ABSTRACT
The debate about whether the mass media cause crime or other deviant behavior is alive and well. American academics, especially psychologists, often consider it to have been resolved. Here is a recent example. “Basically, the scientific debate over whether media violence has an effect is over and should have been over by 1975” (Anderson, 2004, original emphasis). The same article undertakes a “scientific meta-analytical review” of studies of violent video game playing. Its conclusions, once again, are unequivocal: “ exposure to violent video games is significantly linked to increases in aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, and cardiovascular arousal and to decreases in helping behaviour” (Anderson, 2004). Such a linkage is claimed to be causal and “linked to serious, real-world types of aggression” (Anderson, 2004). To confuse matters, reviews by other psychologists come to precisely the opposite conclusion (Bensley & van Eenwyk 2001): “current research is not supportive of major concern that video games lead to real life violence.”
