Thinking Outside the ‘Murder Box
Virtual Violence and Pro-social Action in Video Games
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7103884 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jack Denham (0000-0002-2539-8292, York St John University, York, UK, corresponding author), Matthew Spokes (0000-0002-6456-3879, York St John University, York, UK) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 737-755 |
| Publication date | 2018-11-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Criminology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0955 • E-ISSN: 1464-3529 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjc/azy067 |
| OpenAlex | W2905736958 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 35 |
The 'murder box' is a virtual, lawless space where anything goes. According to Atkinson and Rodgers, when debauched and hedonistic experiences are combed-out of our everyday lives as society ascends a gradual arc of civility, voyeuristic, pleasure-seekers can live out their violent, sadistic fantasies. Atkinson and Rodgers apply this popular criminological metanarrative, rooted in Freud, Elias and Presdee, to violence in gaming. In the context of their game of choice (Grand Theft Auto V), we empirically test the idea that given limitless avenues for violence, people will necessarily act out violent desires. We find that player choices are mixed, considered and vary wildly from untamed subjective violence, to more pro-social behaviours. Our contribution is to argue for a more measured understanding of player–game interaction that accounts for the broader spectrum of Elias' work, including those internalized self-controls directing individuals away from hedonistic decisions. At the same time, this contribution should be read as a response to the often absolutist theoretical positions adopted in cultural criminology more broadly that require closer empirical scrutiny
Action (physics · Civility · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Pleasure · Political science · Politics · Scrutiny · Sociology · Video game · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Digital Games and Media · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sociology and Norbert Elias
Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime
Critical Play
Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior
Popular Video Games
Quest for excitement
Charting the Ludodrome the Mediation of Urban and Simulated Space and Rise of the Flâneur Electronique
Videogames, Television Violence, and Aggression in Teenagers
Civilization and Its Discontents
Values at Play in Digital Games
The Ethics of Computer Games
Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders
Online Worlds
Framing Crime
Video Games and Storytelling
“War…war never changes”
Methods of coping with social desirability bias
Cultural criminology and kryptonite
Crime, media and the will-to-representation
How male young adults construe their playing style in violent video games
Deviant leisure
Fantasy, Realism, and the Other in Recent Video Games
What Do We Really Know About First-Person-Shooter Games? An Event-Related, High-Resolution Content Analysis
Pleasure Zones and Murder Boxes
Five Spaces of Cultural Criminology
From Content to Context
Homo ludens
Demonstrating Rigor Using Thematic Analysis
The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto
Edgework
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,86 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |