Are the media to blame for our violent culture?

Like  most people my age, I enjoy playing violent video games and watching horror or action films. Yet neither myself nor anyone I know has become a murdering psychopath because of it. I own Grand Theft Auto, a game that outraged censors, but I don't want to drive around running people down. I have witnessed at least one hundred violent murders in horror films, and probably a few thousand more in action films, yet I have no urges to recreate these. Neither, as far as I know, do any of my friends who have also played these games and watched these films.

Millions of people have seen these films and games, yet only a fraction are influenced. This is proof above all else that media violence isn't harmful. The blaming of nine murders around the world on the film Scream is ridiculous.

If a person wants to kill, they will kill, and watching a film with violence in it isn't going to tip the scales either way. At most, it will influence their method; to quote from Scream "Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more inventive."

Conor Behan

Third-year student, Carlow

THE media are extremely important in our lives, but are they to blame for violence in our culture?

Showing violence can be used as an opportunity to talk about the issues and discuss why violence is not acceptable.

The media are constantly under fire for supposedly inspiring acts, but people just want an easy scapegoat. Our culture always points people away from emotions as opposed to encouraging them to deal with them.

People who take things so far as to copy violence on film are obviously unhinged in the first place, yet nobody questions what drove them to it. Look at major violent events and see how many bother to probe what made the person snap. Nobody does.

People should view and criticise this part of a culture before we can begin to address the area of media violence.