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“This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games
This dissertation explores how South African children aged between ten and twelve respond to video game violence, and to retaliatory violence in particular. Many video game narratives present retaliation by the playable character as necessary and justified within the narrative and ludus rules of the...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English English |
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Centre for Film and Media Studies
2025
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| _version_ | 1867613220862164992 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Koloko, Muya |
| author2 | Walton, Marion |
| author_browse | Koloko, Muya Walton, Marion |
| author_facet | Walton, Marion Koloko, Muya |
| author_sort | Koloko, Muya |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This dissertation explores how South African children aged between ten and twelve respond to video game violence, and to retaliatory violence in particular. Many video game narratives present retaliation by the playable character as necessary and justified within the narrative and ludus rules of the game. Children's own perspectives on video game violence are rarely examined, especially in the Global South. Using a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, this dissertation investigates to what extent children's understandings of violence in video games are congruent with their understandings of violence in their diverse South African life-worlds. This study argues that South African children have high exposure to violence in both their life-worlds and video games, but that locally-situated gaming practices provide contexts that allow children to differentiate between violence in video games and in their life-worlds. Qualitative observations and interviews in Rondebosch and Khayelitsha showed how participants gained their understandings of video game violence from the ludic and narrative norms in video games; norms presented by parents and other authorities; and the playground norms of their peer groups. Participants drew clear distinctions between representations of violence in video games, and the violence some directly experienced, witnessed, or had heard about. Violence in video games was accepted as fictional and justified by the narrative and rules in the video game, which often included a backstory justifying retaliatory violence. A larger sample of children (n = 217) were surveyed on the potential congruence between support for retaliatory violence in video games and in their life-worlds. A moderate positive correlation (r = 0.424; p < 0.01) was found between support for retaliatory violence in video games and in real life. Despite the narrative resonance of stories involving violent retaliation, and regardless of their socioeconomic background, only children with the highest scores supporting retaliatory violence in video games also supported retaliatory violence in everyday life. This result suggests that the ideas of acceptability of violence presented in video games are not internalised by most children. Overall, children's experiences with video game violence are nuanced and contextual cues from games, peers and caregivers all shape how children perceive video game violence. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/41711 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | English eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:41.376Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| publisherStr | Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/41711 “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games Koloko, Muya Walton, Marion Ward, Catherine Digital games Cape Town Violence This dissertation explores how South African children aged between ten and twelve respond to video game violence, and to retaliatory violence in particular. Many video game narratives present retaliation by the playable character as necessary and justified within the narrative and ludus rules of the game. Children's own perspectives on video game violence are rarely examined, especially in the Global South. Using a sequential exploratory mixed methods design, this dissertation investigates to what extent children's understandings of violence in video games are congruent with their understandings of violence in their diverse South African life-worlds. This study argues that South African children have high exposure to violence in both their life-worlds and video games, but that locally-situated gaming practices provide contexts that allow children to differentiate between violence in video games and in their life-worlds. Qualitative observations and interviews in Rondebosch and Khayelitsha showed how participants gained their understandings of video game violence from the ludic and narrative norms in video games; norms presented by parents and other authorities; and the playground norms of their peer groups. Participants drew clear distinctions between representations of violence in video games, and the violence some directly experienced, witnessed, or had heard about. Violence in video games was accepted as fictional and justified by the narrative and rules in the video game, which often included a backstory justifying retaliatory violence. A larger sample of children (n = 217) were surveyed on the potential congruence between support for retaliatory violence in video games and in their life-worlds. A moderate positive correlation (r = 0.424; p < 0.01) was found between support for retaliatory violence in video games and in real life. Despite the narrative resonance of stories involving violent retaliation, and regardless of their socioeconomic background, only children with the highest scores supporting retaliatory violence in video games also supported retaliatory violence in everyday life. This result suggests that the ideas of acceptability of violence presented in video games are not internalised by most children. Overall, children's experiences with video game violence are nuanced and contextual cues from games, peers and caregivers all shape how children perceive video game violence. 2025-09-08T08:13:14Z 2025-09-08T08:13:14Z 2025 2025-09-08T07:57:21Z Thesis / Dissertation Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41711 en eng application/pdf Centre for Film and Media Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Digital games Cape Town Violence Koloko, Muya “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games |
| title_full | “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games |
| title_fullStr | “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games |
| title_full_unstemmed | “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games |
| title_short | “This will never happen in real life”: Cape Town tweens' responses to represented violence in digital games |
| title_sort | this will never happen in real life cape town tweens responses to represented violence in digital games |
| topic | Digital games Cape Town Violence |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41711 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kolokomuya thiswillneverhappeninreallifecapetowntweensresponsestorepresentedviolenceindigitalgames |