Ill Effects argues that the question of media influence needs to be debated by those with a clearer understanding of how audiences and media interact with one another.Content: Introduction : from bad research to good : a guide for the perplexed / Martin Barker and Julian Petley --The Newson Report : a case study in "common sense" / Martin Barker --The worrying influence of "media effects" studies / David Gauntlett --Electronic child abuse? : rethinking the media's effects on children / David Buckingham --Living for libido, or, "Child's play IV" : the imagery of childhood and the call for censorship / Patricia Holland --Just what the doctors ordered? : media regulation, education and the "problem" of media violence / Sara Bragg --Once more with feeling : talking about the media violence debate in Australia / Sue Turnbull --I was a teenage horror fan, or, "How I learned to stop worrying and love Linda Blair" / Mark Kermode --"Looks like it hurts" : women's responses to shocking entertainment / Annette Hill --Reservoirs of dogma : an archaeology of popular anxieties / Graham Murdock --Us and them / Julian Petley --Invasion of the Internet abusers : marketing fears about the information superhighway / Thomas Craig and Julian Petley --On the problems of being a "trendy travesty" / Martin Barker (with Julian Petley).Abstract: Ill Effects argues that the question of media influence needs to be debated by those with a clearer understanding of how audiences and media interact with one another