Damion Crawford: author of confusion

Ian Boyne

Damion Crawford's debate with me in these pages should be studied as a model of civil, respectful and intellectually rigorous discourse, in an environment characterised all too frequently by crassness, incivility and imbecility. Damion could have chosen simply to insult, ridicule and denigrate me.

Instead, he chose the much more demanding road of intellectual engagement, attacking my positions rather than my person, and challenging me on the high ground of scholarship, doing so with a delightful dexterity.

But I cannot allow Damion to get away with his attempted justification that "there is no research which shows that the consumption of violent media leads to criminal activities. It is merely an assumption". Damion maintains I confuse "lead to" and "link", and goes on to say there is "absolutely zero" evidence of a causal relationship between media consumption and actual violence. Anyone who really knows the social sciences should know that contested research is the order of the day. Social science does not yield the geometric certainty of the natural sciences. By its very nature, social science is inexact and contextual, and one has to settle for rational probability rather than rational inescapability.

In a controversial issue, generally, when you hear people say, "There is no research" to the contrary, become suspicious about how much that person really knows. I admitted early in this debate that the media violence-actual violence link is not uncontested, though it is the majority position. Damion has despised nuance and insists on being dismissive of contrary evidence.

I quote from the US Senate Judiciary Report of 1999, Children, Violence and the Media, which specifically looked at media consumption and real-world criminal activity (not just aggression): "It has been estimated that more than 1,000 studies on the effects of television and film have been done during the past 40 years. In the last decade, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the National Institute of Mental Health have separately reviewed these studies. Each of these reviews has reached the same conclusion: Television violence leads to real-world violence." Real-world violence is criminal, not harmless "aggression", like football or rugby.

YOUTH AND MEDIA VIOLENCE LINK

The Senate Judiciary Committee was specifically investigating youth criminal activity, and it found a link between that and media violence: "This report identifies and begins to redress one of the principal causes of youth violence: media violence." Damion's ingenious attempt to pry one from the other, focusing on mere "aggression", fails pathetically.

The US Surgeon's Office, in a comprehensive report conducted in 1974 and updated in 1982, found that television violence contributed to increases in violent crime, not just aggression. The results of a major study published in the journal Pediatrics in early 2013 found that "time spent watching television during childhood or adolescence was significantly associated with having a criminal conviction, a violent conviction ... ." It is true, as Damion pointed out, that these social scientists, being more nuanced and scientifically responsible and sensitive than he is, did point out limitations to their own study. There is no Cartesian certainty when it comes to the social sciences. But that does not mean its results must be dismissed. That is obscurantism.

SIGNIFICANT PREDICTOR

That study says unmistakably: "It is notable that television viewing remained a significant predictor of criminal conviction ... . Having a criminal conviction indicates that excessive television viewing is still an important concern." The study reports in its overall results section that: "Young adults who had spent more time watching television during childhood or adolescence were significantly more likely to have a criminal conviction." That's the conclusion, despite the nuances and acknowledgement of tentativeness.

Some specious arguments are used to split hairs between "links" and "lead to" in this whole debate. The forensic psychiatrists who did the op-ed piece in The New York Times (August 23, 2013) say explicitly: "There is now consensus that exposure to media violence is linked to actual violent behaviour." (Not just "aggression", Damion.) They quote a meta-analysis of 217 studies published between 1957 and 1990 which shows that exposure to violence is associated with "actual physical violence". Is violence against a person not criminal? So why deny that there is solid research which shows that link?

Says The New York Times: "They found 200 studies showing a moderate, positive relationship between watching television violence and physical aggression against another person." Is Damion saying that physical aggression is what we see in contact sports and excludes criminal activity? So there are "absolutely zero" studies showing that connection, Damion? We are not talking causation, for as Damion quotes me as saying in two of my articles, there is no direct causation between viewing media violence and actual violence, for, as I said early in this debate, if that were so, there would be more murders in Jamaica. Besides, the Japanese watch many violent video games and violence is very low there. I am not a fool. There is no direct "lead to" between viewing media violence or listening to gun lyrics and actual violence. But it is a non sequitur to jump from that to deny the link between the two. That is pure sophistry. And intellectual gymnastics.

RISK FACTOR

The New York Times dismisses that canard. The authors note that many say millions of American watch violent television but few become killers. "A growing body of research indicates this reasoning may be off base. Exposure to violence does not preordain violence, but it is a risk factor. We would never say, 'I've smoked cigarettes for a long time and I don't have lung cancer, therefore, there is no link between cigarettes and lung cancer. So why use such flawed reasoning when it comes to media violence?" Question for you, Damion.

Damion assumes that because social scientists are not as dogmatic as he is on this media violence-real-world violence nexus, it is correct to say, "There is no research" which shows that link. That is what philosophers call a category error. When Damion said to that parliamentary committee that "there is no research" which shows a link, would any reasonable person assume he meant that there is no rationally unchallengeable research - or that there is no research at all which asserts that link?

Don't split hairs now about the distinction between "lead to" and "link". No one would assume a one-on-one causal relationship. In dismissing research which does show a link between media consumption and actual criminal activity, Damion's view that "research can only link media violence to aggression and not criminal ... action" is blatantly false. My view on why dancehall music should be treated uniquely remains, despite all I have written here.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.