Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadowex3
The problem with either of those arguments Cadre is that they fundamentally and inherently require an increase in violence to occur in the real world in order to not be utterly disproved. Now... it's a common knowledge fact that media consumption (especially gaming) has risen to incredible levels, nearing absolute if not for the amish and extremely elderly.
According to the argument that media consumption, especially of violent media, leads to increased violence (or chance of violence) we should be up to our armpits in blood and corpses and the graphs brought forth always seem to show that... until you remember that while the violent crime rate has been rising fairly linearly our population has also been rising as well at a far greater rate and adjusted for population the actual rate of violent crime has been dropping fairly impressively ever since about 1994-1996 when it dropped like a stone.
The first gulf war ended in 1991, and most of the veterans would've probably been back by around 1993. The crime rate going up a little bit until then makes sense, but why would it take an immediate and almost violent 8 year nosedive starting in 1995-1996? What happened across the entire nation to cause that? My personal theory can be summed up in two words: Multiplayer Gaming. I admit correllation is not causation but for such a profound societal change to happen when nothing else particularly interesting was going on... |
You totally missed what I was saying here. I wasn't arguing that violent tv makes people violent. The research indicates that violent tv makes viewers believe we live in a violent society. People who watch high amount of tv do not cause more violence according to this theory, but they believe that violence is more prevalent and that the world is a scarier place than it actually is. Whether tv makes people violent is a much different conversation which I do not know much about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plan9
So now we've gone from porn to violence to media brainwashing. Oh, how all those Saturday mornings with Tom & Jerry have ruined our society.
Haha, "newsflash." Yes, your Kung Fu must be stronger than mine. So, do you care to actually back this up with something tangible? A delicious anecdote perhaps? All this Weitzer & Kubrin (2004) and Reber & Chang (2000) paper-I-wrote-in-college stuff isn't very filling. I read those studies, too.
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Sorry, I wasn't trying to make this about tv. My point was that maybe there is a similar pattern.
I happen to believe that research is a stronger argument than an anecdote. I don't know how a story will really be more persuasive. Maybe you can explain what you're asking for.
In the mean time, here's research. :P
Here's one of the articles about the Cultivation Theory:
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1994-97177-002
This book has some information about the research:
Television and its viewers ... - Google Books
Gerbner has a book that discusses all of his research as well...he's part of a research project that has been going on since the sixties.