"Media, violence, youth, and society." -- Surette, Ray

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A very detailed piece that takes a very well rounded look at the arguments revolving around media’s influence on today’s youth. It takes the radical arguments of those who blame media entirely and those who claim the media has no effect and shows that neither is entirely correct. Deciphering media’s influence is not easy but very complex. Surette stated the different stances of both sides and then showed how it is really the happy-medium of the two that produce the most logical answers.

"If a consensus has emerged from the research and public interest, it is that the sources of violence are complex and tied to our most basic nature as well as the social world we have created and that the media's particular relationship to social violence is extremely complicated. (See the discussion in this author's Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice [1992] and in Crime and Human Nature [1985] by J. Wilson and R. Herrnstein.).... Therefore, when discussing the nature of the relationship between the media and violence, it is important not to be myopic. Social violence is embedded in historical, social forces and phenomena, while the media are components of a larger information system that creates and distributes knowledge about the world. The media and social violence must both be approached as parts of phenomena that have numerous interconnections and paths of influence between them. Too narrow a perspective on youth violence or the media's role in its generation oversimplifies both the problem and the solutions we pursue. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current concern about media, youth, and violence. "

I really liked this article and pulled a lot of quotations from it. This idea is what I would like my paper to be based on but it’s very difficult to find pieces that speak objectively on the matter and weigh both arguments. I find this argument much more intriguing and believable than taking one side or the other. I think that taking a similar stance would make my argument more concrete. I personally lean more towards media being the cause, yet this article has been by far the most interesting and thought provoking that I have read yet. It is so easy to say the radical stances, and that ease causes indifference in the opposing party. This makes both sides stop and think—together.