Statement linking media violence to violence in kids draws criticism

By Cheryl Arvidson
The Freedom Forum Online

07.31.00

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The decision by four major health organizations to issue a statement linking violent television shows, movies, music lyrics and video games to violence in children was a political one, not one based on conclusive scientific evidence, according to censorship foes and academics who have studied the existing research on violence and the media.

"It's absolutely predictable in the current political climate," said Henry Jenkins, a professor of comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the statement released last week in Washington at a Capitol Hill news conference convened by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.

"The mixture of the post-Columbine moral climate coupled with an election year is designed to feed the 'culture war' rhetoric," Jenkins said, referring to last year's massacre of 12 students and a teacher by two teen gunmen in a Denver suburb. "It feeds into the hands of various political groups that would like to set themselves up against popular culture for political gain."

"The question I have is, Where's the news here?" said Robert Corn-Revere, a First Amendment specialist with the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson. "This isn't based on some new research or new finding. It's not a medical or scientific statement. It's a political statement."

The four organizations issuing the statement — the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry — said that more than 1,000 studies "point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children."

"The conclusion of the public health community, based on over 30 years of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children," the statement said.

"I know the research is not as definitive as people suggest it is and claim it is," said Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. "Why there is this movement in the medical community I don't know ... but obviously, somebody has been doing some organizing."

Dr. Edward J. Hill, a spokesman for the American Medical Association, flatly disputed suggestions that the health groups were making a political statement. But he did acknowledge that the statement was issued at the behest of Brownback and some of his congressional colleagues who "wanted to raise the level of public awareness of the epidemic of violence and the youth of America."

"What's the political advantage of the American Medical Association to go out and talk about a link between media violence and violence?" Hill asked. "I don't see any political advantage to that. I think we have a professional and moral responsibility to point out that there is that link, and parents have to be extremely aware of this link. I think that is extremely responsible."

But Jonathan Freedman, a professor in the University of Toronto Department of Psychology who has studied the research on media violence and violent behavior, said he found the statement of the AMA and other health groups to be "irresponsible."

"It's incredible," he said. "The scientific evidence does not support what they are saying. In fact they claim that it does, and that is simply incorrect in my opinion."

Freedman said that although some studies suggest a causal link between entertainment violence and violent acts in children, "the majority of them do not. Normally, in science, you expect to get consistent results. It's irresponsible for any scientist to say that given the distribution of (these) results, this is proven."

Freedman, a psychologist, said he wouldn't be so upset if the medical groups had issued a statement saying they believed there was a link "based on our intuitions and experience. But putting it in terms of what scientific evidence shows is irresponsible and absolutely wrong. I would challenge the AMA to bring forth any member of their board who has read it (the research).

"First, you have to be trained to read it," he continued. "I imagine the doctors would have a great deal of difficulty reading this kind of research. Even if they were trained to do it, they would have to take the time to do it. It would take a year to read the research carefully. I don't blame them for not reading it; I just blame them for making a statement that suggests they have read it."

Hill, the AMA spokesman, conceded that neither he nor anyone on the board had read the research, "but we have a science department that gives us the information that we utilize. We have to depend upon that science department. I suspect that our science department has thoroughly read that material."

Hill said suggestions that the scientific evidence is not definitive reminded him of the earlier debate over evidence linking tobacco to cancer.

"Forty years ago they said exactly the same thing about tobacco," he said. "Obviously, it has been quite proven that we were not irresponsible. This is another example of that type of rhetoric. They're condemning the quality of science behind this link that we think is a causal link between media violence and real violence in some people."

But Freedman said it was "really insulting" to compare the studies on television, movie, music or video game violence to the smoking and cancer studies. "There the evidence is extremely powerful and consistent and convincing. That is not the case with this kind of (violence) research," he said.

Bertin said that for several years, social scientists have sought to cast the media violence/youth violence debate as the same type of discussion identified cigarettes and guns as public health threats.

"The cause and effect between cigarettes and health and guns and health are clear," she said. "But here, the link between viewing violence in some entertainment format and engaging in a criminal act is not at all clear."

Jenkins, who said he approached the question from the viewpoint of a "humanist" who studies issues of culture, said he was troubled when lawmakers trumpet "fairly simple-minded political solutions to complex problems."

"We're not dealing with this (youth violence) as a complex, cultural concern that requires multiple types of research to be brought together," he said. "That is not to say the media has no effect, it's just that it is much more complicated than the causal claim" cited by the health organizations.

Both Jenkins and Bertin said that when a group as prestigious as the AMA flatly endorses a link between media violence and violence in children, it raises the stakes in the debate and makes it more difficult to get to the heart of the problem.

"It's very, very hard to argue against the AMA because of the aura of authority that we ascribe to medicine and science in our current culture, which means to me the AMA should be more careful" in the positions it takes, Jenkins said. "I'm simply skeptical that my doctor has more to say than I do about the cultural causes of these problems. It's making judgments about things [the doctor] isn't qualified to evaluate."

Although most people "know instinctively that this (media violence) is not what causes people to become violent and it's much more complicated than that ... it is going to concern people," Bertin said. "It must be countered. I think to the casual observer, it certainly is going to have an influence."

"I wish these organizations had exerted better judgment than to start releasing statements about causal effects," agreed Corn-Revere, the First Amendment lawyer. "With some very limited exceptions, not even the social scientists who conduct the studies make such claims."

Bertin said one way to counter the argument of the health groups is to "go at it the other way and get the people who actually engage in crime and try to work backwards to determine what are the causative actions that actually precipitated this crime. They hardly ever talk about the media. That might be one way to bring a little more clarity to the discussion.

"I don't want to be an apologist for crummy television and movies," she continued. "That's not the point. The point is these claims of causation are not well founded, and they terribly ... over simplify a very complex problem."

Bertin said she was not suggesting that "there isn't an occasional person for whom this stimulus is important, but most people think ... that the person for whom that kind of stimulus is the operative event is like an accident waiting to happen. If it weren't the TV show, it could be a comic book. That person is looking for an excuse, and finds it in the media he chooses to view."

Jenkins said the problem with current research on media violence and behavior is that cultural studies cannot be conducted in a sterile laboratory environment in the same way other medical research is done. For example, he said, "very few of us consume violent media in a sterile laboratory" and cultural factors have a major impact on how an individual reacts. Also, he said, just studying a "neurological response" does not factor in "how people interpret, translate, make sense of the type of violence they are consuming."

The studies also fail to make distinctions between the impact of different types of media violence on different age groups, he said, adding that the studies also measure only the immediate response to violence, but the effect may be quite different after some time has passed.

"There is no direct process we can follow between consuming media violence and committing violent crime," he said. "I think the really good work ... is very cautious and very qualified."

Update

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