that is
upsetting or embarrassing or otherwise creates a negative social appearance)
not lose face.
Goffman also developed a theory of dramaturgy that proposed
both front and back stage communication. Traditionally Front stage
communication is the actions that are observable by others while backstage communication
are those that are conducted in private. However there can be more than two
stages where stages develop between the front most and backmost stages where certain
actions are observable by specific people but not by others (Kivisto & Pittman, 2007, p. 280) . However in online
communication the idea of stages can be twisted so that it not only applies to
the observed communication but to the content. It is possible to view the
comments in this data source by this method and consider the idea of comments
such as ‘pieman2800’ comment to be considered as a front stage comment as it is
relevant to the topic of the article while the comment made by ‘Salnax’,
although relevant to the conversation as it is responding to the comment made
by ‘Sinn_Exit’ is on a slighter further back stage as it is not relevant to the
article. In a sense this relates to scopic systems as a scopic system is one
that focuses on a specific idea. So the most front stage comments are the one
the scopic system focuses on.
Another theory of communication that branches from Goffman’s
theories is that of interacting with objects and systems ( Karray, Alemzade, & Jamil, 2008, p. 2) . This theory shows
that communication can be both back and front staged at the same time, when it
relates to online communication. Put simply the people commenting on this
article communicated backstage with their computers, or similar devices, and
the internet and connected networks needed to upload their comment onto the
webpage of the article when posting their comments, while they were
communicating via front stage with those people who were utilising these
resources to read and potentially respond to their comments.
Online interaction also has a unique aspect to add to facework
where not just the comments received in reply but the ability to vote up or
down a comment shows what people think of a comment. Negative votes can be seen
as a loss of face and positive comments can be seen as a positive face being
acquired or even others attempting in saving face for the original commenter.
This is seen in regards to the up votes on ‘lllFreqEteQlll’ comment “Oops,
double post.” and the comment made in regards to it by ‘Johnny_721’ saying “Wow,
no down votes on a double post. People here must like you” as an attempt to
save face for ‘lllFreqEteQlll’.
Due to the nature of the comments thread on this article and
the fact that IGN only highlights the article for a short period of time
(generally a couple of days) before it get archived in the history of the site
the communication occurring has specific limitations. As previously stated this
limits the frequency that people return and thus tends to prevent relationships
building and ongoing communication developing and instead often results in a
series of single person comments (as is found in a formal debate) creating a conversation.
Also as stated often times the conversation deviates away from the focus of the
article, as does an informal conversation, and although this new conversation
thread gets responses they tend to only last for 3 or 4 comments before someone
comments in a way that brings the conversation back on to the focus of the
original topic “Why Real-World Morals Have No Place in Video Games” This shows
that in this case the communication in the data source has similarities to both
common informal communication and formal preplanned conversation and focuses heavily
on the theories of computer mediated communication, which is only natural with
the data source being an example of online communication and Erving Goffman’s
theories of communication.
Beacco, J.-C.,
Coste, D., & Piet-Hein, v. d. (2010). Language and school subjects.
Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
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August 19). Why Real-World Morals Have No Place in Video Games.
Retrieved October 27, 2012, from WWW.IGN.com.au:
http://au.ign.com/articles/2012/08/20/why-real-world-morals-have-no-place-in-video-games
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Kendall, L.
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(2010, December 9). Goffman, Erving. 1955. "On-Face Work"
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