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Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile, and Katherine E. Buckley, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Policy Oxford University Press, New York, 2007, 190 pp, ISBN 13-978-0-19-530983-6
Chadd Powell
Published online: 30 September 2008
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008
The debate about violence in video games has been a long and contentious one. While much of that debate has centered on the issues of freedom of expression versus censorship, it remains important to recognize the relevance of other fields of interest. Even more so it is important to recognize and understand the differences between the debates that exist in science over the effects of violent video games on youth and the debates of law concerning the rights of video game makers and consumers. Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley attempt to put to rest the scientific side of the debate in their book Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Practice, and Public Policy. In this book they present a concise examination of past studies along with the addition of three new studies to support the claim that the debate over whether violent video games have an effect on youth is over and that energies should be devoted to the policy and practice of how to mitigate these effects. This book excels at providing timely insights into a topic that will continue to gain in importance and would be of interest to those involved in media studies, developmental psychology, and those involved in policy discussions related to either.
Research into the effects of violent media has been an ongoing domain of inquiry for quite some time. Video game studies build from earlier research into violent television and film in both method and purpose. Past examples of that research groundwork include the correlation between violence in television shows and aggressive behaviors (McIntyre and Teevan 1972), experimental research showing that boys exposed to film violence act more aggressively in play (Leyens et al. 1975), and longitudinal research showing that early adolescent exposure to violent television was predictive of aggressive behaviors at later ages (Johnson et al. 2002). Video game violence research has followed in much the same vein with correlational (Krahé and Möller 2004), experimental (Irwin and Gross 1995), and longitudinal...