Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts

Friday, February 20, 2009

Good riddance to more bad laws...with loving thoughts of the PTC



Well, a federal appeals court has just declared that a California law that tried to limit the sale of violent video games to minors is unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment. Check out the story right here. And my reaction to this is...YESSSSS!!!

Good riddance to yet another bad law based on nonexistent evidence to prove any sort of a causal relationship between media content and behavior.

And yes, in case my big fans in the Parents Television Council are reading this blog, I am indeed grinning very broadly right now, barely able to resist jumping up and down for joy.

Rulings like this are victories for common sense and reason. These are things severely lacking today. You see, we seem to be living in a world where such things as evidence and proof are no longer requirements for many people to make up their minds about issues. A couple of weeks ago, my radio show, WSPC Culture Wars, aired a debate with the head of the New Jersey chapter of the PTC, where that organization's policies on rational, scientific proof were very clearly demonstrated. Not only does the PTC not really care about whether or not their ridiculous assertions about media violence can be scientifically proven, but they wouldn't be able to recognize scientific data if it very aggressively hit them over the head.

A couple of examples: Their web page is filled with "studies" on the amount of violent and offensive behavior in the broadcast media. These are, technically, content analyses, or literally the count of exactly how many times punches are thrown or shots fired or curse words uttered in any given episode of a TV show. That's all nice and good, except that such a study does not prove a causal link. If you're ever taking a statistics or research methods class and you feel like getting and "F" just to make life more exciting, tell your teacher that a content analysis study is a proof of causality. Your "F" will be assured. Maybe the teacher might even mumble something like "moron" or "idiot" under his breath.

Or go to the PTC's link of "Education" and then the link to "outside studies." Here you will find a lot more content analysis studies, as well as a massive pile of correlational studies (and look up this blog's January post about correlations and the explanation for why saying that a correlation proves causality will also earn you an "F" in a stats class). The best part of the PTC's list of outside studies, however, is the fact that they actually list some studies that completely disprove their position about media effects!!!!!!! The conclusion here is obvious:

THESE PEOPLE DON'T READ ANY MORE THAN THE TITLES OF RESEARCH ARTICLES BEFORE THEY POST THEM ON THEIR WEB PAGE! Or, for that matter, before they try to lobby and pressure lawmakers to enact unconstitutional, un-American, McCarthyesque censorship laws.

So yes, while the good folks like the PTC, their blowhard leader, Brent Bozell, and all the "concerned" activists in their local chapters are upset over the California decision today, I am having a really, really good laugh at their expense.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The posts are back! I promise!!


...with more apologies to the readers! From now on anyone can fantasize about violent retribution if they need to go an entire week without an update on this page.

I must confess that during the fun and excitement of a long holiday weekend, there was too much I let get in the way of updating the blog. To confirm the suspicions of some of the people who've written the Culture Wars e-mail account (wspcradio@gmail.com), I might even have been up to some no good. Some of the show's PTC listeners have accused me in the past of being in favor of everything immoral, so at least now I need to be honest. I did rip the wings off of a few flies the last couple of days and tripped an old lady.

But at least the past week has provided some really interesting - and exciting - research to mull over. Check out this article about a study from Europe showing that playing video games is actually good for kids! And I endorse the study because it actually takes the social research approach to its data gathering, talking to video-game-users about the meaning of the video games in their lives. So they eschew the correlational and content analytical nonsense. Good for them!!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Violent Films are Good for You

On our January 22 show, we had such a rollicking good time (soon to be available on podcast) on Culture Wars that a few interesting moments still come to mind. Actually a couple of moments where we talked about a few nicely controversial things that might not have been as well-elaborated upon as they should have been.

Like my reflections on being accused of being the anti-Christ just a couple of days after Christmas…during a get-together with friends I haven’t seen in some two years. Since this is not something that happens to you (or at least to me) every day, you kind of wind up scratching your head over it for a while. But it is amusing.

It happened while talking to an old friend about my book, The Asian Influence on Hollywood Action Films. This was a friend I can still remember shooting the breeze with about ninja action movies during junior high lunch periods. But now he was all bent out of shape about my book. A once really cool guy was chastising me about concluding that violent Asian action films are actually good for society because they uncover the erroneous nonsense about so much of the anti-media, anti-violence crusades carried on by all the too-tightly-wound do-gooders on the left and the right. These films, I told him, were made in cultures where the media are much more explicit and violent than ours, yet their violent crime rates are miniscule compared to those of the U.S.

“But hasn’t all the research proved…?” he said.

No, actually it hasn’t.

But my friend, a new father, is now a devout reader of the works of those tireless protectors of America’s hearts and souls and impressionable kids, the Parents Television Council. “This organization quotes all the great studies showing all the correlations between media violence and crime and sexually explicit TV and pregnant teens…”

Which, I needed to explain, was just about proof that the people running this bottom-feeding organization must never have passed an introductory-level research class in college. Anyone arguing that correlations prove causality could certainly never pass my research methods class at St. Peter’s College. “Correlation does not prove causality” is a mantra that every beginner-level student should be able to recite if kicked out of bed in the middle of the night. (An increase in the number of storks nesting in a town as the number of newborns increases is a correlation too) So, no, if your once-sweet little baby girl is turning into a nonstop nymphomaniac while addicted to Sex in the City, it does not mean that S.I.T.C. caused the little angel to go astray.

Nevertheless, throughout the rest of my stay at my friend’s house, I continued feeling kind of unwanted.

B.D.