ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the moral panic that surrounds popular culture and violence by examining how the fear of media violence is a distraction from the more complex structural causes of violence. The many taken-for-granted assumptions about the relationship between media and violence are profoundly flawed. First, despite the increasingly graphic capabilities of video games, violence in the United States has plummeted over the past two decades. Second, when young people do become violent, they are not merely imitating media violence. Third, the research on media violence is not nearly as conclusive as many of its authors and sensationalized news reports would have us believe. And last, it is important to consider the context of violence to understand how people of all ages make sense of violence in media, their communities, our nation, and the world. Violent crime rates are higher in lower-income areas relative to the population.
