In Part 1 of this series, I argued that the Democratic Party seems to be gradually abandoning whatever claim it once had to being the party of the First Amendment. Regrettably, examples of Democrats selling out the First Amendment are becoming more prevalent and the few champions of freedom of speech and expression left in the party are getting more difficult to find.

For example, in my previous essay, I documented how Democratic politicians were leading the charge to reinstitute the so-called Fairness Doctrine. In today’s entry I will discuss how Democrats are now working hand-in-hand with Republicans to orchestrate what would constitute the most significant expansion of content regulation in decades–the regulation of “excessive violence” on television.

Last week, L.A. Times technology and media reporter Jim Puzzanghera wrote a detailed piece about how “Washington May Take Up TV Violence” in coming months. In his article he noted that:

With a fresh Congress sworn in and a major (FCC) report expected soon on TV gore, pressure is likely to mount to more aggressively stem graphic and gratuitous scenes in shows. One proposal would give regulators powers similar to those they have now to punish indecency and coarse language over the airwaves. In addition, TV violence is shaping up as a 2008 presidential campaign issue with some of the leading potential candidates already at the forefront of the issue. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has long talked about the effect of gory TV shows and video games on children. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) favors allowing families to buy cable channels separately so they can spurn objectionable shows. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) also have bemoaned TV violence.

Puzzanghera notes that, beyond Democratic presidential front-runners Clinton and Obama, other congressional Democrats and regulators at the FCC have jumped on the regulatory bandwagon. At the FCC, Democratic Commissioner Michael J. Copps, recently argued that, “In the absence of action from the industry [to address violence on television], I think we need to be looking at all our options.” He means regulatory options, of course. And, over in Congress, Puzzanghera reminds us that in 2004, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the new head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was one of 39 House members signing a letter to the FCC asking the agency to study violence on television and how it might be restricted. With Dingell now running the committee in which most communications / media legislation originates, this could mean that regulation is on the way.

Puzzanghera also highlighted one particularly important legislative proposal that I have written quite a bit about in recent years–Senator John D. Rockefeller’s (D-W.Va) “Indecent and Gratuitous and Excessively Violent Programming Control Act.” (S. 616 in the last Congress).

As I noted in my detailed analysis of the bill in April of 2005: “If passed, S. 616 would represent the most significant congressional effort to regulate speech since the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996.” That’s because the measure would significantly expand the penalties that traditional broadcast outlets face for indecency violations, and then apply those penalties to cable and satellite. More importantly, in the process, the measure also proposes to let FCC regulators embark on a grand new experiment in regulating “excessively violent” video programming, not just on broadcast television, but also on subscription-based cable and satellite TV.

Puzzanghera notes that Rockefeller plans on reintroducing the measure this session and “With his own party now in the majority, Rockefeller may get hearings and a vote, further propelling the issue.” Sen. Rockefeller tells Puzzanghera that “Obviously, the preference would be to have the industry police itself when it comes to excessive violence. However, if they can’t or won’t do it, then Congress must step in and address this growing societal problem,” Rockefeller said. “One of the most basic steps we can take is to give the FCC authority to regulate violence, and if necessary, the courts will then work out the constitutional issues on a case-by-case basis… Just sitting on our hands and doing nothing to protect children is not an option.”

But before Rockefeller and other Democrats embark on a new “it’s-all-for-the-children” crusade to rid the world of media violence, hopefully they will be willing to consider the mixed “scientific” record on this front as well as the First Amendment complexities associated with defining and regulating “excessive violence” on television.

Academic Evidence, or Lack Thereof

The academic literature on the effects of media violence is not nearly as unified as you might think. In fact, as Dr. Edward Fink of the Department of Radio-TV-Film at California State University-Fullerton, notes, you can find endless reports to support just about any thesis you want to believe in:

Do you want to believe that TV violence is bad? Plenty of research there. One example comes from Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann and associates in the American Psychological Association journal Developmental Psychology, March 2003. They found that a high level of TV violence in childhood is a predictor of more-aggressive behavior in adulthood. Do you want to believe that TV violence is not necessarily bad? There’s plenty of stuff! One example comes from Dr. Ron Warren in the Broadcast Education Association’s Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, September 2003. He found that parental mediation of children’s TV viewing can both inhibit negative effects and enhance positive effects. Do you want to believe both? Once again, a bounty of data! One example is the comprehensive National Television Violence Study, published by the University of California, Santa Barbara. It concludes, “Television can be a powerful influence on social mores concerning violence and aggression, for good or for ill.” Do you want summaries of research? One example comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s fact sheet, Key Facts: TV Violence, Spring 2003, which outlines studies that present opposing viewpoints. If you prefer your summary from the government, have a look at Section II, “Violent Programming on Television,” of the 108th Congress’s Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004. All reasonable people, and yes, that includes most broadcasters and academicians, are sensitive to the potential–though not always the actual–harm of TV violence. This argument is not for TV violence; it is against the government’s exercising a right of censorship it does not have, not even in an election year.

Others have confirmed this academic schizophrenia and pointed out that, if anything, the “scientific” literature on this subject is ambiguous at best and perhaps even leans against the “causal hypothesis” that media violence leads to aggressive behavior. Psychologist Jonathan L. Freedman conducted the most comprehensive review of all the major literature on this subject for his book Media Violence and Its Effect on Aggression: Assessing the Scientific Evidence. He concluded that “the results do not support the view that exposure to media violence causes children or anyone else to become aggressive or to commit crimes; nor does it support the idea that it causes people to be less sensitive to real violence.” Freedman collected and reviewed all the laboratory experiments, field experiments, longitudinal studies, and other studies employing mixed methodologies. He concluded that “not one type of research provided the kind of supportive evidence that is ordinarily required to support a hypothesis. Not one found 90 percent supportive or 80 percent supportive or 70 percent supportive or even 50 percent. In fact, regardless of the method used, fewer than half the studies found results that supported the [causal] hypothesis–sometimes considerably fewer than half.”

Finally, when we step outside the laboratory setting and examine real world trends in a search for a supposed casual link, we don’t find one there either. Consider, for example, the reversal of various social indicators over the past decade. According to FBI reports, juvenile murder, rape, robbery and assault are all down significantly over the past decade. Overall, aggregate violent crime by juveniles fell 43 percent from 1995-2004. And ongoing University of Michigan surveys have revealed that there are fewer murders at school today and fewer students report carrying weapons to school or anywhere else than at any point in the past decade. Meanwhile, the Center for Disease Control reports that although teenage suicide rates rose steadily until the mid-1990s but then began a dramatic decline which continues today. Again, while all these social trends were improving, media exposure–including exposure to violent fare–was increasing.

These results do not conclusively rule out a link between exposure to violence media content and violent acts in the real world. But they should at least call into question the “world-is-going-to-hell” sort of generalizations made by proponents of increased media regulation who all too often make casual inferences about the relationship between media exposure and various social indicators.

First Amendment Concerns

In light of what the data tells us, one would hope that policy makers would proceed cautiously when it comes to regulating “excessively violent” media content since serious First Amendment / artistic freedom issues are at stake here. And one would especially hope that Democrats would express some skepticism about the folly of such a regulatory pursuit.

After all, why should we let five unelected bureaucrats down at the FCC determine what constitutes “excessive violence.” Are the bloody and occasionally gruesome scenes in TV shows like CSI and ER excessive, or is that a reasonable depiction of forensic and medical science? Hockey games on prime-time TV feature lots of fights, blood, and lost teeth. Should they only be shown on tape delay after kids are in bed? For decades, cartoons have offered a buffet of violent acts, and slapstick comedy of The Three Stooges variety features a lot of unforgivingly violent moments presented as humor. How about gruesome war scenes from actual combat that any child can see on the nightly news? How about Saving Private Ryan or other war movies? What about the stabbing, poisoning, and other heinous acts of violence found in Shakespeare’s tragedies? And, for God’s sake (excuse the pun), what about all the violence in the Bible or Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ? Can any of it be shown on television or cable?

I could go on and on, but you get the point. This all comes down to a question of who calls the shots–parents or government–regarding what we are allowed to see and hear in a free society. This is not to say society must celebrate or even defend violence in the media; there are plenty of movies, shows and games that do contain what many parents would regard as a troubling amount of violent content for young children to witness. Parents need to act responsibly and exercise their private right–indeed, responsibility–to self-censor their children’s eyes and ears from certain things. It’s become increasingly evident, however, that a lot of parents have just gotten lazy about carrying out this difficult job. As the father of two young children, I can appreciate the hassle of constantly trying to monitor a child’s viewing and listening habits. But that’s no excuse for throwing in the towel and calling in the government to censor what the rest of the world has access to. That’s especially the case in light of the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, just one-third of U.S. households have children in them. For the two-thirds of adult-only homes, such a regulatory regime is blatantly unfair.

Again, I can cite plenty of Republicans, such as Sen. Brownback and others, who support calling in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent and police “excessively violent” media content. But the fact that so many Democrats are joining this crusade is frightening since, again, it makes you wonder if there are any free speech champions left in Washington.

(Up next in this series, I plan on talking about how Democrats are now employing similar tactics and rhetoric in their continuing effort to regulate “violent video games.” But that might get preempted by another piece on how Democrats are leading a variety new efforts to regulate Internet content. Unfortunately, there’s a lot to cover on this front these days.)

The idea that the Democrats are the party of free speech and the great protectors of our nation’s First Amendment heritage has always been a bit of a myth. In reality, when you study battles over freedom of speech and expression throughout American history you quickly come to realize that there are plenty of people in both parties would like to serve as the den mothers of the American citizenry. That being said, it is generally true that there have been a few more voices in the Democratic party willing to stand in opposition to governmental attempts to regulate speech in the past.

But I’m starting to wonder where even that handful of First Amendment champions has gone. Sadly, examples of Democrats selling out the First Amendment are becoming so common that I’ve decided to start a new series to highlight recent examples of Dems actually leading the charge for increased government regulation of speech and expression. I want to stress that I’m not trying to pick on Democrats here, rather, I’m just trying to point out that–unless there is a sea change in their approach to these issues by Democrats in coming months and years–both parties now appear to be singing out of the same pro-regulatory hymnal. This constitutes an ominous threat to the future of free expression.

Today, as part of this new series, I’ll be focusing on the Democratic-led efforts to revive the hideously misnamed “Fairness Doctrine.”

Nat Hentoff, a famous civil libertarian and one of our nation’s most tireless defenders of freedom of speech, penned an editorial for today’s Washington Times about congressional efforts to reinstitute the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which was in effect from 1949 until 1987 when the Reagan Administration FCC abolished it.

This effort, he notes, is being led by four Democrats–Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Maurice Hinchey and Louise Slaughter, both of New York. Hentoff argues that these Democrats are under the illusion that by reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine they will be ensuring a greater diversity of views in the modern media marketplace. The reality, he argues, will be quite different. Hentoff was a radio broadcaster himself in the old days when the Fairness Doctrine was in effect and he notes that the threat of regulation had a severe chilling effect on free speech:

If a station failed to adhere to the FCC’s interpretation of this “fairness” doctrine, the broadcaster could lose his or her license. Accordingly, the government would be in charge of policing the First Amendment–precisely the opposite of what the founders clearly intended… During the 1940s and early 1950s, I was a full-time announcer and reporter on radio station WMEX in Boston. When official Fairness Doctrine letters came to the station’s owner from the FCC, the front office panicked. Lawyers had to be summoned; tapes of the accused broadcasts had to be examined with extreme, apprehensive care; voluminous responses to the bureaucrats at the FCC had to be prepared and sent. After a number of these indictments from Washington arrived at WMEX, the boss summoned all of us and commanded that from then on, we ourselves would engage in no controversy at the station. In newscasts, we could report controversies, but none of our opinions on public issues could be aired under the station’s auspices. For any other controversial statements by nonstaff members, opposing views had to be given equal time to reply. This happened at other stations as well.

The chilling effect associated with the Fairness Doctrine has been thoroughly documented by many media analysts and backs up what Hentoff experienced. Economists Thomas Hazlett and David Sosa provided the definitive economic treatment of the issue in their seminal 1997 study, “Was the Fairness Doctrine a ‘Chilling Effect’? Evidence from the Post-Deregulation Radio Market.” Hazlett and Sosa even created an economic model and crunched some numbers to illustrate the Doctrine’s negative impact. And the definitive legal critique of the Fairness Doctrine can be found in Chapter 9 of Thomas G. Krattenmaker and Lucas A. Powe, Jr.’s excellent treatise on Regulating Broadcast Programming. They document the many doctrinal inconsistencies associated with the Doctrine and highlight how the rule was used as a tool of political extortion by presidents from both political parties who wanted to stiffle dissent about their administrations.

But you don’t need to sweat the numbers or read lengthy legal tomes to realize just how much better off we are without the Fairness Doctrine on the books. Just look around at the amazingly vibrant and diverse media marketplace that exists today. The cornucopia of media choices is overflowing and there’s now something for every conceivable human interest under the sun.

But Hentoff notes that the Fairness Doctrine could be even more destructive to the vibrant exchange of viewpoints today because policy makers might try to impose it on these new media outlets as well:

Should this enemy of free expression become law again in coming years, it would very likely also extend to FCC bureaucrats’ taking charge of freedom of speech on cable television and the Internet and continuing new forms of expression–under the mandate of the FCC’s definers of “diversity of views.” There are liberals who preach the need for “diversity of views” in calling for the return of the Fairness Doctrine because they bridle at the high ratings of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and other conservative broadcasters who currently have more public favor than the comparatively fewer liberal commentators. But these liberals ignore why we have the First Amendment. As Oliver Wendell Holmes emphasized: “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought–not the thought that we hate.”

In closing, I should note there have been some Republicans in favor of reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine as well. But there are fewer today than in the past. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that conservative viewpoints are getting a lot more play on the airwaves these days. Thus, some of the former pro-regulatory conservatives probably no longer favor the Fairness Doctrine, feeling that it might chill their voices instead of their opponents.

(Next up in the series: How Democrats are leading the charge to regulate “excessive violence” on television).

Washington Post technology columnist Mike Musgrove reminds us in his column today that the video game industry’s voluntary ratings system–the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)–continues to come under fire in Washington and in the states. Musgrove notes that:

“Earlier this year, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) was one of several lawmakers who introduced bills that would take the video game rating system away from the ESRB, but those bills never made it out of committee. Last week, at a summit on video games, youth and public policy, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) trashed the game industry’s ratings system and called for a new, independent system. Brownback and McCollum agree that the current system–because it’s run by the game industry–can’t be trusted.”

This is nothing new, of course. I have written extensively about the politics of video game regulation and discussed how the video game ratings system has been criticized for a number of supposed shortcomings. Most recently, I wrote about Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-CT) “Family Entertainment Protection Act” (FEPA, S. 2126), which would create a federal enforcement regime for video games sales and require ongoing regulatory scrutiny of industry ratings and practices. (Note: There was also a House version of the bill).

What critics like Brownback, McCollum, Clinton and Lieberman consistently forget, or perhaps intentionally ignore, is that all media ratings and labeling systems are fundamentally subjective exercises. They are based on value judgments made by humans who are being asked to evaluate artistic expression and assign labels to it that provide us with some rough proxies about what’s in the title or what age group should (or should not) be consuming it. There will always be “flaws” in such a system because we humans all have different sets of values. Consequently, there will always be critics who argue that they can devise a better system.

But what would a “better system” look like for video games? Honestly, as someone who is both an avid video gamer and a parent of two kids, I just don’t understand what more the critics want. The video game industry’s ESRB labeling system is highly nuanced and does the best job of any major ratings system of providing parents and all consumers with very detailed information about what they can expect to see and hear in the games before they bring them home. The ESRB ratings system includes seven major age-based designations and over 30 different content “descriptors” that give consumers highly detailed information about games. These ratings and content descriptors are affixed to every title produced by major game developers for retail sale today. Generally speaking, the only games that do not carry ESRB ratings today are those developed by web amateurs that are freely traded or downloaded via the Internet.

Thus, by simply glancing at the back of each game box, parents and consumers can quickly gauge the appropriateness of the title for their children. If parents want to do additional research in advance of a purchase, the ESRB’s website allows parents to type in the name of any game and retrieve its rating and various content descriptors. If you want independent verification of the ratings or feedback from other users and parents, you can go to the wonderful Common Sense Media website for comprehensive reviews. Likewise, Metacritic.com offers a one-stop clearinghouse of reviews about video games from dozens of websites across the globe. Or even just check out the countless user ratings for most games that can be found on Amazon.com.

Still, some critics apparently think they can do it better and have suggested a role for government in terms of rating video game content. How? Well, they’re a little short on details, but I suppose they will probably ask the FCC or FTC to do it or to oversee some independently appointed body that will be tasked with doing so.

Either way, those approaches would raise some serious First Amendment concerns and would likely be challenged and struck down in court. That’s especially the case because we know that government regulators would not be able to resist the urge to censor if the ratings system was nationalized.

But here’s a more practical question: How long do you think it would take for the government to assign ratings so that game developers can get those games out the door and on store shelves? Can you name any government regulatory process that gets the job done quickly? Can you imagine what a circus the whole process would become once various activists groups started petitioning the government to rate games in the ways they desired, or ban them altogether? (Just look at what a fiasco the broadcast indecency complaint process has become in recent years).

Some might argue that the government could force the industry to be more “accountable” and “transparent,” but what exactly does that mean? For example, should the industry be forced to reveal the names and background of all the game screeners? Their identities are currently kept confidential to ensure they can be independent, and that’s the way it should be. Can you imagine how some of them might be harassed (by both game developers and game critics) if they were forced to divulge their identities?

Or I suppose government could establish some sort of “blue-ribbon” task force made of academic experts, media critics, child psychologists, and so on. But how would that work? Would a game not be allowed to go to market without their approval? How long would it take to get that approval? And would the panel really be independent of government influence? Even if their role was more informal and merely advisory in nature, what would government officials do if they rated a game as “adult-oriented.” Would lawmakers take that as a cue to ban it altogether? Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning that there is currently nothing stopping someone from voluntarily bringing together such a group of independent experts right now to provide alternative guidelines. Why must the government do it?

Again, we’ve got a pretty good system today. The industry has created a comprehensive ratings and labeling system that offers parents and consumers extensive information about game content. And self-regulation need not be perfect to be superior to government controls. The ESRB system is constantly being tweaked and improved and it certainly represents a better way of addressing this issue than would a convoluted and likely unconstitutional federal regulatory regime.

Unfortunately, as I predicted would be the case in my National Review editorial earlier this morning, today’s hearing on video games in the Senate Judiciary Committee turned out to be quite a one-sided show trial.

Senator Sam Brownback called the hearing to blast the game industry for what he called “graphic,” “horrific,” and even “barbaric” level of violence we supposedly see in games today. Violent video games, he argued, are becoming “simulators” that train kids to behave violently and even kill cops.

And his proof? As I suspected would be the case (and, again, predicted in my editorial) it largely came down to two key games: “Grand Theft Auto” and “25 to Life.” Sen. Brownback decided to show a few clips from these games and one other title (“Postal”) to supposedly illustrate just how violent games are today. Now make no doubt about it, these games do contain some truly sickening, despicable acts of simulated violence. I don’t know why a game developer feels compelled to show thugs beating prostitutes with a baseball bat, or a criminal shooting cops with a sniper rifle, or someone torching a dead corpse and then urinating on it to put out the fire. It’s all very sick and it’s quite sad that someone is squandering their creative talents on the depiction of such disgusting, disrespectful acts of violence.

But let’s get back to the key point and ask a question that ABSOLUTELY NO ONE EVEN BOTHERED DISCUSSING AT THE HEARING. Namely: Are these games indicative of all video games out there today?

Answer: Not by a long shot. In reality, games like “Grand Theft Auto” and “25 to Life” are not representative of what most kids are playing.

As I showed in my recent paper on “Fact and Fiction in the Debate over Video Game Regulation,” of all the games that Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB)–the self-regulatory ratings board for the gaming industry–reviewed in 2005, less than 13 percent were rated “Mature” (M) or “Adults Only” (AO), the categories that contain the sort of violence critics are concerned about. In fact, less than 1 percent were rated Adults Only. Thus, around 86 percent of all games sold in 2004 were rated either “Early Childhood” (EC), “Everyone” (E), “Everyone 10 and older” (E10+), or “Teen” (T). Moreover, in my study I also compiled the ratings for all of the Top-20 video and computer games between 2001-2005 and found that over 80 percent of the most popular games were rated either “E” or “T.” If one removes from the count the various “Grand Theft Auto” and “Halo” titles (there have been multiple best-selling versions of each game), the percentage of “M” rated games drops even further. So, it’s not the case that all games are as “barbaric” as the ones Sen. Brownback singled out.

Of course, the video game industry didn’t get a chance to make this point at the hearing since no one from the industry was invited to sit on either panel. Patricia Vance, President of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board was there, but she doesn’t represent the industry. She just runs the voluntary organization that rates all the games.

Brownback grilled Ms. Vance and tried to make her atone for the sins of a few developers out there that make the games like “25 to Life.” Of course, as she noted in response, the ESRB has no power to keep such games off the market, it just rates those games and gives parents to information they need to make informed judgments about the games they allow in their homes.

Brownback and a few others on the two panels, which mostly consisted of psychologists, also questioned whether the industry could even be trusted to rate its own games. That led to suggestions of a federal ratings system. Alternatively, if the private ratings system is retained, Brownback asked some of the panelists what they thought about his idea to require that before new “M”-rated games could be released, they should be reviewed by an independent panel of experts or psychologists to gauge what impact it might have on players. A couple of people muttered their approval of such a proposal. Luckily, however, one brave soul, Dr. Dmitri Williams of the Univ. of Illinois, pointed out that psychologists don’t exactly crank out their work in a matter or minutes. Indeed, it takes many months, even years, to conduct a serious study on the impact of media on individuals. Thus, Brownback’s idea would likely bring game releases to a standstill. Moreover, such a proposal, if imposed by law, would likely represent an impermissible form of prior restraint and found unconstitutional. But hey, never mind that little thing called the First Amendment!

Regarding those psychologists on the panel… they couldn’t come to any definitive conclusion regarding the impact of games on children’s behavior. For example, Dr. Elizabeth Carll of the American Psychological Association and Dr. David Bickham of the Harvard Medical School both said that games “may” or “might” cause feelings of aggression, but they also pointed out that there really hasn’t been substantial long-term evidence to confirm that belief. Despite this, both Carll and Bickman argued that government should just go ahead and regulate anyway!

But Dr. Williams of the Univ. of Illinois, who has authored several studies on these issues, pointed to the many problems with current research, including that fact that there are no long-term, longitudinal studies and that the current short-term experiments are typically conducted in very unnatural laboratory settings. (Those settings also are devoid of the sort of group or community play that increasingly typifies gaming). Moreover, many of these studies do not account for other “environmental” factors that might have a bearing on actual aggression, such as broken homes, parental abuse, drugs, bad neighborhoods, or medical or mental conditions.

More specifically, Dr. Williams brought up what I think is the most important issue related to all “media effects” research. That is, does arousal equal aggression? Just because a particular study reveals that watching simulated violence in a movie, TV show or video game leads to feelings of “arousal” (heightened brain or heart waves, punching a Bobo doll, etc.), does that mean that actual aggression or violence will follow out in a real-world environment? You would think an important question like that would get a lot more attention in the media effects literature or in the public debate over regulating media. But it doesn’t. I actually read a lot of these studies and some of them raise this issue, but many just continue to rely on some sort of proxy as an indication of real-world aggression. But humans can get “aroused” from many things and not turn into violent monsters. Reading a riveting book, watching a scary movie, watching a bruising boxing match, listening to a loud rock concert… those are just a few things that millions of people have been doing for the past few decades without turning around and harming others afterwards. Did the media in question “arouse” them? You bet. Your heart and head can really get pumping when you enjoy powerful media images or sounds. But it doesn’t follow that you become aggressive thug just because you get aroused by those media.

Indeed, if it was that case that such a clear link existed, it should be showing up in the numbers. Cultural and social indicators, that is. But it’s not. As I also pointed out in my recent paper, while the laboratory studies have been largely inconclusive, it is possible to at least analyze the claim that there is a correlation between general exposure to video games and declining cultural indicators. Data is readily available on many cultural indicators of concern and can be plotted against increasing childhood exposure to media and video games. And all those numbers–juvenile violence, kids carrying weapons in schools, high school drop-out rates, teen pregnancy, etc–are all going down. In particular, according to the FBI, aggregate violent crime by juveniles fell 43 percent from 1995-2004. This evidence was also completely ignored at today’s hearing.

So, the picture politicians are painting about video games is being based on half-truths, myths, and misperceptions. I guess I should have expected as much going into today’s Senate hearing. But I keep hoping that policymakers will be willing to listen to reason and the facts in debates about media policy. Silly me. When will I ever learn?