GS: In your work, you use sociology to take a historical approach to this issue. How do the current attacks on video games compare to attacks on other mediums in the past?

GJ: Attacks like this are very common. It started in the mid-nineteenth century. As that whole Victorian industrial complex was being pulled together, it was suddenly a very popular opinion among the shapers of taste and teachers that the material children or the uneducated masses were consuming, their entertainment, was going to lead to major social trouble. It makes sense in the context of a society trying aggressively to pull together, to minimize the chaos and day-to-day confrontations.

The first big attack in the United States was against popular novels, dime novels, yellow backs, cheap five and ten cents bits of fiction that were often romance stories with no real sex in them, but sexual overtones, a lot of young women barely maintaining their virtue. And then there were a lot of crime stories: dashing detectives, nests of counterfeiters, sex and violence material. So there was a huge outcry driven by teachers and doctors, bought into by parents and politicians--who saw a way to generate votes. This outcry was probably more virulent and widespread than the attacks on video games now.

You find it about movies in their early days. You find it again about movies in the late 20's and early 30's when they got sexier. You find it again about movies in the early 90's when gore was coming up. And certainly music too: ragtime, then jazz, then rock and roll, then the whole goth rock, death metal thing, and gangster rap. Whenever there's a new medium, or there's a distinct new style, there will be this.

If you look at the way furors begin and play out, they're very predictable. I would say now we're kind of at the tail end. If games continue to push boundaries, particular ones could come under attack. A lot of it's just the medium being around long enough that people have realized the world hasn't gone to hell. It's just something else people are doing with their spare time. But somehow the bigger issues are the same as ever.