Abstract

Summary This article sets the debate about the effects of media violence in the context of broader media research. A direct and simple ‘cause and effect’ model between media violence and violence in society does not stand up to scrutiny. It relies on an obsolete model of media influence which stands outside current, theoretical developments in mass communication research. It has diverted attention away from more relevant accounts which see the media as having ‘a primary function’ of ‘legitimation and maintenance of authority’. These suggest a no less powerful but infinitely more subtle model of media influence which finds wide support in other areas of mass communication research. Ironically, since popular debate about media violence has been – and still is – based almost exclusively upon experimental research, it too seems to serve this same legitimation process.