S., Canada, and in South Africa. He chooses South Africa because TV was banned there from 1945 to 1974. Homicide rates increased enormously in the U.S. And Canada (93% and 92%, respectively) in those time periods -- but homicide rates declined by 7% in TV-less South Africa. Is that really empirical evidence to support his case? Hardly.
Meantime, Centerwall asserts that because minority households didn't all have TV at a time when Caucasian households did, the white homicide rate increased much quicker than minority homicide rates. Again, it would be very difficult to verify such a strange juxtaposition of assertions. Centerwall injures his case by saying things like "…every violent act" is the result of "forces coming together" (drugs, poverty, crime, booze, stress). But what about sports-related battles, domestic violence, bullying in school? Going way out on a limb, Centerwall insists that if there were no TV then there would...
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