Over the past seven years, the number of school shootings has increased in the United States, with 290 school shootings since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. In the wake of school shootings, speculation about the cause of mass shootings, one of which being violence in the media, most notably violence in games video, have multiplied (2018). This speculation quickly escalated into public outrage over the potentially damaging effects of violent video games. Without media such as newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet, moral panic would have very limited effect on the public. Moral panic refers to the feelings of fear and worry created by a certain group in society to impose their moral beliefs on the general public. Moral panic has led to politically motivated research surrounding the violent video game debate. The political economy approach is used to understand the political and power relationships between politics and economics embedded in the development of technology. Using the political economy approach, I will focus in this essay on the effect of violent video games on moral panic among the general public. I will use academic sources from 2010 to 2017 to investigate the video game violence debate. I will discuss how violent behavior such as school shootings have sparked a public debate about violent video games. I will also talk about how the media has played a role in stoking moral panic over the potentially damaging effects of violent video games. This essay will explore the motivations of politicians who propagate moral panic over video game violence. I will argue that media exploitation through newspapers, television, and the Internet is used as a means to create and propagate moral panic, which negatively affects the public. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Real violence parents observe creates fear related to fictional violence their children witness while playing video games. According to Markey, PM and Ferguson, CJ (2017), although there is very little scientific data on the relationship between violent video games and real-world violence, parents consistently fear the harmful effects of violent video games on their children. Parents have a "save the kids" mentality when it comes to violent video games and they develop a defensive attitude in which "...questioning the panic is tantamount to failing to care for the children." This highlights parents' negative perception of youth culture and shows that parents are significantly affected by the belief system about violent video games that they advocate emotionally rather than relying on scientific evidence. Instead, parents rely on short news clips to create a preconceived notion about moral panic. The media communicate information to the general public about the events taking place, triggering different reactions, some of which further exaggerate the event. Thus, what is reported in the media has a significant impact on the public's perception of the effects of violent video games on children. People view violent video games as a problem because they provide an easier path to solving the “problems” caused by violence. This diverts attention from the real problems that are causing the increase todayviolence in the real world, such as mental illness, poverty and educational disparities. Parents' fear of violent video games is far from the reality that video game moral panic is simply influenced by people in positions of superiority and authority. Main actors, such as politicians, sow panic over violent video games through fear tactics and manipulation of parents' emotions. Markey, PM and Ferguson, CJ (2017) state that “in the wake of three recent school shootings, nearly five thousand newspaper articles were published, discussing video games in the context of the events. This highlights the role that researchers play in fueling moral panic through their work and leads to claims that research-related moral panic is perhaps a means to profit. The public's fear of violent video games stems from the players' preconceived notions of them. and the identity of the player. “The wheel of moral panic is driven, if you will, by general societal beliefs. These societal beliefs may be cultural or religious, or may be fueled by authoritarian political, scientific, and activist elements of society.” This shows that societal beliefs play a major role in fueling moral panic, with people going so far as to link events in a game to real-world violence. Ferguson says that despite efforts to link violent video games to real-life violent crimes, evidence shows that "violent crime, including crimes committed by youth, is generally declining." This indicates that crimes and video games are not causally related and that concerns about violent video games are exaggerated. According to Ferguson, violent video games have a negative impact on the public's stereotypes of gamers and their identities. A gamer is defined as a person who actively gives meaning to games and constantly reacts to events observed in games. A gamer is actively involved in video game culture, which is a global new media subculture formed by video games and is concerned with the interaction one has with the media and their participation in media activities. There is a misconception that violent video games lead to antisocial behavior among video game players. However, Ferguson highlights the positive effects of violent video games, such as increased social interaction and engagement among young people, and points out that the public pays very little attention to these effects. New media enables a realm of social interaction as it introduces multi-player online games such as Everquest and World of Warcraft, making violent and non-violent video games a means of civic involvement. Therefore, many research efforts focus on how violent video games cause real-world violence and very few of them examine the positive effects of video games. Failure to thoroughly and objectively examine the effects of violent video games will result in the production of a popular devil in the 21st century. There are cognitive biases that affect researchers' opinions about violent video games and the potentially damaging effects that game violence could have on young people. Different disciplinary approaches such as psychologists, criminologists, and media scholars have different perceptions of the effect of media on a person's behavior and how minor acts of violence generalize to more serious aggressive acts in real life. Criminologists and specialists inMedia outlets have a positive view of video games, stating that violence in video games is unrelated to real-world violence. Psychologists think otherwise, saying that violent video games actually lead to aggressive behavior among young people. This shows that different disciplinary approaches affect how academic researchers approach the violent video game debate and the type of information delivered to the public. Some information results in media coverage that is used to further fuel moral panic. Ferguson, CJ (2017) points out that “theories of media effects are largely a product of social psychology…the leading advocacy organization for psychologists, the APA (American Psychological Association), has promoted negative beliefs about gaming video violence, often to the point of causing considerable controversy. Cherry-picked beliefs about moral panic encourage false news about violent video games, leading scientific industries like the APA and the American Academy of Pediatrics to produce false data that further reinforces these beliefs and fuels more moral panic. Additionally, the more “policymakers” are seen as “doing something about the perceived crisis,” the more views and “clicks” the news media receives from the public, resulting in funding that further motivates researchers. This emphasizes the endless cycle of moral panic that negatively affects the public and damages the reputation of various fields of scholars who oppose these claims. Moral panic around violent video games is linked to culture and society. What is seen online and in the media influences our perception of violent video games. According to Raymond Williams, culture is “a way of life in its own right”. It is the formation, arrangement and organization of what we believe, value, feel and do. It is also a constantly evolving process, and it is ordinary because it is part of a variety of practices that constitute daily life. Culture expresses dominant, residual and emergent values. The dominant values ​​of a culture refer to the commonly accepted values, while the residual characteristics of a culture involve the unpopular beliefs. Emergent characteristics are the new ideas and processes that constitute a culture. Moral panic over violent video games is part of this culture. An example of a dominant value expressed by the public is that violent video games are perceived as harmful and “make people be violent.” For example, after the Sandy Hook school shooting, the public flooded a Facebook page about the game Mass Effect, thinking it was the perpetrators' favorite game. It later turned out that the author had not played the game Mass Effect and that the moral panic surrounding the game was just a poorly addressed public outcry. Poorly addressed public outcry led to video gaming legislation in the United States that was deemed ineffective. Dillio (2014) asserts that violence in video games is not correlated according to science and that government intervention by censoring violent video games for minors is not guaranteed despite legislative efforts. Therefore, the protection of children from possible harm caused by violence in video games and the fear of violence in video games are big motivators in favor of censorship, which is used as a way to help parents to control what their children consume in the media. games are considered a political object because of the relationship between the political process and the press. The media are.