Cultivation Theory

After watching the video, the Cultivation theory created by George Gerbner shows how Americans believe what they see and hear about torture because TV represents it that way. John Oliver tells us that torture represents a dramatic action to move the plot along and 57% of people are confident that torture works. He also says that we believe torture works because it does on TV, which goes along with the Cultivation Theory idea, and there is no proof in real life that torture actually does work. Oliver gives the example of Obama's 9/11 speech where he said, "we tortured some folks," making people believe in what he said because of the fact that he said it on TV so it must be true. Another example that makes us think that torture works in in the Mel Gibson movies where there is tons and tons of torture going on.

TED Talk

There were many motivations that Jane McGonigal gave to us as to how we are helped by video games that also connect to Rusel de Maria's article,"Why We Play." One example is the idea of skill practice used in both pieces. Skill practice represents doing other activities in order to better yourself at a certain skill. Another example is the idea of epic meaning, or feeling. Gamers do whatever it takes to get past challenges no matter how hard it is, even if they don't think they'll be able to do it. The feeling that gamers get after accomplishes this kind of challenge is an epic feeling, also talked about in "Why We Play" (the challenges.) The last example is the idea of urgent optimism. This is basically when games have the mindset of not giving up until they finish what they're trying to accomplish. In the gaming world, the ability to have multiple lives/chances teachers games problem solving and how to have that mindset of never giving up.