Is Violence in the Media Good for You?

Violence in all forms of media has been prevalent for as long as media has existed, but never has the debate concerning its significant impact on society raged as strongly as it does today. In a society such as ours, anything remotely borderline is much more likely to receive accusation of producing negative effects on anything than it is to receive support for its positive effects. Because of this, the research on the issue has been more to prove that violence in media has caused real world violence or to disprove this research, rather than to actually create research on its positive effects. According to Richard Rhodes, a popular leader in the debate against the causal relation between media violence and its real-life counterpart, the major research which supposedly proves this relation is "poorly conceived, scientifically inadequate, biased and sloppy if not actually fraudulent." So, it's not too hard to say media violence causing real violence has no hard evidence to support it, but does that mean it's actually good?

Gerard Jones and Melanie Moore have said, although without the aid of research, that "violent media is good for kids," because it allows them to experience their natural feelings of desire for violence and destruction without actually doing anything violent or destructive. This is especially true of videogames, but similarly so through vicarious feelings while watching TV or movies. The ancient Greek idea of catharsis certainly lends credence to this idea. It basically says that if a feeling is felt by a person, but acted out on stage, that person experiences a similar release of feeling as if he'd actually indulged it. Certainly, boys and any young children have some natural aggression, and if the idea of catharsis can be applied to current media, the violence in it may actually lower their own propensity towards violence and aggression. We all know that cartoons are full of violence, with Tom & Jerry always fighting, Bugs Bunny comically beating someone up and plenty more.