It’s human nature to find someone, or something to blame. Always. A simple “Because” doesn’t suffice in our society, especially when talking to your parents. And whenever there’s a violent crime or event, the media will always try to give the public what they want. Something to blame. And that’s usually Video Games.

There have been numerous events where a seemingly innocent and harmless kid has shocked everyone into committing such violent acts. There are usually a whole lot of reasons involved that the media tends to ignore, such as bullying, depression and poor family situations. One example is a “Polite, well-respected graduate student” named Steven Kazmierczak. He killed 5 of his fellow University students in the United States before committing suicide with the same gun.

Now, the first thing I think of after hearing this is, ‘HOW did he get a gun?’. The fact that a UNIVERSITY STUDENT managed to obtain a gun highlights how lenient the US are with gun laws, and also how oblivious his parents must have been to the potential dangers. The video below is a skit by The Daily Show, and highlights just how stupid gun control is over in the US compared to Australia.

The link between this crime and video games was made by a man names Jack Thompson. He said to a reporter, “We find from brain scan studies out of Harvard that if you get started playing, for example, violent video games you are more likely to copycat the behaviours in the games.” During the same news interview, Mr Thompson continued onto a self-promotional parade about his books. Now, this makes me think that he only said what he did about Video Games, to get the attention he wanted. Because whenever you hear on the news that “Video games cause kid to murder”, the news makes it out to seem factual, and everyone panics.

Now, i’m supposed to base this post around what the media being blamed for today and is it justified. And it’s quite simple. The news is being blamed for representing false accusations as the truth. And this is true, to an extent, and there are the obvious exceptions of course. It might surprise most of you, but Fox New’s is not actually technically news. It’s entertainment. They won a court case in 2003 which gave them a legal precedent to no longer show the news. Everyone just ASSUMES that it’s news because it’s called “Fox News”, and it covers current events. Some people even confuse “The Onion” as a news source at times, and I find that personally hilarious.

So in conclusion, the media are accused of providing false facts as true, especially in the case of Video Games, and this impression from those educated enough to question the media, is totally justified.

References:

Benedetti Winda 2008, Playing The Blame Game, NBC News, Viewed 17th March 2014, <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23204875/#.U0u9u-aSz-s >

Unknown Author 2009, Fox-Can-Lie Lawsuit, FoxNewsBOYCOTT, Viewed 17th March 2014, <http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/fox-can-lie-lawsuit/ >