Screen Rage

One of the most persistent myths in the culture wars today is that social science has proven "media violence" to cause adverse effects. The debate is over; the evidence is overwhelming, researchers, pundits and politicians frequently proclaim. Anyone who denies it might as well be arguing that the earth is flat.

Jonathan Freedman, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, has been saying for almost twenty years that it just isn't so. He is not alone in his opinion, but as a psychologist trained in experimental research, he is probably the most knowledgeable and qualified to express it. His new book, Media Violence and Its Effect on Aggression, surveys all of the empirical studies and experiments in this field, and finds that the majority do not support the hypothesis that violent content in TV and movies has a causal relationship to real violence in society. The book is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand this issue.

I should say at the outset that unlike Freedman, I doubt whether quantitative sociological or psychological experiments--useful as they are in many areas--can tell us much about the effects of something as broad and vague in concept as "media violence." As a group of scholars put it recently in a case involving censorship of violent video games:

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