![]() ![]() However, interpreting media effects can be difficult because commenters often seem to indicate a grand consensus that understates more contradictory and nuanced interpretations of the data. Blaming video games, and other forms of media and popular culture, as contributing to violence is not a new phenomenon. Yet, debate over whether media violence causes aggression and violence persists, particularly in response to high-profile criminal incidents. Media violence and its impact on audiences are among the most researched and examined topics in communications studies (Hetsroni, 2007). Other, more recent, incidents have echoed similar claims suggesting that popular culture has a nefarious influence on consumers. Notably, in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine shooting massacre, for example, media sources implicated and later discredited music, video games, and a gothic aesthetic as causal factors of the crime (Cullen, 2009 Yamato, 2016). This high-profile incident was hardly the first to link popular culture to violent crime. A Los Angeles, California, news report stated that the gunman was “an avid player of first-person shooter video games, including ‘Counter-Strike,’” while another headline similarly declared, “Munich gunman, a fan of violent video games, rampage killers, had planned attack for a year”(CNN Wire, 2016 Reuters, 2016). One, an obsession with mass shootings, including that of Anders Breivik who ultimately killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, and the other an obsession with video games. The 18-year-old shooter was subsequently characterized by the media as being under psychiatric care and harboring at least two obsessions. On Friday July 22, 2016, a gunman killed nine people at a mall in Munich, Germany. Instead, they explore broader considerations of the relationship between media, popular culture, and society. While a few criminologists focus on the phenomenon of copycat crimes, most rarely engage with whether media directly causes violence. Although there seems to be a consensus among scholars that exposure to media violence impacts aggression, there is less agreement around its potential impact on violence and criminal behavior. Instead, there continues to be disagreement about whether media portrayals of violence are a serious problem and, if so, how society should respond.Ĭonflicting interpretations of research findings inform and shape public debate around media effects. Decades of research have amassed on the topic, yet there is no clear agreement about the impact of media or about which methodologies are most appropriate. The study of media effects is informed by a variety of theoretical perspectives and spans many disciplines including communications and media studies, psychology, medicine, sociology, and criminology. Does media violence cause aggression and/or violence? What is the relationship between popular media and audience emotions, attitudes, and behaviors? While media effects research covers a vast range of topics-from the study of its persuasive effects in advertising to its positive impact on emotions and behaviors-of particular interest to criminologists is the relationship between violence in popular media and real-life aggression and violence. Over the years, the targets of concern have shifted from film to comic books to television to video games, but the central questions remain the same. Debate surrounding the impact of media representations on violence and crime has raged for decades and shows no sign of abating.
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