Boyne confused and confusing

Damion Crawford, Guest Columnist

I accept Ian Boyne's apology in the article titled 'Damion off-key on hate music' published in the December 22, 2013 edition of The Sunday Gleaner. This week, I will try to clear up Mr Boyne's confusion, hoping it will lead to clarity regarding Section 15 of the anti-gang legislation and the differences between the terms 'lead to' and 'link', and 'aggression' vs 'criminal activity'.

In Mr Boyne's article, it seemed his issue was no longer with my disagreement of the inclusion of Section 15 in the anti-gang legislation. After all, how could it be?

As stated in my first article published December 15, 2013 based on the objective of the bill, there is only one question with two possible answers. The question is: Does the consumption of violence through media cause or lead to criminal activity? To which Mr Boyne answers, "I am not saying there is any direct causation between consumption of media violence and actual violence." He then explicitly states, "Of course, there is no direct causality between consumption of violent lyrics and criminal behaviour ... . If there were a direct causation, there would be far more murders in Jamaica." Mr Boyne, if there is no causal relationship, Section 15 is unnecessary.

If there is, in fact, a causal relationship between media consumption and crime, the section is insufficient. Here, Mr Boyne couldn't resist stating his "references ... prove too much, for, ironically, they could be used to bolster his (Damion Crawford) position that it is pure hypocrisy to focus on dancehall music when studies show it is traditional and new media violence which is deleterious". Mr Boyne, however, ignored his own research and again suggested dancehall should be attacked for mumbo-jumbo reasons.

It seems Mr Boyne and I are in agreement: There is no causal link between violence in media and criminal activity, and there is no objective basis guided by research to attack dancehall and not movies, cartoons, video games or books. Therefore, I will focus on my statement, "It starts from the premise that there is no research which shows that the consumption of violent media leads to criminal activities. It is merely an assumption," as this seems to be Mr Boyne's new contention.

Leads to vs Link

The term 'leads to' suggests a causal relationship between the independent variable. In this case, consumption of media violence; and the dependent variable, criminal activity. Here, the differentiation between correlation and causation becomes very important because correlation isn't necessarily causation. Mr Boyne doesn't seem to understand this as he tries to "debunk" my statement ("... does not lead to...") by suggesting a correlation or, in his words, a 'link'.

This is best explained with an example of a British research that concluded ice cream caused people to drown. The authors suggested there was a clear link (correlation) between the consumption of ice cream and the occurrence of drowning. They argued the correlation was so strong that as ice cream consumption increased, so did the number of people who drowned, and vice versa.

Later analysis showed summer heat caused greater consumption of ice cream and also increased beach visitation. In this case, the link between the two didn't suggest the independent variable led to the dependent variable.

Aggression vs Criminal Activity

Mr Boyne made six references about media violence leading to "aggression" in an attempt to "debunk" my statement that media violence does not lead to "criminal activity". This suggests Mr Boyne came to the conclusion that aggression and criminal activity are synonymous. Criminal activity, in this case, can be refined, as a result of the law's intent (to prevent murder), to mean criminal violence. Criminal violence is defined as 'the overt expression of physical force against another individual and that might constitute a criminal behaviour'. This is quite different from aggression.

Richard Felson captures it best when he noted that criminal violence requires both aggression and deviance. To this extent, aggression that is encouraged in sports such as boxing, football and soccer is not a criminal activity because it lacks the necessary ingredient of deviance.

It is important to point out here for the benefit of Mr Boyne that violence that is defined as physical aggression also needs the addition of deviance for it to be accepted as criminal activity. Therefore, if there were in fact any "unnecessary" references in the debate, it would have been those posited by Mr Boyne because none made reference to criminal activity.

In fact, had Mr Boyne done extensive research, he would have seen where Felson et al highlighted that because crime, and in this, case criminal violence, cannot be defined only as 'harm doing', it makes it important to ignore social-psychological literature on aggression. Felson goes on to state research on aggression is "large and important to ignore" when having a conversation on criminal violence.

Had Mr Boyne committed himself to a debate based on reason, he would have realised I quite correctly ignored research that claimed violent media consumption leads to aggression, as both the bill and my statement are/were focused on criminal activity, or more narrowly, criminal violence.

Of all the research that considered the independent variable, 'consumption of violence through media', and the dependent variable, 'criminal activity', Mr Boyne may be surprised to know absolutely zero has found a causal relationship.

Debunked or Not Debunked?

Mr Boyne claims he quoted some references in his last article because he "had to spend some time debunking Damion the politician". However, Damion the politician and Damion the writer agree that Mr Boyne was incorrect in his assumption that he achieved the goal of "debunking" any statement I have made on the issue as highlighted below:

Reference: (Pediatrics)

Failure: The article states: "...We do not know what programmes were viewed and, therefore, cannot be certain that it is the viewing of violence that contributes to antisocial behaviour ... . The content of the programme may not be the most important factor. It is plausible that excessive television viewing contribute to antisocial behaviour in ways unrelated to violent content."

Result: Statement definitely not debunked.

References: (New York Times op-ed, Eric Bender et al, Lancet journal, Brad Bushman et al)

Failure: All these references use aggression and not criminal activity as the dependent variable.

Result: Statement not debunked.

Reference: (US Senate Judiciary Committee)

Failure: Pergamon journal uses this exact quotation as an example of "highly overstated comments on TV violence - violent criminal behaviour relationship".

Result: Statement not debunked.

Damion Crawford is state minister of tourism and entertainment. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.