----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >I can't but agree. I guess i put forward my opinion a bit harshly. I've been >doing research on the research on media violence effects for a couple of years >now, and what's irritating me the most with that research is the tendency of >viewing media as something completely separated from >other forms of everyday experience. Even worse is the supposition that one can >on scientific grounds statistically isolate every possible influence on a >persons life except the influence from the media. With this reduction of >possible influences you're supposed to be able to measure the direct effects of >media violence on personal aggression. This is not only a positivist, >mechanistic view on the homo sapiens, it is also the paradigm of mass >communication studies on media effects, which I find quite scary. > >Even more scary is the fact that there does exist quite a lot of well-put >criticism on this kind of studies. Criticism that researchers within the >paradigm with very few exceptions completely ignore... Get on the next plane for Hollywood, because I know some industry lobbies that will throw you a huge research grant and all the publicity you can handle. Namely the movie and video games industries, of course; tobacco and alcohol distributors; firearms manufacturers (probably); and a big, wet kiss from advertising agencies. Er, you're not working for them already, are you? David Smith [log in to unmask]