Violence in the Media

In 1927, a young Englishman murdered his girlfriend in Hyde Park after seeing Lon Chaney's latest film, "London after Midnight." The movie featured the legendary "man of a thousand faces" as a grotesque vampire, with shark like fangs and bulging eyes. The Englishman claimed that Chaney's performance was so effective, it led him to murder. In 1960, a young man killed his grandmother after seeing Hitchcock's "Psycho" several times. In more recent years there have been killings both here and abroad, mostly committed by young people who cannot seem to separate fiction from reality. Films such as "A Clockwork Orange," "Natural Born Killers" and "Scream" have been blamed for copycat violence. Violent video games and death metal supposedly set off the killers responsible for the Columbine massacre. Is the media to blame? Or are these people already disturbed individuals who would have committed these acts anyway? These and other questions have plagued sociologists for years, but is there a conclusive answer? Is it fair to blame an art form for igniting an individual's latent violence, a violence that is probably instilled in this person from a young age?