ARTelevision

I do note a high degree of adamant refusal to even discuss the question I posed above. Is there any point at which a culture may become so awash with powerful anti-social messages that it becomes destructive to the continued well being of its population?

I always admire strong personal opinions. I'm not so sure however that many here are thinking of anything besides their own affection for certain forms of media and entertainment. That's not necessarily the same thing as considering the impact of certain types of content and content delivery upon those who may not be so able to separate fantasy from the rest of their lives.

I wouldn't be one making the decision to take your video games away from you. I see a certain value in posing the questions I have posed here. And personally, I'm pleased to see what I consider socially irresponsible companies being questioned as to their social responsibility. I see courts of law as excellent venues for this type of thing.

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joeshoe

I bet you could find a stronger correlation between crime and poverty than crime and videogames.

d*d

I don't beleive that playing violent games makes you violent, the violence already exists , murder and social violence is not a symptom of only modern society - I'm sure Jack the ripper didn't have a playstation.
What you have to think about is why these games are so appealling, I enjoy playing violent video games, i don't beleive that I am acting out any secret fantasy and if GTA was a game with bad playability it's sales figures would be no where near as high. But i agree with ART that the subject of the games have little redeeming values, too much media is pumped out with little or no consideration to societal implications, we are surrounded by sex and violence pretty much everywhere through the mechanisms of the media - it's lowest common denominator stuff and it's pretty insulting to our intelligence. The media construct of signs and symbols provide the framework through which society communicates it's values.

d*d

That may be the case but it doesn't actually address ART's point about the media

jwoody

"According to Moore's own statement, he lunged at Officer Arnold Strickland, grabbing his .40-caliber Glock automatic and shot Strickland twice..."

It's obvious to me that the manufacturer and seller of the .40-caliber Glock automatic are way above Sony in the list of contributing factors. He didn't get that from his video game.

Nisses

I think not. It is definitly possible for a group or an individual IN a culture to become destructive, and lash out at other groups. But a culture as a whole, can not become destructive to its population, it's more likely that it would lose its identity and die as more and more members OF that culture would shy away from it.

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warrrreagl

Funny. I never knew Texas was only three miles from Alabama.

Oh wait, I get it. This is a response about the lunacy of stereotypes, intolerance, and the idiocy of clinging to prejudices and jumping to tired and worn-out cliches, right?

Thanks, ziadel. I'll remember your shining example as a beacon of sensitivity and sufferance from now on.

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Lin

I dont think watching a violent video would make a person/child violent in itself. But I think it would contribute . A child surrounded by violence and intolerance in real life would get 'ideas' from these types of things I suspect.

Pacifier

Small note:
Jack Thompson seems n some sort of crusade. He also blamed the videogame "manhunt" for a crime in the UK. Problem is, the game was found at the victim (link) . But that don't stop Thompson to blame the game. (link)

I don't see much of an influence, sure those games are not really "rolemodels" they do not show you how to behave properly. But they offer a bit of relief, perhaps a way to deal with frustrations of your daily life. To most people I know it is quite clear that those are games show a virtual world. I can differ between real and virtual behaviour. Of course this requires some sort of maturity, but thats why those game are rated "M"
I not influenced by those some-thousends of murders I have committed virtually, I still oppose any form of violence in real life.

I see more danger in real "anti-social messages", be it goverment propaganda or bad in influential press coverage. Like the press coverage about the "manhunt" case, the press failed completey to pay attention to the drugs involved and focused only on the game.

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— Albert Einstein

Lasereth

One poster mentioned the statistics based on it. That's proof right there. One guy out of 35 million goes and shoots a cop and he's immediately charged with taking a videocard too far. ONE out of THIRTY FIVE MILLION. What else needs to be said? Really, I'd love to hear someone who can back this up. Why are videogames causing people to kill others if only 1 guy out of 35,000,000 did it?

Could it possibly be that the 1 guy out of 35,000,000 shot the cop because he has problems? Could it be that someone who TAKES A VIDEOGAME SERIOUSLY has a weak mind and needs counselling? No, justice assumes that the videogame "brainwashed" the guy into killing people. This is unbelievable.

Videogames aren't just a form of media to waste away minutes of the day. Let's talk about the aforementioned videogame. In San Andreas, the plot is of Carl Johnson, a man who has been away from his family for 5 years. He comes home, his family is destroyed with his mom murdered. Throughout the game, the in-game dialogue actually promotes anti-drug and anti-violence themes as ironic as it may be. The game has a similar theme of the Boondock Saints movie. The trash needs to be taken out. I'm not here to argue that aspect (that's a whole different thread) but I will say that at the end of San Andreas, you've got rid of drug dealers, got people off of the addiction to it, cleaned up the entire city and eliminated the people who create violence around town. The underlying theme of San Andreas is not to go around killing hookers and cops -- it has a story. The story is simply about improving a lifestyle. It's hard to argue against a game that has a story with anti-drug, anti-violence, and personal redemption themes throughout. I just finished San Andreas a few days ago and I'm left with a good feeling inside -- a feeling that a man has turned his life around, redeemed himself, and improved every aspect of his family's life.

If you go around killing people because of this game then you were doomed for insanity from the beginning. I think this brainwash bullshit is just an excuse for the adults to watch their kids play more football.

-Lasereth

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Coppertop

I note you have failed to answer the question(s) posed at you in kind, Art.

In fact, people have pointed out that media can have an influence on behavior. Not everyone, but some have. I myself have experienced the Tony Hawk Syndrome mentioned above. Same goes for driving games. Hell, I dream about games often when I play them for extended periods of time. But one person out of millions of players is not an indicator that this game trains people to kill cops.

And I personally find your approval of removing this medium from the market disgusting. If you don't like them, fine, do not play them. No one is asking you to. But please don't try to shit on someone else's parade because you have some self righteous desire to determine another person's (society's in general?) recreational pursuits. Let's just hope someone is around to defend your hobbies against frivolous lawsuits. Like gun control, perhaps?

Moving on...

The video game industry is one (the only?) that has self-regulated and implemented the rating system itself to better illustrate to potential buyers the content of the game. So much for the "socially irresponsible" theory. The game is rated M, which would be equivalent to an R rating for a movie. It is not intended for minors. Minors should not be allowed to buy it in stores. Store clerks need to card purchasers if they look underage. Parents should absolutely not buy these games for minors. Obviously you wouldn't want your child to see Fatal Attraction, so why is this different? People get the impression that because it is a video game is it intended for children. The same mentality seems to go for anime. This is an ignorant viewpoint.

Unless and until people realize that these games (movies, etc.) can (and 99.99% of the time do) represent harmless entertainment for millions upon millions of people, these cases will continue.

docbungle

I feel that, whether or not you follow politics very closely, it can be very difficult to dig through the various agendas, the left and right pigeonholes and the outright lies to find something resembling the stone-cold truth about anything at all. It's much easier to just believe what we're told. Life is too busy to investigate every little bit of information we're assaulted with daily. Our faith in what we hear and see on the television can be downright frightening. Not to mention all the McDonald's commercials every 15 minutes.

In a lot of people (probably all of us) this leads to strong opinions held on completely innacurate information. When presented with accurate information, we reject it. This is the power the media has over us.

I don't know when it began, but there was a point in time when people took a step back and said, "Hey, wait a minute.....I know this guy commited murder, but was it really his fault? I mean, did you hear what they found in his DVD player? And guess what music he was listening to?" In other words, his hobbies and habbits were seen as possibly not being of his own choosing, but rather a result of the media's influence on what he should find enjoyable. The idea that, as a human, he could be influenced in such a way to have something in his DVD player that otherwise he would never have been interested in, and the idea that viewing this material could actually change his perception or behavior patterns is - in my mind at least - accurate but dangerous.

Outside influence plays a role in all of our lives. However, we have a responsibility for what we - as individual humans - say and do. Although there are obvious paralells, I see a very big difference between allowing our political and social views to be shaped by what we see and hear in the media, and doing something extremely damaging to another human or to society as a whole because of these influences. There has to be a point where media influence is no longer acceptable as a reason for murder.

Adultery is often the precursor to murder. That is something I see as a real - not valid, but real - influence. An influence that is very hard to control within one's self. I think that all of us, if we empathize, can imagine how hard something like that would be to deal with on an emotional level. How certain people might not be able to handle the feeling of betrayal and just snap. That doesn't make it acceptable, but we can understand where the influence came from.

Media, on the other hand, should not have that kind of power over someone. And when it does, I tend to find fault in the human who allowed it to be such an intimate part of who he/she is.

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ARTelevision

In response to some of the questions posed, I haven't advocated anything except that I see courts of law as a fine place for these issues to be sorted out. I haven't advocated removing anything from the shelves of media peddlers. I have questioned the social responsibility of content creators and the purveyors of content. I have also stated that I have no problem with putting some roadblocks in the way of peddling everything that comes down the pike to all people. My "hobbies" have numerous roadblocks and I accept them as part of social necessity.

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Coppertop

Then I guess I misread the "slow dismantling" comment.

Society has always had its share of loonies, and I daresay it always will. Blaming media doesn't work when you look back at things that occured before there was anything like media. People killed officers of the law long before video games existed. Shouldn't we be looking at why that is instead of pointing a finger at something convenietly nearby?

ARTelevision

Yes, we should look at all the factors that might be contributing to social problems. Ultimately that is what I'm advocating. I don't see a reason to exempt commercial content providers. There is always a degree of socially and politically defined responsibility required of economically motivated enterprise. The question is one of degree. I don't see an "all hands off media" approach as being particularly engaged with social concern.

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wolf

GTA is not a cop killing game. OK, yeah that one scene is, but not the rest of it. For crying out loud I played GTA 3 and V/C for I don't know how long, I never ran anyone over, thought about it, but didn't do it. I suppose the fact that he is a foster kid bouncing all over the place has nothing to do with it.

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Coppertop

Exactly. And the video game industry is a self regulating one that voluntarily took up the ESRB rating system to better inform consumers about the content of games. It functions much like the MPAA rating system. Ergo I do not see the industry as socially irresponsible - quite the contrary in fact. I can not think of another industry offhand that has taken such steps. That doesn't mean none exist, of course, just that I cannot think of any now.

In this article, the kid's troubled, foster-home youth takes a backseat to the sensationalism of the game he played. That is rather poor, biased journalism. Perhaps we should hold this journalist's (and others') toes to the fire (so to speak) to more accurately report on this case.

But then, that doesn't sell copy, now does it?

frogza

It's a fact that when we are exposed to something it stays with us for a very long time. The media is responsable for providing many disturbing images and ideas to the public, no intelligent person can dispute that, but that is the medias prerogative. Every individual is then responsable to process all the information given them, the good and bad, and make decisions between the two. Very few people are incapable of making this kind of choice in a responsable manner. The rest of us need to suck it up and accept that when we make a decision, we need to have the backbone to accept the consequences.

In this case the kids parents should accept some of the blame, not for their sons rampage but for being deadbeats. Most of the blame should land squarely on this kids shoulders. A rough life is rarely (if ever) a viable excuse for poor behavior, and so something as inconsequential as a video game shouldn't even be considered.

EbolaVirus

Take some responsibility for yourself.

These bogus lawsuits drive me crazy.

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jorgelito

You know, it's not just "sex & violence" either. Look at the hysteria over Sponge bob, Teletubbies, Shrek etc. I believe it is representative of a larger problem.