tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/media-violence-3448/articlesMedia violence – The Conversation2022-07-18T12:27:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1861842022-07-18T12:27:30Z2022-07-18T12:27:30ZChildren are bombarded with violence in the news – here’s how to help them cope<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473709/original/file-20220712-14-brwdj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5105%2C3388&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With the ever-increasing media coverage of mass shootings in the U.S., even the youngest children are now repeatedly exposed to violent images on TV and online.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mixed-race-girls-watching-television-royalty-free-image/155770779?adppopup=true">Blend Images/Inti St Clair/Tetra Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over 100 mass shootings have taken place in the U.S. since the rampage in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/02/mass-shootings-in-2022/">Not a single week in 2022</a> has passed without at least four mass shootings. </p>
<p>With gun violence, war and other tragedies in the news, children are often exposed to scary images and information. </p>
<p>Parents and caregivers are faced with the dilemma of wondering how to speak with their children about the unspeakable. How can adults help children feel safe when imagery about tragedies abounds throughout the media?</p>
<p><a href="https://mediaschool.indiana.edu/people/profile.html?p=nicomart">We</a> are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Y8kCgXEAAAAJ&hl=en">communication scholars</a> who specialize in children and media. We have extensively studied <a href="https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2021-13-3-8">children’s views</a> of and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2011.01417.x">responses to</a> violence in the media. Our research findings and those of other scholars offer insights into how news can contribute to children’s fears and on how to help children cope. </p>
<h2>Surrounded by news and information</h2>
<p>In an era of 24-hour news coverage, it is likely that children will come across disturbing news content. For some kids, this exposure is deliberate. Teenagers report that they find it important to follow current events. And <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2019_cs-sm_summarytoplines_release.pdf">more than half of teens get their news from social media</a> and slightly fewer get their news from YouTube. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2018.1548366">Children under 12</a> show little interest in the news, yet many still encounter it. Young children’s news exposure is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2012.669340">almost always accidental</a>, either through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1527476416652692">background television viewing</a> or through family discussions of current events. </p>
<p>No matter how much parents or caregivers try to shield children, then, they are likely to come upon the news. </p>
<h2>The news as a catalyst for fear</h2>
<p>Several studies have examined children’s fear responses to news. Six months after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Boston-area <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542%2Fpeds.2013-4115">parents reported</a> that children who viewed more news coverage on the day of the attack were more likely to display symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, have behavior problems and show hyperactivity and/or inattention than children who watched less news. </p>
<p>More recently, an <a href="http://www.br-online.de/jugend/izi/english/publication/televizion/33_2020_E/Goetz_Mendel_Lemish-Children_COVID-19_and_the_media.pdf">international survey</a> of over 4,000 9-to-13-year-olds from 42 countries found that over half of the children were scared by news stories about the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>Fear and anxiety can also be spurred by exposure to news events that are more commonplace. In a 2012 study of elementary school children in California, nearly half of them said <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2012.669340">they saw something on the news that made them scared</a>. The news stories that were most frequently mentioned were natural disasters, kidnappings and burglaries. </p>
<p>Sadly, we live in a country where gun violence is common. A 2022 study found that children’s exposure to news coverage of mass shootings not only made them afraid for their personal safety, but was correlated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2021.1996609">the belief that their school and society at large were dangerous</a>. </p>
<p>Whether catastrophic or common, fear reactions endure. A survey of college students found that 50% of them <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0093650211422538">could remember a specific news story</a> that they had seen during childhood that frightened, worried or upset them. The effects included feeling scared and being unable to sleep. And 7% of participants said they were still frightened of that event at their present college age. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">How to talk with kids about tragedies and traumatic events.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Age of the child matters</h2>
<p>Clearly, media can frighten children and adolescents. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12069">decades of research</a> show that fright-inducing content does not affect all children the same way. Young children demonstrate what researchers call “perceptual dependence,” which means that they react to stimuli in terms of what those stimuli look, sound or feel like. </p>
<p>This often comes as a surprise to parents, but it helps explain why preschoolers may cry when they see movie characters like the Grinch or E.T. Preschool children are more likely to be frightened by something that looks scary but is actually harmless than by something that looks attractive but is truly harmful. </p>
<p>As children mature, they develop the capacity to be frightened by abstract threats. Studies of children’s reactions to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Storm-Media-Hampton-Communication/dp/1881303349">news coverage of wars</a> show that although children of all ages are affected, younger kids respond mainly to the visual aspects of coverage such as homes torn apart, whereas older children are more responsive to abstract aspects such as fears that the conflict will spread. </p>
<h2>How to help children cope</h2>
<p>Just as age affects how children absorb the news, age also influences which strategies are most effective in helping children cope. Noncognitive strategies typically involve avoidance or distraction. Closing one’s eyes, holding on to an attachment object, leaving the room or avoiding news altogether are examples. These strategies work best with younger children.</p>
<p>Cognitive strategies require the child to think about whatever is frightening them in a different way, with an adult often providing a verbal explanation to help. These strategies work <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-46439-006">best with older children</a>. When dealing with depictions of fantasy, for example, a cognitive strategy that is quite effective is reminding children that what they see “is not real.” </p>
<p>Unfortunately, mass shootings are real. In these cases, the adult can emphasize that the news event is over, that it was far away or that such events are rare. Providing a reassuring message – that the child is safe and loved – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2011.558261">also helps</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mental health experts say parents need to initiate age-appropriate conversations with their children about mass shootings.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Recommendations for the youngest kids</h2>
<p>For kids under 7, it is critical to limit exposure to the news. Watching a tragedy on the news can include graphic images and sounds. Very young children will not understand that what they see are replays of the same event and not another tragedy happening again. </p>
<p>Reassure the child. Kids at this age are most worried about their personal safety. It’s important to make them feel safe, even when the adults themselves are worried, as studies show that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pai.13660">fear is contagious</a>. </p>
<p>Distraction is also helpful. Although it is important to listen and not downplay concerns, doing something fun together that takes a child’s mind off what is happening can go a long way. </p>
<h2>How to help kids in the 8-12 range</h2>
<p>For kids between the ages of 8 and 12, it is still important to limit exposure. Admittedly this is more challenging as children age. But making a concerted effort to turn off the news is helpful, especially if the child is sensitive. </p>
<p>Talk about news. If kids go online, try to go with them. Consider setting URLs to open to nonnews portals. </p>
<p>Be available for conversation. Ask kids about what they know. Correct any misconceptions with facts. Listen carefully and ask what questions kids have, and then respond honestly with a focus on the basics. Reassure children that they’re safe and that it is OK to feel upset. </p>
<p>Do something to help. Consider ways to help survivors and their loved ones. </p>
<h2>Dialing in with teens’ needs</h2>
<p>When it comes to teens, it is critically important to check in. In all likelihood, teens learn of news events independent of their parents. But parents and caregivers should offer to talk with them to get a sense of what they know about the situation. This also gives the adult an opportunity to listen to underlying fears and offer insights. Again, try to address concerns without dismissing or minimizing them. </p>
<p>Help teens develop news literacy. If parents or caregivers disagree with how a news event is portrayed in the media, they should discuss this with their child. Emphasizing that there can be misinformation, repetition or exaggeration might help teens put tragic events into a wider perspective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186184/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The unending stream of violence on news and entertainment programming can have a negative impact on kids of all ages.Nicole Martins, Associate Professor of Communication Science, Indiana UniversityErica Scharrer, Professor of Communication, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1138302019-03-21T10:44:05Z2019-03-21T10:44:05ZLivestreamed massacre means it’s time to shut down Facebook Live<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264745/original/file-20190319-60975-bnaej0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C107%2C5982%2C3880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Facebook Live can be fun – or really scary.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/abstract-blur-facebook-live-badminton-court-610272767">I'm friday/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When word broke that the massacre in New Zealand was livestreamed on Facebook, I immediately thought of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/us/facebook-homicide-victim-trnd/index.html">Robert Godwin Sr.</a> In 2017, Godwin was murdered in Cleveland, Ohio, and initial reports indicated that the attacker streamed it on Facebook Live, at the time a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-rush-to-live-video-facebook-moved-fast-and-broke-things-1488821247">relatively new feature</a> of the social network. Facebook later clarified that the <a href="https://apnews.com/49025de481ae40f8b44896546becb163">graphic video was uploaded after the event</a>, but the incident called public attention to the risks of livestreaming violence. </p>
<p>In the wake of Godwin’s murder, I recommended that <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cleveland-murder-raises-questions-about-violent-videos-on-facebook/">Facebook Live broadcasts be time-delayed</a>, at least for Facebook users who had told the company they were under 18. That way, adult users would have an opportunity to flag inappropriate content before children were exposed to it. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/04/25/father-livestreams-killing-infant-daughter-facebook-live/100884906/">Facebook Live has broadcast killings</a>, as well as other serious crimes such as <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/heres-how-bad-facebook-lives-violence-problem-is">sexual assault, torture and child abuse</a>. Though the company has hired more than <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/technology/facebook-content-moderators/index.html">3,000 additional human content moderators</a>, Facebook is not any better at keeping horrifying violence from streaming live online without any filter or warning for users.</p>
<p>In the 24 hours after the New Zealand massacre, <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/update-on-new-zealand/">1.5 million videos and images of the killings</a> were uploaded to Facebook’s servers, the company announced. Facebook highlighted the fact that 1.2 million of them “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/18/facebook-youtube-worked-to-remove-copied-new-zealand-shooting-videos.html">were blocked at upload</a>.” However, as a <a href="https://news.syr.edu/faculty-experts/jennifer-grygiel/">social media researcher and educator</a>, I heard that as an admission that 300,000 videos and images of a mass murder passed through its automated systems and were visible on the platform.</p>
<p>The company recently issued some analytic details and noted that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/facebook-no-one-reported-nz-shooting-video-during-17-minute-livestream/">fewer than 200 people viewed</a> the livestream of the massacre, and that surprisingly, no users reported it to Facebook until after it ended. These details make painfully clear how dependent Facebook is on users to flag harmful content. They also suggest that people don’t know how to report inappropriate content – or don’t have confidence the company will act on the complaint.</p>
<p>The video that remained after the livestream ended was viewed nearly 4,000 times – which <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/18/facebook-says-the-original-new-zealand-shooter-video-was-viewed-about-4000-times-before-removal/">doesn’t include copies of the video</a> uploaded to other sites and to Facebook by other users. It’s unclear how many of the people who saw it were minors; youth as young as 13 are allowed to set up Facebook accounts and could have encountered unfiltered footage of murderous hatred. It’s past time for the company to step up and fulfill the promise its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, made two years ago, after Godwin’s murder: “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-talks-about-the-facebook-killer-steve-stephens-2017-4">We will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening</a>.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg discusses the murder of Robert Godwin Sr.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>A simple time-delay</h2>
<p>In the television industry, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/livestreaming-on-facebook-twitter-and-youtube-needs-radical-change/">short time-delays of a few seconds are typical</a> during broadcasts of live events. That time allows a moderator to review the content and confirm that it’s appropriate for a broad audience. </p>
<p>Facebook relies on users as moderators, and some livestreams may not have a large audience like TV, so its delay would need to be longer, perhaps a few minutes. Only then would enough adult users have screened it and had the chance to report its content. Major users, including publishers and corporations, could be permitted to livestream directly after completing a training course. Facebook could even let people <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2017/08/a-modest-proposal-to-moderate-trumps-tweets.html">request a company moderator</a> for upcoming livestreams.</p>
<p>Facebook has not yet taken this relatively simple step – and the reason is clear. Time-delays took hold in TV only because <a href="http://us.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/03/grammys.tape.delay/index.html">broadcasting regulators penalized broadcasters</a> for airing inappropriate content during live shows. There is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2018.12.003">effectively no regulation</a> for social media companies; they change <a href="https://theconversation.com/big-tech-isnt-one-big-monopoly-its-5-companies-all-in-different-businesses-92791">only in pursuit of profits</a> or to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/technology/facebook-definers-soros.html">minimize public outcry</a>.</p>
<p>Whether and how to regulate social media is a political question, but many U.S. politicians have developed deep <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17219930/facebook-campaign-contributions-mark-zuckerberg-congress-donations">ties with platforms like Facebook</a>. Some have relied on social media to collect donations, target supporters with advertising and <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne5k8z/how-facebook-and-google-win-by-embedding-in-political-campaigns">help them get elected</a>. Once in office, they continue to use social media to <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsx056">communicate with supporters</a> in hopes of getting reelected.</p>
<p>Federal agencies also use social media to communicate with the public and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/one-tiny-corner-u-s-government-pushes-back-against-russian-n866021">influence people’s opinions</a> – even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/technology/facebook-ads-propaganda.html">in violation of U.S. law</a>. In my view, Facebook’s role as a tool to gain, keep and spread political power makes politicians far less likely to rein it in.</p>
<h2>US regulation isn’t coming soon</h2>
<p>Congress has not yet taken any meaningful action to regulate social media companies. Despite strong statements from politicians and even calls for hearings about social media <a href="https://www.courant.com/politics/capitol-watch/hc-pol-blumenthal-facebook-shooting-20190318-pxlzxbnxobbshgjjtfvdpir7l4-story.html">in response to the New Zealand attack</a>, U.S. regulators aren’t likely to lead the way.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/21/17885086/facebook-european-union-regulations-sanctions">European Union officials</a> are handling much of the work, especially <a href="https://theconversation.com/fragmented-us-privacy-rules-leave-large-data-loopholes-for-facebook-and-others-94606">around privacy</a>. New Zealand’s government has stepped up, too, <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/03/chief-censor-bans-christchurch-shooting-video-distributors-could-face-jail.html">banning the livestream video</a> of the mosque massacre, meaning anyone who shares it could face up to <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/03/chief-censor-bans-christchurch-shooting-video-distributors-could-face-jail.html">NZ$10,000 in fines and 14 years in prison</a>. At least two people have already been <a href="https://gizmodo.com/18-year-old-arrested-in-new-zealand-for-sharing-terrori-1833402190">arrested</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/434453-22-year-old-arrested-for-allegedly-sharing-video-of-new-zealand">for sharing it online</a>. </p>
<h2>Facebook could – and should – act now</h2>
<p>Much of the discussion about regulating social media has considered <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/24/18195959/facebook-advocacy-groups-ftc-break-up-cambridge-analytica-scandal-data-breach">using anti-trust and monopoly laws</a> to force the enormous technology giants like Facebook to break up into smaller separate companies. But if it happens at all, that will be very difficult – <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-09-21/business/fi-48462_1_system-breakup">breaking up AT&T lasted a decade</a>, from the 1974 lawsuit to the 1984 launch of the “Baby Bell” companies.</p>
<p>In the interim, there will be many more dangerous and violent incidents people will try to livestream. Facebook should <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/147642/end-too-big-regulate">evaluate its products’ potential for misuse</a> and discontinue them if the effects are harmful to society.</p>
<p>No child should ever see the sort of “<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mathonan/why-facebook-and-mark-zuckerberg-went-all-in-on-live-video">raw and visceral content</a>” that has been produced on Facebook Live – including mass murder. I don’t think adult users should be exposed to witnessing such heinous acts either, as <a href="https://www.philly.com/philly/health/is-it-time-to-look-away-health-effects-of-watching-violence-in-the-media-20180315.html">studies have shown that viewing graphic violence has health risks</a>, such as post-traumatic stress.</p>
<p>That’s why I’m no longer recommending just a livestream delay for adolescent users – it was an appeal to protect children, when more major platform changes are unlikely. But all people deserve better and safe social media. I’m now calling on Mark Zuckerberg to shut down Facebook Live in the interest of public health and safety. In my view, that feature should be restored only if the company can prove to the public – and to regulators – that its design is safer. </p>
<p>Handling livestreaming safely includes having more than enough professional content moderators to handle the workload. Those workers also must have <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona">appropriate access to mental health support</a> and safe working environments, so that even Facebook employees and contractors are not unduly scarred by brutal violence posted online.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Grygiel owns a small number of shares in the following social media companies: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Alibaba, LinkedIn, YY and Snap.</span></em></p>Children can’t handle watching livestreamed massacres – and adults shouldn’t have to.Jennifer Grygiel, Assistant Professor of Communications (Social Media) & Magazine, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074472018-11-22T11:35:06Z2018-11-22T11:35:06ZSnowflakes and trigger warnings: Shakespearean violence has always upset people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246838/original/file-20181122-182071-582n85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Transversal Theater Company production of Titus Andronicus, 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Backovsky</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are repeatedly told that today’s young people are oversensitive, claiming to need “trigger warnings” and to be traumatised by literary texts – including <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/19/shakespeare-trigger-warnings-at-cambridge-rile-exp/">the works of Shakespeare</a> – that previous generations <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/us/warning-the-literary-canon-could-make-students-squirm.html?hpw&rref=education">took in their stride</a>. But is it really true that readers and theatregoers of the past were more emotionally resilient than today’s “snowflake” generation?</p>
<p>In his 1765 edition of the The Plays of William Shakespeare, the great 18th-century critic Samuel Johnson admitted that reading certain scenes in Shakespeare’s King Lear gave him a sense of extreme discomfort. He found the death of Lear’s daughter, Cordelia, in the tragedy’s last act, <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/johnson/samuel/preface/lear.html">so upsetting</a> that he avoided ever reading the scene again until he was forced to do so by his work as an editor. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246833/original/file-20181122-182040-1pi6s2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">King Lear weeping over the body of Cordelia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Barry (circa 1876)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Moreover, he claimed, the blinding of the elderly Gloucester in the middle of the play was so terrible that a theatre spectator would not be able to cope with it. He described it as an act “too horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition”.</p>
<p>Was Johnson a snowflake, too? If he was, then so were many others of his time. There is a long history of censoring and rewriting the plays of Shakespeare in order to make them less traumatic to their readers and spectators. </p>
<h2>Censoring Shakespeare’s violence</h2>
<p>In 1681, King Lear was rewritten by the dramatist Nahum Tate with a <a href="http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Tate-Lr_M/scene/5.3/">revised, happy ending</a> in which both Cordelia and her father live – and this was so popular with audiences that Tate’s adaptation was the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Jp2cdPPnB9ht6ySY0wbd9N/king-lear-with-a-happy-ending-in-kettering">only version</a> of the play to be performed on stage for the next 150 years.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, another notably violent Shakespeare play, Titus Andronicus, was similarly rewritten. Titus features a female character who is raped, and subsequently has her tongue cut out and her hands cut off to prevent her from telling the names of her attackers. When the play appeared onstage in England in 1850, all this material was removed.</p>
<p>As a contemporary reviewer <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sG9uDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT22&lpg=PT22&dq=1850+%22the+deflowerment+of+lavinia%22&source=bl&ots=YsAHSExUrX&sig=vI6suKgl4_nbGhZsrr-#v=onepage&q=1850%20%22the%20deflowerment%20of%20lavinia%22&f=false">wrote</a>: “The deflowerment of Lavinia, cutting out her tongue, chopping off her hands … are wholly omitted”. As the reviewer went on to comment, the play then seemed “not only presentable but actually attractive as a result”.</p>
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<p>The violence was not the only thing that readers and spectators found upsetting about Shakespeare’s plays. Race and sexuality also caused problems. The US president John Quincy Adams <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-american-presidents-and-shakespeare">wrote</a> in 1786 that although he thought Othello in many respects a great work, he found the mixed-race relationship at its heart, “injudicious, disgusting, and contrary to all probability”.</p>
<p>Other prominent figures also expressed their reservations about aspects of Shakespeare. Queen Victoria, for example, criticised the plays for their sexual humour. She <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZD5sDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT62&lpg=PT62&dq=%22queen+victoria%22+%22having+always+been+told+how+very+coarse+it+was%22&source=bl&ots=kaXghfCJCe&sig=b0NBsMY0ByvYAg28g2lJzotqu7c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQs4WSodneAhUIB8AKHWelAikQ6AEwCnoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22queen%20victoria%22%20%22having%20always%20been%20told%20how%20very%20coarse%20it%20was%22&f=false">wrote to her eldest daughter</a> in 1859 that she had never “had the courage” to see Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor on stage, “having always been told how very coarse it was – for your adored Shakespeare is dreadful in that respect, and many things have to be left out in many plays”.</p>
<h2>Censoring the plays in print</h2>
<p>To counter these and similar objections, a market developed for censored print editions of the plays. In 1815, Thomas and Harriet Bowdler published <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Frk2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PP16&lpg=PP16&dq=%22to+present+to+the+public+an+edition+of+his+Plays,+which+the+parent%22&source=bl&ots=NWMfhvQ5d5&sig=S2mlTBwGOJwJQhoYbi9ih4VVsRg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUx8fCodneAhUqKcAKHffFC8QQ6AEwAXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22to%20present%20to%20the%20public%20an%20edition%20of%20his%20Plays%2C%20which%20the%20parent%22&f=false">The Family Shakespeare</a> in order “to present to the public an edition of his Plays, which the parent, the guardian, and the instructor of youth, may place without fear in the hands of the pupil”. </p>
<p>The Bowdlers edited 20 of Shakespeare’s plays for this publication, removing swear words and many of the references to sex and violence. They also changed plots to make them less potentially distressing – the death of Ophelia in Hamlet, for example, became <a href="https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/06/censure-wisdom-bowdlerized-shakespeare-nineteenth-century/">an accidental drowning</a>, to avoid disturbing readers with a portrayal of an apparent suicide.</p>
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<p>The Bowdlers were <a href="https://shakespeare.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/exhibition/gallery-four-soldier/family-shakespeare-four-volumes">criticised</a> by some of their contemporaries for having gone too far in tampering with these classic works – but their edition was still hugely popular and, by the end of the 19th century, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ij74pa8T4pgC&pg=PA166&lpg=PA166&dq=shakespeare+%22nineteenth+century%22+expurgated+editions&source=bl&ots=Sn70obZQRt&sig=tCz4HW7_ByQuQ0zL4Zujra4Q5d8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQqb6wpNneAhUGI8AKHTnGA4cQ6AEwA3oECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=shakespeare%20%22nineteenth%20century%22%20expurgated%20editions&f=false">hundreds more</a> censored versions of Shakespeare’s plays had appeared in print. </p>
<h2>A disturbing playwright</h2>
<p>Race, violence, sexuality, suicide: many of the things that modern students have been accused of finding upsetting about the plays are exactly what bothered readers and spectators of the past. Shakespeare has never been a safe or reassuring playwright and his works have always been capable of disturbing their audiences. </p>
<p>The specifics of what is found offensive may alter, of course: most modern critics of Othello have been more concerned about whether the depiction of the title character is <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/09/is-shakespeare-racist/">itself racist</a> than worried about whether the play advocates for mixed-race marriage. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, we should rethink the idea that there is something uniquely or unusually fragile about today’s young people in their response to Shakespeare, when such a claim is contradicted by the evidence of the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Yearling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even Samuel Johnson found some of Shakespeare’s violent scenes unwatchable.Rebecca Yearling, Lecturer in English, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986772018-06-25T10:35:06Z2018-06-25T10:35:06ZSchool safety commission should not worry about violence in entertainment media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224279/original/file-20180621-137717-116fux4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Strong link lacking between violence in entertainment and violence in society. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-man-pistol-gun-standing-front-442773577?src=hRRPBgRl1VuH72Cu4Nq0Pw-1-1">Mike Focus/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 21, I testified before Education Secretary Betsy Devos’s school safety commission on the impact that violence in entertainment media has on violence in society. </p>
<p>I’m a psychologist who has studied violent media for 15 years and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C22&q=CJ+Ferguson&btnG=">published dozens of studies</a> on the topic in peer-reviewed journals. </p>
<p>As I told the commission, current evidence suggests that the impact of violence in entertainment media is precisely zero and the commission would be better served attending to other issues.</p>
<p>Here are five main takeaways from my testimony:</p>
<h2>1) Violence down despite more violent media</h2>
<p>Society’s consumption of entertainment violence has been associated with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcom.12129">significant</a> <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-33466-001">declines</a> in actual violence in society. The reality is that youth violence has dropped by over <a href="https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/beh5.asp">80 percent</a> over the last 25 years even as society has consumed more violence games and movies.</p>
<h2>2) Media violence is not a risk factor</h2>
<p>A few dozen studies track kids over time to see if entertainment media at an early point in life predicts bullying, youth violence or later arrests. Studies from this pool of research <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272486349_Violent_Video_Games_and_Physical_Aggression_Evidence_for_a_Selection_Effect_Among_Adolescents">generally find</a> that exposure to entertainment violence is not a risk factor for later violent behavior. Instead, issues like <a href="http://christopherjferguson.com/SmithFergusonBeaver.pdf">mental health</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28042897">family environment</a> tend to be real risk factors for youth violence.</p>
<h2>3) Mass shooters don’t consume much violent entertainment</h2>
<p>Data on mass shooters, dating back to a <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERIC-ED466024/content-detail.html">2002 U.S. Secret Service/Department of Education report</a> and updated more recently in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313853398_Moral_Combat_Why_the_War_on_Violent_Video_Games_is_Wrong">my work</a> with Villanova’s Patrick Markey, suggest that mass shooters consume less, not more, entertainment violence than <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313853398_Moral_Combat_Why_the_War_on_Violent_Video_Games_is_Wrong">other males their age</a>. Society’s obsession with video games and mass shooters stems from confirmation bias – a psychological phenomenon in which we attend to cases that fit our beliefs and ignore those that don’t, such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/02/police-shut-down-part-of-las-vegas-strip-due-to-shooting/?utm_term=.c8af6c8a7bca">Las Vegas shooting massacre</a> of 2017, a case in which the shooter was a 64-year-old male. Further, even some young shooters, like the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131015095917/http://www.governor.virginia.gov/TempContent/techPanelReport-docs/FullReport.pdf">Virginia Tech</a> and <a href="https://publicintelligence.net/ct-sandy-hook/">Sandy Hook</a> shooters, were found to prefer nonviolent rather than violent games. </p>
<h2>4) Other countries less violent</h2>
<p>Data that look at trends across countries find no relationship between entertainment consumption and societal violence. For instance, some of the most video game-loving countries, such as the Netherlands and South Korea, tend to be among the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/22/if-video-games-spur-gun-violence-its-only-in-the-united-states/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.066c518bdc25">least violent</a>. </p>
<h2>5) No scholarly consensus</h2>
<p>Lastly, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12182">surveys of scholars</a> make clear there is no consensus that entertainment causes violence. In fact, only a vocal minority of scholars who study media truly believe that entertainment media causes violence in society. If the school safety commission really wants to reduce violence in schools, one thing is absolutely clear to me: Focusing on entertainment violence is entirely a waste of time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher J. Ferguson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As a federal school safety commission searches for ways to lessen school violence, a psychology professor advises the commission that focusing on violence in entertainment media is a waste of time.Christopher J. Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634332016-08-04T01:27:40Z2016-08-04T01:27:40ZWhat the favorite TV shows of Trump supporters can tell us about his appeal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132995/original/image-20160803-12186-1xubvag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-222952348/stock-photo-police-car-on-the-street-at-night.html?src=PkW-_7036Q8Xq7v2DNQxNg-1-4">'Siren' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.tivoresearch.com/blog/clinton-trump-tv/">According to new data</a>, supporters of Donald Trump prefer to get their news from television and enjoy watching crime dramas. </p>
<p>These findings might sound insignificant. But they actually offer insight into Trump’s rise. As a presidential candidate, he’s claimed that illegal immigrants are flooding the country with “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4GIY96MvN">no regard for the impact on public safety</a>,” while warning that if things don’t change, “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/transcript-donald-trump-national-security-speech-224273">we’re not going to have a country anymore – there will be nothing left</a>.”</p>
<p>This rhetoric supplements our current media environment, which, as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=a0pS07ff92oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cultivation+theory&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjrZrG-6XOAhVD4SYKHT7pAeEQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=Cultivation%20theory&f=false">studies have shown</a>, cultivates a false perception of the world as a mean, violent place. And it’s laid the groundwork for many of Trump’s most successful appeals to fear.</p>
<h2>Mean world syndrome</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, communication professor <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/05/the-man-who-counts-the-killings/376850/">George Gerbner</a> began studying the effects of violence on television. One of his most striking discoveries was that watching significant amounts of violent television changed viewers’ outlook on the world. Specifically, those who watched a lot of violent shows on TV began to see the world as a dangerous place; they were more likely to overestimate the real-world occurrence of <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ139260">crime and violence</a>. </p>
<p>Gerbner dubbed this outcome “mean world syndrome,” because people who consumed a lot of violent television came to think of the world as a mean and scary place. In a 1997 profile of Gerbner, The Atlantic journalist Scott Stossel <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/05/the-man-who-counts-the-killings/376850/">summarized Gerber’s conclusions</a>: that, in the end, “we become fearful and anxious – and more willing to depend on authorities, strong measures, gated communities, and other proto-police-state accouterments.” </p>
<p>To be clear, <a href="http://christopherjferguson.com/Paradigm%20Change.pdf">watching violence on television</a> doesn’t cause violence, much like <a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-on-tv-less-impact-on-teens-than-you-might-think-61957">watching sexual activity</a> doesn’t cause people to have sex. What it does do is make us more afraid and more willing to look for authoritarian figures to make us feel secure. </p>
<h2>The TV viewing habits of a Trump supporter</h2>
<p>Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.tivoresearch.com/blog/clinton-trump-tv/">Tivo</a> provided data for the top five shows that supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton watched more than the average American. </p>
<p>Of the shows watched by Trump supporters, all five focused on crime as a central plot point – <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3187578/">“The Mysteries of Laura,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364845/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“NCIS,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3560084/?ref_=nv_sr_3">“NCIS: New Orleans,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4422836/?ref_=nv_sr_1">“Limitless”</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4465472/?ref_=nv_sr_1">“Rosewood.”</a> In contrast, only one of the shows watched by Clinton supporters was focused on crime (“The Mysteries of Laura”). The others were <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4094300/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442462/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“The Good Wife,”</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3501074/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“Madame Secretary”</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4363588/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">“Telenovela.”</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3300879/Donald-Trump-supporters-likely-taken-clickbait-backers-Bernie-Sanders-likely-watch-TV.html">Demographic data on TV viewership</a> also show that Trump supporters prefer to get their news from TV and watch more TV news on average than the general public. Roughly 60 percent of Trump supporters prefer to receive their news from television instead of reading it online or in print. By comparison, 55 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Bernie Sanders supporters expressed a preference for reading about political candidates either online or in the newspaper. </p>
<p>Studies have shown how television news relies on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media">fear-based appeals</a> to both capture and maintain viewers’ attention. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/107769900408100208">Research has also found</a> that watching television news not only leads to a greater fear of crime, but also increases audience members’ support for for capital punishment and handgun ownership. </p>
<h2>A nation slipping into chaos?</h2>
<p>Based on Donald Trump’s rhetoric, it should come as no surprise that people who find themselves drawn to the Republican candidate also like crime dramas. </p>
<p>Trump’s strong stance on crime and gun rights resonates highly with this audience. He’s argued that Hillary Clinton would take away Americans’ right to own guns and has gone so far as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/donald-trump-gun-positions-nra-orlando/">to contend that</a> “The Second Amendment is on the ballot in November.” Trump also supports the movement for a <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/second-amendment-rights">national right to carry</a> a concealed weapon – a position that’s likely to resonate with people who envision a world in which they need a handgun to be safe.</p>
<p>In addition, Trump has masterfully appealed to those susceptible to “mean world syndrome.” During his <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4GDQdQGKZ">address at the RNC</a>, he relied heavily on the rhetoric of fear, contending that the world is slipping into chaos. He depicted a nation in crisis, stating, “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life.” </p>
<p>Even though he argues that the United States is overrun with violent crime and disorder, there’s ample evidence to the contrary. <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/manafort-fbi-crime-statistics-cant-be-trusted.html">Reports from the FBI</a> indicate violent crime has actually been <a href="http://www.statista.com/graphic/1/191219/reported-violent-crime-rate-in-the-usa-since-1990.jpg">on a steady decline over the last two decades.</a></p>
<p>But this type of rhetoric is nothing new for Trump, who began his campaign by declaring that <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/06/25/exp-presidential-candidate-donald-trump-immigration-intv-erin.cnn">Mexico</a> was sending rapists and murderers pouring over America’s borders. Based on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/">factual data</a>, these claims are also false. However, as it’s been noted, Trump relies on rhetorical appeals to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rhetorical-brilliance-of-trump-the-demagogue-51984">fear and populism</a>. Newt Gingrich defended Trump’s claims about violent crime in America <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I">by stating,</a> “the average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think crime is down, does not think they are safer.” </p>
<p>Crime shows on television and news broadcasts have helped cultivate the very feelings that Gingrich referred to. And unless they’re alleviated, those feelings could carry Trump all the way to the White House.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Duncan is a registered Independent. </span></em></p>Could their affinity for a certain type of television drama help explain why they’re drawn to his rhetoric?Aaron Duncan, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska-LincolnLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/514612015-12-03T21:20:06Z2015-12-03T21:20:06ZFactCheck: is there a link between early and easier access to violent TV and domestic violence?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104187/original/image-20151203-22448-w595q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We do learn a lot about social behaviour from watching TV.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gen2kk/311189665/in/photolist-tuVR4-4AP57o-tc38K-7wRCfG-5WYExE-5CqGB2-5rKhNW-bpX6yP-5jrZUq-9Ni8kL-tc9At-nGpn-5EptnH-5ujfVH-ieDTq2-jHas5y-9ufpDR-9uiqSy-9NfvDr-h7Ju9-4DwhvE-9Wdf82-B6JNq-4A4pVd-LwToC-Lx8fv-5Cvik7-8q5ryo-5Q9Xgo-9Nifkw-9NiaMQ-9NihYW-9NibP7-3aoJPC-8rRrMu-57XSGW-he5vz-a7wC6p-AD2jEK-cpvrjN-rpcNxm-AuPZRM-9Ni8QA-9Nfs5H-9Nfof6-9NftZi-9NfoHV-9NieFY-9NidQ1-9Niafy">flickr/PenRX</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>It’s not that hard to draw the lines between early and easier access to more violent and explicit television and the way unfortunately and sadly many women are treated in relationships. – Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey, quoted by the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-26/earlier-access-m-rated-tv-shows-sends-wrong-message-kids-mp-says/6974764">ABC</a>, November 26, 2015.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We know that <a href="http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/18/2/166.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc">boys who observe their mother’s romantic partner assault their mothers</a> are at increased risk of committing domestic violence in adulthood. But does viewing violent television as a child increase aggression toward women later in life?</p>
<p>The short answer is probably, but it is a hard question to definitively answer (see <a href="http://www.christopherjferguson.com/TVreview.pdf">this article</a> for a sense of the difficulty in conducting research on TV violence). </p>
<h2>Checking the research</h2>
<p>We do learn a lot about social behaviour from <a href="https://www.dcmp.org/caai/nadh175.pdf">watching TV</a>. And laboratory <a href="http://crx.sagepub.com/content/21/4/516.abstract">experiments</a> do find increased aggression immediately following exposure to TV violence. </p>
<p>The most stringent test of Rowan Ramsey’s hypothesis would be to randomly assign a representative sample of children to watch violent TV and another group to watch non-violent TV for several years. Researchers could then assess domestic violence committed as an adult. However, for ethical reasons, such an experiment would probably never be conducted. </p>
<p>Thus, we are left with a quasi-experimental design in which researchers record how much violent media is consumed as a child and then assess domestic violence as adults. </p>
<p>This correlational design leaves the question open as to whether aggressive children <em>prefer</em> to watch violent media (which <a href="http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/5/3/2158244015599428">they do</a> and this claim is relatively uncontentious among experts) or whether watching violent TV actually increases risk for domestic violence perpetration. The best studies control for childhood aggression, social class, intelligence, parenting practices and other confounding factors.</p>
<p>I could locate only <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/dev-392201.pdf">one study</a> that assessed TV viewing as a child and subsequent domestic violence as adults. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/dev-392201.pdf">study</a> began with children in 1977 living in the Chicago area. The researchers followed up with nearly all of them (450 participants out of 557) in 1991 when they were between 20 and 22 years old. </p>
<p>The researchers concluded that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>childhood exposure to media violence predicts young adult aggressive behaviour for both males and females. Identification with aggressive TV characters and perceived realism of TV violence also predict later aggression. These relations persist even when the effects of socioeconomic status, intellectual ability, and a variety of parenting factors are controlled.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, when the researchers examined the effect of childhood TV viewing on domestic violence specifically, they did not control for these extraneous factors.</p>
<p>But they did report a strong relationship between their general measure of aggressiveness and domestic violence, so one might infer that childhood TV viewing does predict domestic violence in adulthood to some extent, at least in this study.</p>
<p>Specifically, these researchers found that 42% of males who viewed a lot of TV violence had shoved, pushed, or grabbed their spouse during the past year compared to 22% for less frequent viewers of TV violence. </p>
<p>Similarly, 11% of high TV violence viewers had been convicted of a crime compared to 3% of less frequent viewers. </p>
<p>Other long term studies of the same people that controlled for confounding influences like parenting control, childhood aggressiveness and socioeconomic status reported similar findings on amalgamated measures of aggressiveness: that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephanie_Kasen/publication/11440839_Television_viewing_and_aggressive_behavior_during_adolescence_and_adulthood/links/0fcfd5089f14b0683e000000.pdf">watching a lot of TV as a child predicts aggression and antisocial behaviour in adulthood</a>, including <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/3/439.short">this study</a> in New Zealand.</p>
<p>However, these studies did not examine domestic violence specifically.</p>
<h2>Key risk factors for violence</h2>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is that there are multiple risk factors for committing domestic violence and we need to be cognisant of their relative contributions. </p>
<p>The World Health Organisation <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/">states</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>risk factors for being a perpetrator [of violence against women] include low education, exposure to child maltreatment or witnessing violence in the family, harmful use of alcohol, attitudes accepting of violence and gender inequality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s not clear whether by “the way unfortunately and sadly many women are treated in relationships” Ramsey is talking about physical violence or other forms of mistreatment in relationships. </p>
<p>This FactCheck mostly tests his statement against the research on media violence and real life physical violence. That said, there is some research evidence linking TV depictions of women being treated poorly and disrespectful attitudes toward women. </p>
<p>Heavy TV viewers are more accepting of violence and more likely to endorse the “<a href="http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=72962fd4-638a-45ad-90c8-49f6f00fac1f%40sessionmgr4002&vid=0&hid=4207">rape myth</a>” (that when women say no, they really mean yes).</p>
<p>Thus, heavy TV viewing may indirectly influence domestic violence perpetration through hostile attitudes to women, but similar problems with study designs remain here too. It is difficult to untangle one influencing factor from another. </p>
<p>By contrast, <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.192.4489&rep=rep1&type=pdf">heavy alcohol use</a> and <a href="http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/18/2/166.full.pdf+html">witnessing family violence</a> are robustly associated with domestic violence. Thus, these factors may have a larger impact on domestic violence than watching TV, although they are perhaps more difficult to target for intervention.</p>
<p>US psychologist Terrie Moffitt has suggested that aggressiveness is approximately <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S006526600555003X">50% heritable</a> (meaning a characteristic that parents pass on biologically to their offspring).</p>
<p>This recent <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25818861">study</a> from the US suggests that the longitudinal relationship between childhood TV viewing and adult violence may be best accounted for by genetic variation that predisposes some children to both watch more violent TV and be more aggressive.</p>
<p>In case you’re wondering how childhood TV viewing affects women’s domestic violence, in the Chicago area <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/dev-392201.pdf">study</a> I described earlier, girls who watched a lot of violent TV were no more likely to push, grab or shove their partner, but they were more likely to throw something at their partner. Laboratory experiments also show similar effects of violent TV on increasing aggression <a href="http://crx.sagepub.com/content/21/4/516.full.pdf+html">in boys and girls</a>.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Ramsey is probably right to say there’s a link between early and easier access to more violent and explicit television and poor treatment of women in relationships. However, the exact nature of that link – or how strong it is – is not known.</p>
<p>Given that childhood TV viewing predicts many other forms of aggression in adulthood, it would be surprising to find <em>no</em> effect of TV viewing on domestic violence. </p>
<p>That said, TV is clearly not the only factor, or even the strongest risk factor. We can’t definitively say if it is causal – only correlational. </p>
<p>More research is needed to definitively answer this question, specifically long-term studies of the same people that incorporates genetic and environmental risk factors. <strong>– Tom Denson</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This article gives a comprehensive account of the complexities of investigating media effects.</p>
<p>US academic Chris Ferguson is a noted sceptic. One of his <a href="https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/26263_3sc.pdf">arguments</a> is that a lot of the research on media influence is politically expedient in societies with entrenched generational poverty issues; basically it’s easier and cheaper to fund effects research than build more schools, hire more teachers, bolster family support and the like. </p>
<p>It’s important to note that famous researchers who did think that screen violence is harmful – such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU">Albert Bandura</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylhqasb1chI">George Gerbner</a>, both based in the US – agreed that this harm exploited social inequalities that already existed.</p>
<p>Gerbner <a href="http://web.asc.upenn.edu/gerbner/Asset.aspx?assetID=299">argued</a> that the main effect of screen violence perpetrated by men against women was to resign audiences to the idea that it’s a man’s world.</p>
<p>Gerbner also <a href="http://web.asc.upenn.edu/gerbner/Asset.aspx?assetID=391">argued</a> that the main effect of screen violence was that it made people afraid; the world seemed a “scary” place, and little could be done to change that.</p>
<p>This raises the question of whether media violence encourages audiences to turn away from social problems. <strong>– Andy Ruddock</strong></p>
<hr>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Denson receives funding from the ARC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does viewing violent television as a child increase aggression toward women later in life? We check the research.Tom Denson, Associate Professor of Psychology and ARC Future Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494082015-10-23T09:58:04Z2015-10-23T09:58:04ZWhy it’s wrong for pediatricians to eliminate daily screen time recommendations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99356/original/image-20151022-8024-y1v5f2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The original recommendations were made with TV shows and films in mind.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=IvrUi9abHelhmSwSkrR5_Q&searchterm=child%20watching%20tv&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=56826277">'Watching TV' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month, the <a href="https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/Pages/About-the-AAP.aspx">American Academy of Pediatrics</a> (AAP) announced a disappointing decision. </p>
<p>Sixteen years after they published their formal <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/104/2/341.full.pdf+html">recommendations</a> discouraging any form of screen time before age two – and 14 years after making <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/108/5/1222.full.pdf+html?sid=29e11ca9-5afa-4c58-ba65-467fb9d2e85f">recommendations</a> to limit screen time for older children to no more than two hours per day – they are now <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/06/health/screen-time-rules-change-pediatricians/">recanting those recommendations</a>, calling them “outdated.”</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://aapnews.aappublications.org/content/36/10/54.full">AAP-affiliated doctors</a> who participated in the Academy’s Growing Up Digital: Media Research Symposium (a symposium organized to discuss research data and suggest practical advice to parents), the two-hour daily limit does not reflect how much media children actually consume. </p>
<p>Therefore, they argue, the recommendation needs to be changed.</p>
<p>Certainly, children do spend a lot of time with <a href="http://www.screenfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/screentimefs.pdf">screen media</a>. And many will spend more than two hours per day. </p>
<p>However, today’s media reality – and the proliferation of screens that has accompanied it – doesn’t change decades of research that points to the harmful effects of too much screen time.</p>
<h2>What the science says</h2>
<p>The AAP’s original guidelines were based on a number of studies that showed the negative effects of heavy screen exposure. </p>
<p>For example, increased exposure to <a href="http://public.psych.iastate.edu/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/01ba.ap.pdf">violence in the media</a> was linked to more aggressive behaviors in children and desensitized responses to violence. Meanwhile, increased exposure to <a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/247525277_Contributions_of_entertainment_television_to_adolescents_sexual_attitudes_and_expectations_The_role_of_viewing_amount_versus_viewer_involvement">sexual content</a> was shown to lead to more risky behaviors in teens. And exposure to glamorized portrayals of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs was tied to <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/103/1/129.extract">early experimentation</a> with these substances.</p>
<p>Current research still supports the earlier findings related to <a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games.aspx">media violence</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21546986">sexual content</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26308217">substance use</a>. </p>
<p>Therefore, it’s puzzling to hear AAP representatives say that their policies must be updated because “The public needs to know that the <a href="http://aapnews.aappublications.org/content/36/10/54.full">Academy’s advice</a> is science-driven, not based merely on the precautionary principle.” </p>
<p>The original guidelines <em>were</em> science-driven. And the today’s science <em>still supports</em> those guidelines.</p>
<h2>No replacement for social interaction</h2>
<p>Beyond exposure to racy or violent content, time spent engaged with various media technologies often displaces more active and interactive endeavors.</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01974.x/abstract">Neuroscience research</a> shows that infants and toddlers need a lot of direct interactions with people in order to promote healthy brain growth and appropriate cognitive, social and emotional skills. The two-dimensional, non-interactive platform of most screen media simply cannot act as a stand-in for this important developmental function.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99361/original/image-20151022-7999-1rb1nrk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screens, screens, screens…</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/binderdonedat/2181833837/in/photolist-4jNtbM-4ZNDFi-4jNt4k-4jNu2v-4jNt8T-52aXyE-7niadr-9ospk7-nv4Pem-dDhypY-DrjCp-8X12WB-5Uf9br-98iDp-fzfvxX-wpSvGj-cBiHo9-MoXNb-3R5z1M-8kVSmf-91zaqu-91w36g-6sPZ5V-36T7wv-5S1uKg-tc5Di-hVMLu-6CHM9N-4jSvaG-f1iHU8-66Nufb-66NudE-9QdFPy-buMaiV-3UUNqs-d7VgG1-85umLd-we3rXR-nKUXy9-91zaxy-f1EJNa-aFG62p-aFGcgF-c4UFaw-9FSTDC-c4UF7S-aFFZcF-3R5ySP-aoY28G-9ZLbW3">Binder.donedat/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Furthermore, heavy marketing of educational video, such as the Baby Einstein videos, and the vast number of <a href="http://psi.sagepub.com/content/16/1/3.full.pdf+html?ijkey=GxHiSvddIDi.E&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi%2520">“educational” apps</a> have led parents to believe that these products are beneficial to their children – that they can help them cognitively, socially and academically. </p>
<p>However, research has shown that the educational benefits of these products are <a href="http://commercialfreechildhood.org/ccfc-urges-baby-einstein-come-clean-parents-advocates-document-years-educational-claims">questionable</a>, at best. </p>
<p>One thing hasn’t changed since the original guidelines were released: older children are still inadvertently exposed to a lot of inappropriate content on TV and in video games. In fact, violent content in TV shows, movies and video games has only <a href="https://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/reports/violencestudy/DyingtoEntertain.pdf">increased</a> over the past decades.</p>
<p>Now websites and social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat can be added to the mix. </p>
<p>Exposure to inappropriate content is especially likely to happen when children have unsupervised access to media technologies. (Which many children do. A <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2225579/microsoft-subnet/most-parents-allow-unsupervised-internet-access-to-children-at-age-8.html">study</a> by Microsoft found that 94% of parents allowed their children unsupervised access to some form of media.) This alone should prompt guidelines that recommend reduced screen time, especially unsupervised screen time.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many parents will use television and other media as “babysitters.” Other parents either <a href="https://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/8010.pdf">don’t have rules</a> or, if they do, simply don’t enforce them.</p>
<h2>Raising a generation of media-literate kids</h2>
<p>With that said, the original guidelines, which focused mainly on TV and movies, do need some updates. </p>
<p>Today’s children and adolescents interact with many more technologies – tablets, iPads and smartphones – on a regular basis. </p>
<p>In addition, the expansion of social media networks, online multiplayer video games and video sharing sites such as YouTube has created even more opportunities for exposure. Guidelines from professional organizations such as the AAP certainly need to reflect these realities.</p>
<p>But if something becomes more pervasive or ubiquitous in our everyday lives, it doesn’t mean we should simply embrace it or downplay its repercussions. </p>
<p>Think about texting and driving. If the same logic were applied to the widespread use of cellphones by drivers, the practice – which endangers drivers and pedestrians – would never be discouraged or banned. </p>
<p>Similarly, an increase in media use among children should not lead us to forego recommended time limits. Abandoning specific hour limits in favor of general recommendations (with the AAP using vague suggestions like “<a href="http://aapnews.aappublications.org/content/36/10/54.full">setting limits</a>”) may send the wrong message: that we should no longer be as worried about media exposure. </p>
<p>Furthermore, many parents may not know what is considered a reasonable limit. Specific time limits would at least alert parents that they should be cautious of the amount of exposure, even if they don’t always follow the recommended guidelines.</p>
<p>With the increase in screen media options, unsupervised access and increasingly more complex forms of technology, it’s important to also focus on <a href="http://www.medialit.org/media-literacy-definition-and-more">media literacy</a>, which is the ability to critically evaluate media messages and recognize how media influences us. </p>
<p>The AAP has the opportunity to educate parents on how to better mediate their children’s exposure and teach their children to become more critical consumers of media. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17482798.2012.662031">Research shows</a> that media education can buffer some of the negative effects of exposure.</p>
<p>As the amount of time spent in front of screens becomes more and more difficult to control, kids should, at the very least, understand how it’s affecting them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brigitte Vittrup does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The American Academy of Pediatrics has called its guideline of two hours per day of screen time outdated. So what about the decades of research that led to the original recommendation?Brigitte Vittrup, Associate Professor of Child Development, Texas Woman's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/395492015-03-31T12:55:23Z2015-03-31T12:55:23ZThreatening parents isn’t the way to protect children from videogame violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76597/original/image-20150331-1240-57ok4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trigger happy?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.norden.org/en/news-and-events/images/topics/information-technology-and-computer-games/dataspel-2/view">Magnus Fröderberg/norden.org</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Headteachers from 16 schools in Cheshire have warned parents by letter that they would be reported to the authorities if they allowed their children to play videogames marked as suitable for adults with an <a href="http://www.pegi.info/en/index/id/33/">18 age rating</a>.</p>
<p>The letter argued that not only did videogames subject children to violent scenes, but that they also increased sexualised behaviour and led children to be more vulnerable to sexual grooming. The letter stated that in the case of children allowed to play such games “we are advised to contact the police and children’s social care” as parents’ actions would be “deemed neglectful”.</p>
<p>The letter’s author, Mary Hennessy Jones of the Nantwich Education Partnership, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/29/schools-parents-police-children-18-rated-games">told The Sunday Times</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are trying to help parents to keep their children as safe as possible in this digital era. It is so easy for children to end up in the wrong place and parents find it helpful to have some very clear guidelines.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The innocent days of Frogger and PacMan are largely gone, and popular videogames today often boast photo-realistic graphics depicting violence and other adult themes, which is why games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty are age rated in the same way as films.</p>
<p>I’m sure the letter was written with the best of intentions but as a parent of three “screenagers” and someone who has spent almost 30 years researching the effects of videogames on human behaviour, this is a heavy-handed way to deal with the issue. </p>
<p>Although it is illegal for any retailer <a href="http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/glos/bus1item.cgi?file=*badv616-1001.txt">to sell 18-rated games to minors</a>, it’s not illegal for children to play them, nor is it illegal for parents to allow their children to do so. It’s true that many parents may benefit from an education in the positives and negatives of videogames, but threatening them with the “authorities” is not helpful.</p>
<h2>Don’t blame the game</h2>
<p>I’ve been researching the effects of videogames on children since the early 1990s and played a role in the introduction of age ratings to videogames, writing educational leaflets for parents that outlined the effects of excessive gaming. There’s no doubt that there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/playing-video-games-is-good-for-your-brain-heres-how-34034">many positive benefits to videogaming</a> too.</p>
<p>Children often play age-inappropriate videogames. My 13-year-old son moans that he is the only boy in his class that doesn’t own or play Call of Duty. This anecdotal evidence is <a href="https://www.academia.edu/429407/Griffiths_M.D._2010_._Age_ratings_on_video_games_Are_the_effective_Education_and_Health_28_65-67">borne out by research</a>: in one study we found that almost two-thirds (63%) of children aged 11-13 had played an 18+ video game. Of the two-thirds who had played them, 8% reported playing them “all the time”, 22% reported playing them “most of the time”, 50% reported playing them “sometimes”, 18% reported playing them “hardly ever”. Unsurprisingly, boys were more likely than girls (76% vs 49%) to have played an 18+ video game – and more likely to play them more frequently. </p>
<p>How had they got access to the games in the first place? The majority had the games bought for them by family or friends (58%), played them at a friend’s house (35%), swapped them with friends (27%), or bought games themselves (5%). So this certainly suggests that parents and siblings are complicit in allowing children access to them.</p>
<h2>Does it do what it says on the tin?</h2>
<p>With the development of age rating and descriptors of the games content to be carried on the packaging, there is a growing amount of research studying the content of these games aimed at adults. For instance, one study led by Kimberley Thompson examined whether the description on the box of violence, blood, sexual themes, profanity, drugs and gambling in 18+ videogames matched the game’s content. The study <a href="http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=204771">found</a> that although warnings for violence and gore were relatively well handled, 81% of games studied lacked descriptions of other adult themes in the game content. The same researchers have found adult content in lots of games aimed at young children and teenagers.</p>
<p>Another study led by David Walsh <a href="http://www.minervamedica.it/en/journals/minerva-pediatrica/article.php?cod=R15Y2002N01A0001">tested the validity and accuracy of media age ratings</a>, including those for videogames. The findings suggested that when the entertainment industry rated a product as inappropriate for children, parents agreed. But parents disagreed with many industry ratings that designated material suitable for children, with those rated as appropriate for adolescents by the industry of greatest concern to parents.</p>
<p>In truth, there’s no difference between the issue of children and adolescents playing 18-rated games and that of children and teenagers watching 18-rated films. It does seem, however, that parents are more likely to act on ratings for films than for videogames. So while parents could be better informed and more responsible in how they monitor their children’s activities, threatening letters from schools are unlikely to have the intended effect on parents’ attitudes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Mark Griffiths has received research funding from a wide range of organizations including the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the Responsibility in Gambling Trust. He has also carried out consultancy for numerous gaming companies in the area of social responsibility and responsible gaming. Views expressed here are his own and not those of these funding bodies.</span></em></p>Parents could certainly do more to be aware of what their children are playing. But threatening letters are unlikely to help.Mark Griffiths, Director of the International Gaming Research Unit and Professor of Gambling Studies, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182202013-09-20T22:29:04Z2013-09-20T22:29:04ZVale Dexter, the serial killer who changed the face of TV violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31503/original/nmhjqgws-1379460969.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C742%2C2727%2C1967&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What has Showtime TV series Dexter, starring Michael C. Hall as the eponymous character, taught us about media violence?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Hollywood Foreign Press Association</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On September 23, Showtime audiences will bid adieu to television’s unlikeliest hero. Since 2007, they’ve really warmed to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0773262">Dexter</a>. The show’s eponymous anti-hero is a congenial blood-spatter analyst who can decipher any crime scene. He’s a loving son, brother and father who lives by an unwavering moral code. </p>
<p>And he’s a mass murderer. </p>
<p>Fans will tune into season eight’s finale with trepidation. Most want things to work out for Dexter. But they know it can’t be so. As much as they have enjoyed breaking all the rules of TV drama, the producers <a href="http://www.today.com/entertainment/dexter-showrunner-talks-end-serial-killer-cant-walk-happily-sunset-8C11144324?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews">have warned</a> there’s no happy ending for a serial killer.</p>
<p>Whatever happens, the show has challenged what we think we “know” about media violence. It tells us that the industry that make this brutality, and the people who enjoy it, can be smart and creative. Dexter’s ferocity sets him apart from other screen slashers.</p>
<p>So what makes him so different?</p>
<p>Dexter’s is a democratic world. Young or old, black, white, Asian or Hispanic, wealthy or not, violence touches everyone. In the heyday of primetime broadcast TV, professional white men in the prime of their life literally <a href="http://www.mediaed.org/assets/products/111/transcript_111.pdf">got away with murder</a>. But, for all his wit, athleticism, humour and charm, Dexter always pays a price for his crimes.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QhGMGjs3DSs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Dexter’s iconic opening sequence.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the violence is the least interesting aspect of the show. The villains who end up on Dexter’s infamous table all die in the same way. The mechanics of the act aren’t important. Each killing adds complexity to the character and the narrative. Is “our hero”, for all his moral agonising, just another serial killer looking to excuse his blood lust? Fans will be debating that one for years to come.</p>
<p>Historically, critics have argued that television violence is only “bad” when it simplifies social reality. For years, American television <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylhqasb1chI">dramatised a black and white world</a> where people are either good or evil, powerful or weak. In the end, Dexter worked because it eschewed such certainties.</p>
<p>Showtime certainly took a risk here. When teenager Andrew Conley murdered his brother in 2010, then claimed he did it because he <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320982/Dexter-kill-brother-Teenager-jailed-murdering-boy-10-claimed-inspired-hit-TV-show.html">“felt like Dexter”</a>, the writers confessed that they had feared such an event. Conley activated familiar anxieties about the effect of on-screen violence on impressionable audiences.</p>
<p>Interestingly, this story received little attention. There was a time when it would have been a bigger deal. Had Dexter’s adventures been broadcast to a mass audience, including lots of kids staying up past their bedtime, more public flak might have come his way. On Monday, however, the first Australians to (legally) discover his final fate will pay for the pleasure through Foxtel subscriptions. These folks, we assume, know what they’re in for.</p>
<p>Dexter’s biggest effect has been on writers and viewers who are willing to entertain innovative narratives and challenging characters. This year, American television brought us <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2188671/">Bates Motel</a>, which re-imagines Norman Bates (of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps8H3rg5GfM">Psycho</a> fame) as a likeable teen who just wants to fit in. Part horror and part <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eTfniWEVTY">Dawson’s Creek</a>, the unexpected hit confronts viewers with the idea that although violence must be punished, it must also be understood. Dexter surely proved that this controversial idea could be made popular. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31504/original/jmkc2kgr-1379463604.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rolling Stone was accused of glamourising alleged Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with this image from July.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Rolling Stone</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Journalists who have to deal with real murder often don’t have the same latitude. The charge that media glamourises violence now tends to be directed at the news. When pop culture magazine Rolling Stone presented alleged Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-on-the-cover-of-rolling-stone-16194">ordinary kid</a>, they faced a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/alleged-boston-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-rolling-stone-cover-picture-ignites-firestorm-20130718-2q59n.html#ixzz2ZM2Tr5mM">wave of criticism</a>. The event tells us how hard it is to represent the idea that mass murder isn’t motivated by pure, inexplicable evil alone, when discussing real people.</p>
<p>Strangely, then, cutting-edge television drama might be more politically important than it has ever been. If that’s true, then it’s a shame that far fewer of us get to see it. There’s a strong case to be made that good TV drama should be a public right, but quality TV is only available to those willing to pay extra, or break the law. </p>
<p>For years, societies have worried about the bad things that happen when people see graphic barbarity on-screen. After Dexter we might ask a different question: when such a challenging drama can only be enjoyed by a select few, what does society lose when people can’t hear what the tragic forensic expert had to say?</p>
<p>Among its many achievements, Dexter reminded us that screen violence is a bellwether for the cultural politics of television. Primetime murder used to matter because it showed us a world where anyone who wasn’t wealthy, male and white was in danger. Now, the problem is that although TV uses violence to dramatise a more complicated picture of society, not everyone gets to see it.</p>
<p>So, as Dexter passes into history, we might ask: should there be more violence on TV?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On September 23, Showtime audiences will bid adieu to television’s unlikeliest hero. Since 2007, they’ve really warmed to Dexter. The show’s eponymous anti-hero is a congenial blood-spatter analyst who…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183932013-09-19T02:54:46Z2013-09-19T02:54:46ZGrand Theft Auto V: why we’d kill to get it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31608/original/kbqmm93w-1379551436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C145%2C1024%2C622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The just-released Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most hotly anticipated videogames of all time. But how does it inform the debate around videogame violence?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Rubio</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The blockbuster videogame launch of Grand Theft Auto V was met with a fanfare of confusing messages. Gamers were promised the familiar diet of salacious content: players are free, so we are told, to drive drunk and exploit sex workers. </p>
<p>However, experts <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/tech/article.aspx?id=907068&vId=4152392">tell us</a> that “GTA is essentially the Sopranos of videogames”. Are we being offered the same old schlock, or are fans about to have an experience that will solidify gaming as an art form?</p>
<p>A more pertinent question is this: why are we being presented by these conflicting ideas, and what do they mean?</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the new title has spawned stories about real crime. In the United Kingdom, three teens <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1143244/grand-theft-auto-v-robbery-teens-arrested">have been arrested</a> for allegedly stabbing and robbing a man as he walked home from purchasing his copy at a special midnight launch.</p>
<p>As ever, things are bigger and better in America. In New York, three other young men commandeered a police car, drove to a gaming store, and cut in front of 500 other customers by posing as police officers. As <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9252561">reporters noted</a>, they were acting out exactly the sort of scenario that GTA V lets them rehearse.</p>
<p>The New Yorker magazine has <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/grand-theft-auto-v-how-evil-should-a-video-game-allow-you-to-be.html">weighed into the controversy</a>. It concurs that games are art. It acknowledges that, like great literature, gaming lets us contemplate what it might be like to be other sorts of people. It agrees that there is social value in this capacity. </p>
<p>All the New Yorker asks is, when an online GTA V forum allegedly contains a discussion on whether players should be able to kidnap and rape women - become virtual <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world-news/castro-relatives-in-shock-after-ariel-castro-arrested-for-abduction-of-three-women/story-fndir2ev-1226637469895">Ariel Castros</a> if you will - have things gone too far?</p>
<p>Regrettably, the New Yorker story doesn’t tell us much about this alleged conversation. What happened after someone posted the wish to include sexual assault in the game? Was that person roundly criticised for abusing a title that encourages us to think about the morality of violence? Was the player taken to task for bearing attitudes that had no place in that community? There are many reasons for thinking this might have happened. To understand why, we have to think about the history of media and audiences.</p>
<p>Predictably, the release of GTA V reignited the wrangle over links between gaming, crime and violence. These fears can be lanced with a simple observation: the mini crime wave around the launch has been carried by people who <em>want</em> to play it. GTA V is a sort of capital.</p>
<p>Gaming, like every medium since early cinema, is valued as a social experience. Having access to media and having access to the pleasures of friendship, community and status are one and the same. This has always been so.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31606/original/cm86dmqq-1379549785.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GTAV is the latest in the Grand Theft Auto series of video games, which are noted for their violent gameplay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SMADE Media</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1920s, media researchers <a href="http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1018">worried</a> that gangster films might inspire juvenile delinquency. But when they studied teenagers watching <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000010/">James Cagney</a> and crew, they discovered that being in the cinema was far more important than paying attention to what was on-screen. Kids went to the movies to be with other kids.</p>
<p>By the 1940s, it was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-step_flow_of_communication">becoming clear</a> that reading the paper, listening to the radio, and watching movies was an important way of winning respect from your peers. Knowing about the latest fashion, newest stars and most controversial political events was a great way to win trust and esteem from people you cared about.</p>
<p>Come the 1980s, fans were using their <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Communication%20and%20Journalism/JenkinsH.aspx">love of cult titles</a> - such as Star Trek and Star Wars - to build vibrant communities that only existed in relation to media. The identities they adopted in these groups more meaningful than the “proper” ones society gave them.</p>
<p>Gamers know all of this. Attacks on games are attacks on gamers: who they are, and how they fit into the world. The launch of GTA V isn’t just the release of yet another title: it is an eagerly anticipated cultural event that dramatises significant political conflicts. Here, gamers demand the right to be heard as people who have important things to say about the world.</p>
<p>A brief history of 2013 underlines why games count in social imaginations. Back in March, the United States suggested that Kim Jong-Un’s military strategy was <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57577110/north-korea-says-its-entering-state-of-war-with-south/">inspired by Call of Duty</a>. In January, Prince Harry was criticised for <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266382/Fresh-security-fears-Prince-Harry-I-killed-Taliban-interview.html">likening</a> attacking the Taliban to playing XBox. And, of course, gaming <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280036/Adam-Lanza-Police-believe-Newtown-killer-copied-scene-tactics-violent-video-game.html">was dragged</a> into the post-Newtown debate about gun control in the US.</p>
<p>What all of this means is that the release of Grand Theft Auto V isn’t about tired debates on videogames, or about kids who do desperate things to get it. It’s about how videogames are vehicles for thinking about responsibility, well-being, society and its future. Beneath the apparent mayhem, the GTA V story is about how different sorts of media violence encourage introspection on what the world is like, and how we would like it to be. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The blockbuster videogame launch of Grand Theft Auto V was met with a fanfare of confusing messages. Gamers were promised the familiar diet of salacious content: players are free, so we are told, to drive…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/160672013-07-26T02:36:53Z2013-07-26T02:36:53ZWhen videogame violence has no effect, should we worry?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27564/original/ry3mvmcn-1374017336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research suggests violent videogames such as Hitman don't make people antisocial, so is it time to change the debate?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Heilemann</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this week on The Conversation, Morgan Tear <a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-videogames-why-the-null-effect-shouldnt-be-shot-down-16233">wrote a terrific</a> article calling into question the supposed negative effect of videogame violence on players’ behaviour. And I would argue we could use Tear’s argument as a launch pad to broaden the debate on why we should care about media violence in general. </p>
<p>Tear’s call to pay more attention to studies that find no negative behavioural effects from playing violent videogames – the so-called null effect – was based on <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0068382">research he published</a> in the journal PLoS One with a co-author, Mark Nielson, presenting three experiments that failed to find evidence that violent games make violent gamers. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28131/original/st85ctjm-1374804225.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">~Goshu-neko</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Tear and Nielson findings that, among other things, experimental subjects who played the game <a href="http://www.rockstargames.com/grandtheftauto/">Grand Theft Auto</a> were just as likely to help others (<a href="http://psychology.about.com/od/pindex/g/prosocial-behavior.htm">prosocial behaviour</a>) when experimenters deliberately dropped pens on the floor as were those who played cutesy titles involving animal care, has already caused international ripples, including being picked up by <a href="http://healthland.time.com/2013/07/08/violent-video-games-dont-make-us-less-caring/">Time Magazine</a> earlier this month.</p>
<p>Tear lucidly outlines why the behavioural effects of playing violent video games are hard to pin down. In that respect, it’s important to add to the conversation by noting that media influence isn’t just about behaviours. In fact, some researchers have argued the main effect of long-term, extensive exposure to media violence is that it makes people do nothing at all.</p>
<p>It’s worth pursuing this line, since not everyone in the gaming community will find solace in Tear’s results. Behavioural responses aren’t what concern people who love games but worry about the content that they occasionally encounter.</p>
<h2>Rebooting the debate</h2>
<p>After the <a href="https://theconversation.com/gun-control-in-modern-america-hope-for-change-11419">Newtown massacre</a> last year – in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut – games journalist Nathan Grayson <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/28/why-arent-we-discussing-videogame-violence/">called for</a> a reboot of the whole violence debate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28127/original/cc5my3v2-1374803449.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Justin Lane/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whatever the problems with the effects case, the position that gaming violence is nothing but harmless fun didn’t make sense to Grayson:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… it would be impossible for frequent immersion in violent scenarios – fictional or not – to not have some kind of effect on us […] Western (and especially American) culture treats violence like it’s perfectly normal. It’s just … there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The idea that the sheer prevalence of media violence is unsettling to those who love gaming chimes with Tear and Nielson’s PLos One study, for which they struggled to find a suitably benign game to test with.</p>
<h2>Nothing doing</h2>
<p>The first step here is to consider the possibility that media violence is a political narrative about what the world is like: who has power, who does not; who we can trust, who we cannot; who counts, and who is disposable. </p>
<p>Hungarian/American media scholar <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/gerbner/archive.aspx?sectionID=18">George Gerbner</a> spent six decades arguing this, putting an intriguing spin on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-null-hypothesis-10757">null hypothesis</a>. He thought the main effect of media violence was that it made audiences politically subservient. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28132/original/jmvmb6nr-1374804806.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ethanhein</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yes. Media violence matters precisely because it makes people do nothing. There’s a certain echo of this idea in contemporary games criticism.</p>
<p>One of the “effects” of videogame violence is that it creates communities of people who can agitate for change in public culture. And the most interesting thing to note is that these communities do seem to be motivated by a concern they should be more active in demanding greater accountability from the gaming industry. </p>
<p>Let’s think a bit more about Nathan Grayson’s response to the Newtown massacre, outlined above, and what effects studies say about the link between gaming and rampage killings.</p>
<p>In seeking positive effects, Tear and Nielsen could at least measure the exact thing they were looking for: the link between violent gameplay and being helpful. </p>
<p>Researchers who test for aggression as a result of videogames are confined to dubious proxies for the real thing, such as <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103101915021">blasting people with white noise</a> after playing the fighting game <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat">Mortal Kombat</a>.</p>
<p>When it comes to the link between gaming and school shootings, we face a litany of problems. </p>
<p>As US researchers Christopher Ferguson and James Ivory <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?chapterid=17068043">have pointed out</a>, this problem is compounded by: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cochrane-net.org/openlearning/html/mod15-2.htm">publication bias</a> towards studies of dangers over benefits</li>
<li>weak correlations in studies that claim to have found significant effects of violence</li>
<li>the insidious politics of a paradigm that usually gets motoring when real violence shocks because it happens in affluent places.</li>
</ul>
<p>But wrangling over the finer technical details of effects methods can be a distraction. Media violence might matter for other reasons.</p>
<p>Some view media violence as a cultural phenomenon. When violence is seen to <em>mean something</em> rather than <em>do things</em> to people, understandings of its significance change.</p>
<h2>A search for meaning</h2>
<p>As with videogames, television wrestling has also been blamed for real-life tragedies. But in <a href="http://anthropology.usf.edu/faculty/personal/publications/McBride-Bird-From_Smart_Fan_to_Backyard_Wrestler.pdf">an academic study</a> of of “backyard wrestling” in 2007, Lawrence McBride and Elizabeth Bird found young amateur wrestlers were more interested in putting on a good show than in hurting others. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28126/original/bvg2h587-1374803301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Lewis/AAP</span></span>
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<p>To them, wrestling was closer to ballet than fighting. Backyard wrestling circuits were communities in which people looked after one another.</p>
<p>But if media violence is about meaning and community, qualms about its influence remain. In a <a href="http://monash.edu/news/events/show/research-unit-in-media-studies-seminar-series">public debate</a> at Monash University last month, games researcher <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-keogh-8315/profile_bio">Brendan Keogh</a> expressed his outrage at the latest version of videogame <a href="http://hitman.com/">Hitman</a>. The new title lets players murder bondage-clad nuns, if they want to. </p>
<p>Keogh didn’t fear such scenes would inspire misogyny – but observed that they wouldn’t do anything to confront the normalisation of violence toward women in media either. Keogh’s point was that such content is offensive and irresponsible, because gaming can make gamers think about the morality of violence that is <em>de rigeur</em> elsewhere. </p>
<p>Does this line of reasoning sound odd given Keogh is the author of the 2013 book <a href="http://www.berfrois.com/2013/02/killing-is-harmless-brendan-keogh/">Killing is Harmless</a>? Not really, as the book explains how well-crafted game violence encourages gamers to think about about a world where many are needlessly slaughtered.</p>
<h2>Look at beliefs, not behaviours</h2>
<p>Gerbner’s most well-known argument was that people who watched a lot of television also consumed a lot of violence. This violence taught the lesson that the world was a dangerous place, and heavy viewers tended to be more fearful, cynical and less empathetic than light viewers. He named this the <a href="http://meanworldsyndrome.com/">Mean World Syndrome</a>.</p>
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<p>Many gamers would, of course, reject the idea that gaming makes them fearful, distrustful and antisocial; indeed the popularity of multi-player online gaming shows the reverse is often true. But there are a couple of convergences between Gerbner’s ideas and today’s gaming activists. </p>
<p>First among these is the fear that immersion in media violence affects how people engage with society, in ways they do not fully understand. </p>
<p>Also, Gerbner’s ambition was to make audiences demand change from media industries. He would have run a million miles from a title like Killing is Harmless, but he’d endorse its sentiment: that people should take their fun seriously, and confront media content that does not respect social equality.</p>
<p>If one of the effects of gaming is to get audiences to reflect on why media violence prospers, who profits most from its presence, and to demand accountability from media industries, then perhaps the time has come to dwell on <em>those</em> “effects”, rather than perceived shortcomings of aggression studies, and the question of behaviours, good or bad.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong><br>
See <a href="https://theconversation.com/search?q=videogames">more Conversation coverage</a> on videogame research.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Earlier this week on The Conversation, Morgan Tear wrote a terrific article calling into question the supposed negative effect of videogame violence on players’ behaviour. And I would argue we could use…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161942013-07-18T05:24:30Z2013-07-18T05:24:30ZWhy is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of Rolling Stone?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27677/original/678hg3ds-1374117560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Rolling Stone cover image of alleged Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has drawn comparisons to rock musician Jim Morrison. But is this glamourising Tsarnaev?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rolling Stone</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Popular culture magazine Rolling Stone has released the cover of its August 1 print edition on the internet. Most of the headlines promise the familiar mix of pop culture and news: a review of Jay-Z’s album, a thesis on why Robin Thicke appeals as an R&B artist, a tribute to the touring resilience of Willie Nelson, something on climate change. Then, straddling both worlds, we have Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.</p>
<p>Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect of April’s Boston Marathon bombings, is the front cover. The headline reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It promises an important reflection on a significant global phenomenon. In the UK, following Lee Rigby’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10076791/Soldier-murdered-in-Woolwich-named-as-Drummer-Lee-Rigby.html">murder</a>, calls have been made for more research on the connections between the process of radicalisation and terrorism.</p>
<p>Of course Rolling Stone covers being what they are, the words are the last thing that catch your attention. As news websites <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/alleged-boston-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-rolling-stone-cover-picture-ignites-firestorm-20130718-2q59n.html#ixzz2ZM2Tr5mM">pointed out</a>, the cover prompted instant social media outrage by making Tsarnaev look like a rock star. Incensed readers pointed to the similarities between this picture and the classic <a href="http://ronewzakcleveland.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/comparison.jpg">Jim Morrison cover</a>. That image of The Doors’ mythic frontman was instrumental in defining the rockstar photograph as a genre in itself. Understandably, many are outraged by the elevation of the alleged bomber to celebrity status.</p>
<p>It’s tempting to think that the magazine deserves the flak, as it clearly anticipated controversy. The editors have published a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/rolling-stone-cover-of-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-ignites-online-firestorm/">statement</a> emphasising their sympathy for the Boston bombers’ victims, and defend both cover and story as being consistent with Rolling Stone’s “long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day”. Apparently, the cover emphasises that Tsarnaev looks like any ordinary young person. The intention is to create a deliberate juxtaposition: how can an handsome, talented, popular kid end up being implicated in such a willful atrocity?</p>
<p>But readers aren’t buying it. Literally.</p>
<p>Online readers have found different reasons to object. There’s reasonable, visceral anger at the glamourisation of a figure who is accused of maiming and murdering. But there are also accusations that Rolling Stone is jamming a square peg into a round hole. A reader called “Tom Russo” observed that the magazine brand depends on covers that “are traditionally seen as aspirational”, and it’s disingenuous to distance this cover from the rest. </p>
<p>We are accustomed to Rolling Stone covers being about sexy folks we want to be. They know it. We know it. No accompanying story or editorial comment can change that. Good journalism is arguably more important than it has ever been, while industrial changes make good journalists an endangered species. Clearly, Rolling Stone’s decision reflects commercial interests. Its ethical defence will doubtless be a matter of conjecture for some time, because it speaks to a growing public scepticism toward a media form that is integral to the health of society. This cause célèbre is a big deal.</p>
<p>Academic media research can’t answer the question “should this have happened”? But it can offer insights on why it happened, with its work on the connections between news and entertainment.</p>
<p>For a long time now, American magazines have sold themselves by attracting attention to horrible stories by using beautiful pictures. Back in the 1950s, “true life confession” magazines became enormously popular with American women. These titles typically told “true” stories about “good” girls who ended up in horrible situations. The victims of these narratives were always young women who wouldn’t go out with nice boys, or settle down to get married. One tale features a woman who takes the daring step of going on a European vacation, only to be seduced by an evil Austrian Nazi.</p>
<p>Researching these stories, social scientist George Gerbner noticed an intriguing anomaly: the covers of the magazines never reflected their content. Where the written copy outlined horribly lurid details of violence and degradation, the covers always featured its victims as sweet, beautiful and happy. The reason was simple enough: store owners wouldn’t stock covers featuring abuse. They worried that “true” covers would disturb customers’ buying mood.</p>
<p>The connection here is that there is a long history of writers having to ply their trade within the strictures of commercial media genres. So, a Rolling Stone cover story has to look like a Rolling Stone cover story. The magazine might have got it horribly wrong here, but this does prompt us to think about the relationship between news and entertainment.</p>
<p>Gerbner thought that entertainment creates powerful images about what the real world is like. Further, when we try to make sense of events of which we have no direct experience, we often fall back on familiar media narratives. Faced with incomprehensible horrors, one reaction is to interpret them through the genres that have become common vernacular. As Australian cultural studies professor Graeme Turner <a href="http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book225673">has argued</a>, “celebrity” is one such language.</p>
<p>People are rightly asking if the cover is ethical. But a better way to get at the anger beneath this question is to ask if it was predictable, given the commercial pressures of competitive media markets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Popular culture magazine Rolling Stone has released the cover of its August 1 print edition on the internet. Most of the headlines promise the familiar mix of pop culture and news: a review of Jay-Z’s…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145752013-05-23T03:08:16Z2013-05-23T03:08:16ZA global abomination: Woolwich and the politics of violent images<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/24328/original/tm6gnbry-1369277949.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Uncensored pictures of the Woolwich murder were quickly beamed around the world - what does research say about the use of violent imagery in mass media?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even in a city with London’s savage history, the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/22/woolwich-attack-cleaver-knife-jihadist">Woolwich murder</a> is especially distressing. A man has been horrifically and wilfully murdered in public. Footage of this appalling crime has spread through global media outlets. The world has seen one of the suspects, cleaver in his bloodied hand.</p>
<p>What has happened is clear. Why it happened, and what the murder means for British society, is another matter. Social media users have acted quickly to frame the event. British National Party chairman Nick Griffin immediately <a href="https://twitter.com/nickgriffinmep">turned to Twitter</a> to relate the attack to his anti-immigration agenda. </p>
<p>Journalist Laurie Penny used the same platform to <a href="https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/337303120474415105">warn</a> of “ugly racism and Islamophobia”. At this time, when so little is known, it’s worth noting that images of the crime are not neutral - they will play an active part in deciding what the Woolwich murder means - and what is done about it.</p>
<p>The images we are all consuming with disgust are doing more than just showing us something horrible. There’s a political twist on the old adage about pictures being worth a thousand words. In the 1950s, semiotician Roland Barthes <a href="http://www.visuality.org/parismatch/barthesanalysis.htm">explained</a> how a simple image of a black soldier saluting the French flag, on the cover of the Paris Match magazine, conveyed a complicated apology for French Imperialism. At a time when France’s colonial investments were a matter of intense political debate, the picture was hardly disinterested. </p>
<p>In the immediate attempts to connect Woolwich with particular positions on British multiculturalism, we see the same ideological struggle coming into play. Behind the simple truth, here’s a man saluting a flag, here’s a man holding a bloody cleaver: different camps are jockeying to secure the significance of the visuals.</p>
<p>Academics have long regarded media violence as a political narrative. Hungarian-American social scientist George Gerbner <a href="http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/tv-violence-and-art-asking-wrong-question">famously argued</a> that television violence was really a story about society: who’s good, who’s bad, and what we need to keep us safe. Importantly, he also argued that particular stories about violence matter most when we relate them to other images and stories. The meaning of Woolwich won’t just depend on the images of the crime itself. It will also depend on how news audiences recall other stories about violence when making sense of this one.</p>
<p>The point in all of this is that instant global access to the murder as it happened is paradoxically and inevitably obfuscating. The real-time mediation of Woolwich demonstrates how media exert their own reality effect, shaping the very events they set out to cover.</p>
<p>Early <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22630303">reports</a> show how witnesses were shocked not only at the ferocity of the rampage, but also at the suspects’ apparent desire to be filmed and photographed “as if they wanted to be on TV or something”. The idea that images are not neutral is enhanced by the possibility that the crime was committed in the expectation of a global audience. This expectation puts the focus on how eyewitness media footage is framed and distributed by news outlets.</p>
<p><a href="http://books.emeraldinsight.com/display.asp?K=9781780529189">Research on school shootings</a> helps explain what this might mean. This work emphasises that media affect how real violence works as a symbolic phenomenon. There is a “performative” aspect to this particular form of mass murder. According to their own posthumous accounts, shooters are often acting out their rage against people and society. The promise, and even the certainty of media notoriety lends a distinct shape to their actions. Cho-Seung Hui, for example, stopped in the middle of the Virginia Tech murders to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElyLrrTLB0">film a monologue</a>, which he then delivered to NBC. When it comes to school shootings, the crime and the media event are often hard to separate.</p>
<p>This creates an ethical dilemma for the media outlets that process images of real violence. Research on school shootings in Germany is insightful on this issue. First, public murders produce thousands of images that can be used to tell completely different stories. School shootings produce a wealth of visual data about murderers, victims and crime scenes. The German experience shows how different news organisations and platforms use the same stock in different ways. There, the tabloid press are more likely to concentrate on images of the murderers, whereas the broadsheets tend to stick to crime scenes.</p>
<p>The question is, do these different editorial styles have “reality effects”? One fear is that mediated public murders offer a perverse promise of celebrity. This punctures any sense that instant news simply tells us what the world is like.</p>
<p>At the same time, the question of whether images of murderers encourage copycats is less important than is the matter of how media violence works as a source of political capital. It is to be hoped that Woolwich does not become simply fodder in debates over other issues. Here, the responsible handling of images will be key. Images don’t just show us the world. In significant ways, they make it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/14575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock is a contributing author to the anthology "School shootings: Mediatized Violence in the Global Age". Evidence from other chapters in this anthology is used in this piece.</span></em></p>Even in a city with London’s savage history, the Woolwich murder is especially distressing. A man has been horrifically and wilfully murdered in public. Footage of this appalling crime has spread through…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114902013-01-08T19:23:06Z2013-01-08T19:23:06ZViolent videogames should worry us (but shouldn’t be banned)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/19020/original/rn3t3k4z-1357605715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, we need to more concerned than ever about the effects of violent videogames.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JBLivin/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Connecticut town of Southington last week introduced <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/01/04/connecticut-town-to-buy-back-burn-violent-video-games/">a videogames return program</a>, offering a $25 gift card to parents who wanted to rid their households of violent titles.</p>
<p>The program comes in the wake of <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sandy-hook-shootings">the December 14 shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> in Newtown – roughly 50km south west of Southington – which claimed the lives of 20 children and six staff members.</p>
<p>The main aim of the “buy-back” initiative is to create a forum where the media’s role in cultures of violence can be discussed. It is not an attempt to demonise games or the people who play them.</p>
<p>School officials recognise violence as a complicated social problem. They are aware that the media violence debate is but a strand of a much bigger conversation on the <a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/connecticut-town-collects-violent-games-parents/">causes of the real thing</a>.</p>
<p>The Southington buy-back scheme demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the lessons of research on the effects of playing violent videogames. It finds unlikely allies within the games community, as gamers have <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/28/why-arent-we-discussing-videogame-violence/">stepped forward to consider what a love of violent videogames really means</a>, after Newtown.</p>
<p>In this sense, while elements of the <a href="http://home.nra.org/">National Rifle Association (NRA)</a> seek to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-22/nra-defiant-as-america-mourns-newtown-victims/4441070">divert attention</a> from the role that gun ownership plays in mass murder, gamers appear more willing to grasp the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaugural_address_of_John_F._Kennedy">JFK nettle</a>, asking <a href="http://sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/thoughts.html">what they can do for their country</a>.</p>
<p>Right after the Sandy Hook massacre, the NRA <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/12/21/nra-press-conference-blame-video-games-and-movies-not-guns/">pointed an accusing finger at the videogames industry</a>. Their position has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/12/19/1360371/newtown-video-games-rockefeller/?mobile=nc">attracted congressional support</a>. One reaction to these developments has been to argue that studies on <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/12/30/violence-and-video-games-in-america/">the effects of videogame violence on gamers are inconclusive</a>.</p>
<p>They are not.</p>
<p>In 2010, the noted effects researcher <a href="http://anderson.socialpsychology.org/">Craig Anderson</a> was lead author of <a href="http://bit.ly/10a56wx">a survey</a> which carefully analysed the results of 130 studies on videogame violence. Anderson’s findings were quite clear.</p>
<p>There is reliable evidence that a long-term diet of violent game playing leads to an increase in real-life aggression. The size of the effects noted in these studies were small, but statistically and socially significant.</p>
<p>In other words, gaming violence isn’t the major cause of real-world violence, but it probably is enough of a catalyst to warrant concern. All the more so because while many things can provoke aggression – for instance, non-violent games <a href="http://bit.ly/10a56wx">can do the same thing</a> if they are frustratingly difficult to play – violent videogames are designed to spark aggressive responses.</p>
<p>At the same time, Anderson and colleagues cautioned that the policy implications of these findings are unclear.</p>
<p>First, where the research addresses aggression, social anxieties are focused on physical violence. In this way, most of what we know about (aggression) doesn’t directly address that which worries us most (physical violence).</p>
<p>Second, it may also be that videogame violence also has a range of positive effects. The problem, in this regard, is that there is a bias in effects studies toward looking for the damage games can cause among some groups.</p>
<p>In either case, the confident conclusion that videogame violence is bad for a significant number of people does not imply prohibition. Instead, Anderson argues that videogame violence is an environmental risk that has to be managed.</p>
<p>The problem, then, is that the research on videogame violence does not lend itself to quick and easy, crowd-pleasing policy action. In the resultant political vacuum, it’s been interesting to see gaming insiders step up to <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/no-lets-talk-about-video-game-violence">reflect on their role in glamorising guns</a>.</p>
<p>Games reviewers have challenged the industry and its consumers to take action. The games industry has been accused of playing into the hands of the NRA, by becoming over-reliant on violence as a quick and easy narrative device.</p>
<p>This laziness has been criticised as an abrogation of creative responsibility; a failure of games and gaming as a form of creative expression.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most chilling exemplar here has been the collusion between the games and gun industries, where the former has become <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/business/real-and-virtual-firearms-nurture-marketing-link.html?ref=technology&_r=0">a product placement vehicle for the latter</a>.</p>
<p>Approaching gaming as an art form, games reviewers have <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/game-theory-a-playwright-on-the-art-of-video-games/">called for</a> the industry to take more responsibility in making the genre about expression, rather than commerce. </p>
<p>This mirrors <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Fans_Bloggers_and_Gamers.html?id=jj2eKl3NcBEC&redir_esc=y">the argument</a> put forward by MIT media scholar Henry Jenkins, in the wake of the 1999 Columbine Massacre which claimed 13 lives. There, too, first-person shooter games were identified as catalysts for mass murder.</p>
<p>Jenkins argued against banning games, but acknowledged there were reasons to worry about the prevalence of violence in them. The trouble with most gaming violence, for Jenkins, was that it was boring.</p>
<p>Gamers were offered the same scenarios and options time and time again, which meant that the genre rarely fulfilled its unique capacity to make users reflect on the morality of the choices they made.</p>
<p>Jenkins argued that videogames could spark a productive conversation about the motivations toward violence, and the fact that they rarely did was cause for concern indeed.</p>
<p>This is why the positions being taken by the Southington school system and the gaming community are so smart. Reviewers who are, in the end, part of a promotional machine that popularises the gaming industry, are exploring how they can become part of the solution by embracing a position as part of the problem.</p>
<p>By doing so, they enable a dialogue with people who are quite legitimately concerned about violent videogames – including parents and teachers in Southington.</p>
<p>Together, these groups have set a leadership standard for a debate on media and violence that might actually achieve something.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Connecticut town of Southington last week introduced a videogames return program, offering a $25 gift card to parents who wanted to rid their households of violent titles. The program comes in the…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97162012-09-25T02:25:44Z2012-09-25T02:25:44ZR18+ rating added for videogames … but are children protected?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15829/original/ry4x833q-1348537040.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The videogame classification scheme was revised to better protect minors from inappropriate content.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Muttoo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.ministerhomeaffairs.gov.au/Mediareleases/Pages/2012/Third%20Quarter/12September2012-Newcomputergameguidelinesfinalised.aspx">New guidelines</a> for the classification of videogames have been released by Federal Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare and, despite being a step in the right direction, the revisions are largely disappointing and a missed opportunity.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.classification.gov.au/Informationcentre/Pages/NewGuidelinesfortheClassificationofComputerGames.aspx">Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games</a> – which were revised to account for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/r18-classification-for-videogames-the-quest-continues-2835">introduction of an R18+ classification</a> – are an important step towards the enhanced protection of minors which has been held out as a result of the reform.</p>
<p>Under the existing system, the highest legal classification a game can be given is MA15+. This year the Parliament has amended the law to allow an R18+ classification, in response to community concerns that the strong, contextually justified violence available in MA15+ was not suitable for anybody under 18. However it was necessary to change the guidelines to ensure that level of violence would no longer be available at MA15+.</p>
<p>While the revised guidelines show an obvious intent to meet community expectations about enhanced protection for minors – by tightening up the level of violence permissible at MA15+ – there was a disappointing lack of public consultation during their creation.</p>
<p>Instead the draft guidelines were simply <a href="http://www.classification.gov.au/Informationcentre/Pages/NewGuidelinesfortheClassificationofComputerGames.aspx">placed on a website</a>, with no proper call for public comment. As the guidelines are more important to the policy aim than the introduction of the new classification, consultation on them should have been at least as widely publicised.</p>
<p>Nor does there appear to have been any proper legislative drafting process; rather the guidelines were passed around for individual ministers to make their own changes and additions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15830/original/8hp3dy99-1348537137.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The result is a patch-up job with minimal substantive changes. Worse, some of the wording is awkward and unclear.</p>
<p>The test for sexual violence at the R18+ level, for instance, stretches logic by distinguishing between “implied sexual violence” which is “visually depicted”, and that which is not visually depicted.</p>
<p>The guidelines go on to state that the classification does not permit implied sexual violence that is visually depicted if it is “interactive, not justified by context or related to incentives or rewards”. I doubt any self-respecting legislative drafter would have mixed up positives and negatives in this way.</p>
<p>The new guidelines also contain a restriction on depictions of “actual” sexual activity, thereby failing to recognise that nothing in a game is “actual”. The word, I imagine, was chosen to make a distinction from depictions of “implied” sexual activity, but if this was the case, a drafter would have known that the appropriate word would have been “explicit”.</p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, the new guidelines contain more changes on sexual activity, nudity and drug use than they do on violence. It was violence driving the push for an R18+ classification in the first place and violence should have been central to the changes.</p>
<p>Rather, the violence-related changes come across as an afterthought; for example, all classification levels contain changes relating to sex, drugs and nudity but the criteria for non-sexual violence change only at G and MA15+. The dominance of the sex-related changes, in my view, further entrenches the classification system as one based on moralistic concerns rather than the clear evidence about what can influence children’s development in detrimental ways.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15729/original/tffy232t-1348191375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Australian Classification Board</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>I have been disappointed (but not surprised) to see a renewal of <a href="http://www.igea.net/2012/09/video-games-industry-response-to-release-of-new-guidelines-for-the-classification-of-computer-games/">claims by the gaming industry</a> of an absence of evidence violent interactive games (by demanding active engagement) can have a stronger influence on users than film (which demands only passive engagement).</p>
<p>Interactive games may not have been around long enough for there to be conclusive evidence about enhanced impact through interactivity, but as this <a href="http://www.unicef.org/teachers/learner/exp.htm">UNICEF Multigrade Teacher’s Handbook</a> reminds us, we do have plenty of evidence that children learn better by doing than by watching, especially through repetition and rewards. </p>
<p>The analogy to interactive and passive media experiences is powerful enough to justify a different approach to the classification of games.</p>
<p>Of course the comments sections of articles and online forums are still full of pundits protesting about an alleged lack of evidence that violent media of <em>any</em> kind can have an influence on its users. </p>
<p>These claims sound strange coming at the end of a lengthy campaign for an R18+ classification that was driven by hand-wringing about all the inappropriate material currently available to minors at MA15+.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15828/original/ztqmy7qd-1348536683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">pawpaw76</span></span>
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<p>I’ve yet to meet anyone who disagrees some games are inappropriate for minors – the problem is that some people are happy to reach that conclusion based on a moralistic assessment of the material, or on gut-feeling and guesswork, or on the intent of the developer, rather than on the weight of the <a href="http://www.israsociety.com/pdfs/Media%20Violence%20Commission%20final%20report.pdf">scientific evidence</a> that exists as to how violent media can influence people’s thoughts, attitudes and behaviour.</p>
<p>People who weigh in to the debate over the appropriate role of this evidence in policy formation nearly always presume that the main, or only, question is whether violent media begets violent behaviour. In doing so they overlook the more subtle but potentially widespread influences on thoughts and especially attitudes.</p>
<p>Desensitisation to violence is at least as big a concern for the future of our society as increased tendencies to aggressive behaviour. Possibly more so because, while parents and carers have some opportunity to notice and address behavioural changes, attitudinal ones might go unnoticed and unchecked until it is too late.</p>
<p>The revised guidelines for videogames are another lost opportunity for a root-and-branch, considered review to base the classification system on the science, rather than on guesswork and moral judgment.</p>
<p>If we are going to have a classification system based on the wide recognition that media content can be harmful to minors, it’s imperative that we take seriously the evidence about what is harmful, and build the criteria around that.</p>
<p><strong>Further reading:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.classification.gov.au/Informationcentre/Pages/NewGuidelinesfortheClassificationofComputerGames.aspx">New Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games</a> – Australian Government</li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In addition to her role as Professor of Law at Flinders University, Elizabeth Handsley is the President of the Australian Council on Children and the Media.</span></em></p>New guidelines for the classification of videogames have been released by Federal Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare and, despite being a step in the right direction, the revisions are largely disappointing…Elizabeth Handsley, Professor of Law, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84162012-07-24T04:13:33Z2012-07-24T04:13:33ZThe Aurora shootings: blockbuster movies can bring out our best<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13336/original/4stst4bm-1343095715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">James Holmes was a crazed loner, but the people in the cinema at Aurora have stronger stories about blockbuster movies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/RJ Sangosti/ Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The immediate information emerging in the aftermath of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9421212/Batman-shooting-at-Denver-cinema-live.html">James Holmes’ murder rampage</a> in Aurora, Colorado, makes a good case for the idea that media violence begets the real thing. A closer look, however, tells a different tale.</p>
<p>It’s alleged, at this point, that the murderer told police “I’m the Joker” as he was arrested. At face value, this confirms dark fears about youth and media. </p>
<p>Since the late 1920s, American society has fretted about the power movies have to encourage violence and other criminal or anti-social behaviours; it’s been so worried, academics have been paid to research these effects, starting with the <a href="http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall98/Simons/df2.htm">Payne Fund Studies in 1929</a>.</p>
<p>If we jump to the present day, and think about rampage killings acted out by young men, it’s easy to conclude that these crimes indeed follow scripts. </p>
<p>The 1999 Columbine murders was one of the world’s biggest <em>ever</em> news stories prior to 9/11. It may not come as a surprise, then, that Finnish researchers found that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7082795.stm">Pekka-Eric Auvinen</a>, the gunman who killed 8 people and injured 10 others at Jokela High School in 2007, had been a member of an online community dedicated to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/dylan-klebold-17--eric-harris-18-the-misfits-who-killed-for-kicks-1088734.html">Columbine murderers</a> Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And when Auvinen left <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jokela-school-shooter.jpg">a posthumous image of himself</a> pointing a gun at a camera lens, it was easy to draw a parallel with the “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQkpes3dgzg">you talking to me?</a>” scene from Taxi Driver.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13339/original/72fgkbwd-1343096462.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Paris premiere of The Dark Knight Rises was cancelled.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Christophe Karaba</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But this thinking is pretty easy to dismiss. Anyone who wants to argue that Batman caused Aurora has to contend with another fact; if we look at most of the young people who were fatally drawn to that screening at that time, we saw humanity at its best. The idea that violent media has created a “me” generation of youths who think of nothing but fame, possessions and the thrill of violence pales against humbling tales of heroism. At this early stage, we do know that when the shooting started, most of the young audience tried to save others. <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/saluting-heroes-who-gave-their-lives/story-fndo317g-1226433345240">John Larimer, Matt McQuinn and Jonathan Blunk</a> died living by an instinctive moral code that can only be admired.</p>
<p>At the same time, the film industry’s response to the tragedy seems to recognise some sort of social obligation. The <a href="http://www.contactmusic.com/news/more-dark-knight-rises-premieres-cancelled-warner-bros-not-releasing-box-office-figures-after-shooting_1370911">immediate cancellation</a> of a number of premieres of The Dark Knight Rises may be no more than a logical mark of respect and box-office takings from the weekend have not been reported. Yet rumours that Sean Penn’s Gangster Squad <a href="http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=745363">is to be re-edited</a>, as the film contains a scene that is too redolent of Aurora, acknowledge that fictional violence has real effects - although not the ones we normally hear about. No-one is suggesting the scene might cause copycat killings; the concern seems to be more about upsetting good people.</p>
<p>To understand what happened at Aurora, it’s better not to think about loners who appear to use violent stories to trigger their rage, but instead think about the people who were in the cinema that night, and why.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13337/original/vc5kgmk7-1343095783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The reaction to Aurora, and the heroic actions of those in the cinema, tell us more about blockbusters’ role in society than Holmes’ rampage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Rick Giase</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In those early cinema studies from the 20s, researchers found that most youngsters went to the movies to be social, and hang out with others. In fact, it didn’t much matter what was on the screen. </p>
<p>This remains true. According to film scholar <a href="http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/tfts/staff/mib/">Martin Barker</a>, blockbusters like Dark Knight Rises are social events. People spend ages getting ready to go; they read reviews, they plan the right company, they organise post-screening dinner and drinks where they will eagerly discuss what they’ve seen. Strangely, it doesn’t much matter whether the film is good or bad; the point is to have fun with the people we love. </p>
<p>This isn’t to say that media violence doesn’t have negative effects. It is to say that when we think of these effects, we should think about ordinary people who don’t act out. Some of these people may be frightened by what they see, and come to believe that they live in a hostile world where no-one is to be trusted. </p>
<p>But for many others, blockbusters aren’t about violent fantasies; they’re about being good friends, good parents, good partners. Poignantly, the Aurora victims died being just that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The immediate information emerging in the aftermath of James Holmes’ murder rampage in Aurora, Colorado, makes a good case for the idea that media violence begets the real thing. A closer look, however…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.