I don’t know how to handle this Social Science question and need guidance.
Respond to this post. (100 words)
” 1. According to Karen Sternheimer, the biggest issue behind focusing on or blaming media for various social problems is that the entire society can hardly identify and address the social ills. As mentioned in the book, “popular culture has been blamed for inciting violence throughout American history; only the “villains” change (from dime novels to movies to comic books to television to music and now to video games)” (Sternheimer 2013). Specifically, the more important underlying issues behind the social problems include the social context which is problematic and complicated. However, politicians, the public and the media itself would be reluctant to discuss such issues because they are far too complicated to analyze and address.
2. Sternheimer believes that social context is so important in understanding fears about media and popular culture because it can provide some reliable and outstanding examples for analyzing how the general public understand social problems and how they are influenced by the media or popular culture. During such a process, moral panics should be understood and analyzed. As mentioned in the book, “Moral panics are likely to emerge when a new form of media emerges and its users are primarily those who seem particularly vulnerable or threatening” (Sternheimer 2013). Therefore, the moral panics is all about the concern of some evil threats to the wellbeing of the whole society. A typical example of moral panics provided in the twentieth century music is that some music faces cultural criminology, social control of music and cultural struggles. Similar to such an example, the way that the general public blame video games for misleading and negatively influencing players gives a hint about how the moral panics caused by mass shooting. That is, “Whereas it turned out that the VT shooter rarely played video games, the 1999 Columbine High School shooters were allegedly aficionados of Doom, a game where the heavily armed protagonist stops demons from taking over Earth and had used their classmates’ images during their play target practice” (Sternheimer 2013). In this sense, the moral panics in American culture are not rare.”
(Please note that your response posting should be just as substantive as your responses to the discussion questions. Thus, brief responses such as “Good posting, I agree with you!” are not acceptable for full credit.)
