I’m currently pursing the line of thinking that politicians and other people of power blame violent media (i.e. video games) in order to talk about controversial issues like gun control and mental health. Most people tend to think that the opposite is true, that most politicians and the media push the blame onto violent media because they want to avoid these subjects. Nonetheless, I see politicians constantly give their comments on these issues despite “pushing the blame” onto something else. Despite how much we try to avoid the tragedies like mass shootings there is always mention of a shooting or gun control in the news. It’s almost as if the issue wasn’t avoided at all.
Content: The article lays out the four major shootings; Columbine, Heath High School, Sandy Hook, and Parkland, that were identified as being connected to video games. The author then goes over the research that shows that video games are in fact not connected to violent behavior.
Use: Using the history can help give context to the essay, and put into perspective how many of school shootings were blamed on video games. This can also be used to create a correlation between when people most interested in things like control control, and shootings, and when the four shootings happened.
“The Effect of Online Violent Video Games on Levels of Aggression“
Content: The article clearly states that the link between video games and aggression is weak at best, and nothing in most cases. It gives figures, and explains the method used to come to this conclusion
Use: Most people already know this information, and it has been written about to death. Despite this, news outlets and politicians still claim that there is a connection between video games and violent media. The conclusion drawn from this study can help bridge a connection between why people choose to ignore this information and how it leads to increased searches in things like gun control.
Content: This source explains why misdirection works on people. More or less explaining how changing someone’s focus takes a lot of work
Use: Most people say whether intentional or not politicians are trying to divert attention away from a subject and focus on something else. This has a name and its called misdirection, it’s commonly used in magic. This article can help explain why people fall for misdirection, so why doesn’t it work for politicians? It’s because they aren’t implementing the same techniques to diver and I believe it may be purposeful. Although it may no be entirely concrete I believe there may be a connection here to be made
Content: This source explains how in most cases there are no positive effects when people talk about things negatively. The saying all publicity is good publicity isn’t entirely true.
Use: Once again nothing entirely concrete, but I think the looking into the effects of negative publicity can help see why violent media are the target for blame. If there’s nothing to truly gain from blaming the media, and the backlash that comes from blaming it, then why do it in the first place?
Counterintuitive 