A LOWER BODY COUNT

摘要

The entertainment in-dustty loves to say it influences people. Television and radio stations promise advertisers that they can shape consumer preferences in shampoo or soft drinks. Stars use their celebrity to publicize causes like AIDS research or famine relief. But when it comes to the influence of violence in some movies, television, music and videogames on behavior, the same people get prickly. In the wake of recent atrocities, the industry has turned typically defensive. Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom International Inc., raised the battle cry at a conference of cable-TV professionals in June. "I'm outraged by a lot of what we hear blaming the media for what's going on," he argued. "I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of."