American Amusement Machine Assn v. Kendrick

Abstract

This case involved a challenge to an Indianapolis ordinance prohibiting anyone under 18 years of age from accessing any coin-operated video game that contained graphic and was considered to minors. The amicus brief submitted on behalf of and communications scholars and authors was solely designed to educate the court about the exaggerations and distortions that have, for years, characterized political discourse on social science research into the effects of media on youth. The federal district court, upholding the Indianapolis ordinance against a First Amendment challenge, relied in part on claims that social science studies have proved to have widespread imitative or other adverse effects. (The lower court also ruled that proof was not really necessary because of the lesser First Amendment rights of minors and because of generalized assumptions that violent video games are harmful to youth.) The brief to the court of appeals outlines some of the limitations of effects research, whether conducted in a laboratory, through field studies, or correlations. In particular, the amici remind the court that correlations between a preference for violence and aggressive behavior do not show that the former causes the latter, and are often explainable by a common third variable (a personal penchant for sensation-seeking, for example). In March 2001, the court of appeals reversed the ruling of the district court.