The Ideological Rigidity of Social-Cognitive Theories of Media Violence and a Response to Bushman

We thank Bushman and Huesmann (2013), Krah (2013), and Warburton (2013) for taking the time to comment on our review of digital game violence research. This is obviously a field where considerable controversy continues to exist and an opportunity for cordial debate could help resolve differences in the field. The current crop of comments run the gamut from keeping to reasonable points of disagreement (Warburton), to relying on sometimes snide comments (‘‘The art of omission,’’ Krah ), to the comment by Bushman and Huesmann which makes use of ad hominem attacks. They also tend to restate old arguments that have been discredited either in our review or other past reviews (e.g., Adachi & Willoughby, 2011; Hall, Day, & Hall, 2011a, 2011b). Some of these statements confirm our initial concerns that the debate on violent media effects has shifted from science to ideology. In the following, we examine some of the statements by our colleagues that we find to be problematic or misleading.