AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Ambushed hair salon4/6/2023 ![]() But the activists strip aside any qualifications, simplifying their conclusions and mulching together all of those contradictory findings. None of them buy a simple monkey-see, monkey-do hypothesis. And if you actually read the reports, most responsible researchers are careful to qualify their findings and are reluctant to make sweeping policy recommendations. Only about 30 of those studies deal with video games specifically. Most found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means they could simply be demonstrating that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. Many have been criticized on methodological grounds, particularly because they attempt to strip complex cultural phenomena down to simple variables that can be tested in the laboratory. But most of those studies are inconclusive. The field of "media effects" research includes around 300 studies of media violence. A 2001 surgeon general's report concluded that the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered around the quality of the child's home life and their mental stability, not their media exposure. When researchers interview people serving time for violent crimes, they find that they typically consume less media than the general population, not more. Despite all of the publicity about school shootings, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is currently at a 30-year low. I was ready to tear them apart on the evidence. I knew what the activists opposed to gaming violence would say - that computer games are too violent and are bad for young people. I was ambushed, and forgot how to fight back. And after the fact, the only person I could kick was myself. Marlo Thomas' hubby had been lured to the dark side of the Force. "Donahue" was mimicking the style of right-wing talk television as if that style didn't carry its own insidious political messages. That ungrammatical slogan should have been the first clue that something was wrong with the new "Donahue." But I had also watched the opening episode: Phil was trying so hard to escape the "wimp" label that he was practically frothing at the mouth. There were signs all over the Boston subway telling us "Donahue's Back. I recalled how he quit the talk-show business in disgust and how they lured him back with the promise that he could be a progressive alternative to O'Reilly. I remember Phil Donahue publicizing the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace long before Anita Hill I remember his program as one of the first to allow gays, lesbians and bisexuals to talk openly about discrimination. ![]() One producer almost convinced me that "Donahue" was a serious news discussion program. They would have some representatives of the games industry and someone from one of the media reform groups. They wanted to have an intelligent discussion, to avoid sensationalism, to give me a chance to make my arguments. She asked if she should have my head examined.īut the producers were so, so reassuring. The first thing I told my wife after I got off the phone from my first conversation with the "Donahue" producers was that I was flying to New York to get beaten up on national television. I agreed to appear on "Donahue" to talk about games because I knew I should have owned the issue. ![]() I've been writing about video games for more than a decade, have testified before the Senate Commerce Committee and the Federal Communications Commission, have conducted workshops with game designers, spoken to PTA meetings and the American Library Association, and been interviewed by more reporters than I can count. I am the director of MIT's new comparative media studies program. She thought my suit looked good and my hair was combed straight. I had just gotten my ass whupped on "Donahue." Looking for comfort, I called my mother on the cell. On the long drive back from Secaucus, I kept thinking about all the things I should have said.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |