Burnett, Katherine

"The Effects and Appeals of Entertainment Violence"

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Major: Game Programming

Freshman; College of Computing and Digital Media

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Abstract

This essay deals with several aspects of media violence. I was originally drawn to this topic due to what one might call a guilty conscience. As the perpetrator of many crimes in the virtual world, I have been curious for a while now about the psychology behind entertainment violence. I wanted to prove to myself through tangible research that the violent games I enjoyed were not ruining society. The paper unfolds into three sections. The first demonstrates how in the vast majority of cases, the consumption of violent media does not lead to violent behavior. The second concedes that in certain cases, however, people are inspired to violence due to the entertainment they consume. The third discusses three potential appeals of violent entertainment and brings into question whether these potentially beneficial attractions to the genre are enough to outweigh the risk that the content might incite certain individuals to violence.

Class: Honors 100

Rhetoric and Critical Inquiry

Professor: Michael Raleigh

Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse