ABSTRACT
Depictions of violence in the media—both its purposes and is effects—continue to raise important ethical questions. After providing a brief overview of the media psychology research that has sought to document the negative effects of violent media content over the last 40 years, this chapter discusses the merits of the various justifications for such content (aesthetic, journalistic, economic). It then offers a brief explication of harm and suggests how moral psychology factors influence the claims we might make about the harmful effects of media content. Finally, the chapter offers an ethics-based analysis of media violence that weighs the value of consequentialist and deontological frameworks.
