Opinion: Real hypocrites are at NRA

The National Rifle Association has released a video game, "Practice Range," a month after the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NRA releases shooting video game rated for ages 4 and up for free download


• Christopher Ferguson: NRA condemned video game industry less than a month ago


• Ferguson says the NRA doesn't even take its own claims seriously


• As queasy as the app is, video games do not cause more violence, he says

Editor's note: Christopher J. Ferguson is chair of the psychology and communication department at Texas A&M International University. He is the author of the novel "Suicide Kings."

(CNN) -- The nation has struggled with addressing how best to reduce gun violence following last month's tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Responding to calls for gun control, the National Rifle Association attempted to shift blame for mass homicides away from guns to cultural influences such as video games or entertainment. No one can accuse the NRA of not being clever. At least not until it released a gun-themed shooting game less than a month after condemning the video game industry.

In fairness, "Practice Range," rated for ages 4 and up and free on the iPhone and iPad, is no blood-soaked, first-person shooter game. The trailer shows that it allows the player to engage in target practice using realistic-looking weapons. One of the weapon options appears to be an AR-15, the same weapon used at Newtown. The game also includes some gun safety tips.

Christopher J. Ferguson

I have no objection to the game per se, although the NRA's app smacks of hypocrisy.

Releasing a gun-themed shooting video game a month after the Newtown massacre reveals that the NRA doesn't even take its own claims seriously. As for the NRA's assertion that games create violence, it is nakedly self-serving.

But, as queasy as the whole thing is, violent video games do not cause more violence. Several researchers, including myself, met with Vice President Joe Biden on Friday to inform him that studies are unable to support the contention that violent video games contribute to societal violence. Rather, it is untreated mental health symptoms that contribute to outcomes including youth violence, dating violence and bullying.

As Fareed Zakaria aptly noted, nations that consume more video games per capita than the United States such as Japan, or share our media culture almost identically such as Canada, have much lower violence rates than our country.

That's true even if you exclude gun violence and consider only simply assaults. And mass homicide perpetrators are no more likely to be gamers than the rest of us. Our society experiences confirmation bias, focusing on video games when the shooter is a young male, and ignoring video games when the shooter is an older male such as 62-year-old William Spengler, who shot two firefighters the week after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. This confirmation bias creates the false impression of a correlation where none exists.

The NRA is apparently unaware that most theories of media effects make little distinction between a game such as "Practice Range" and one such as "Grand Theft Auto." According to such theories, seeing a picture of a gun or reading "Grimm's Fairy Tales" is as likely to stimulate aggression as a blood-soaked movie or game.

Granted, the U.S. Supreme Court didn't buy that argument in 2011 when it considered a California law regulating the sale of violent games to minors, and criticized the quality of the research attempting to link violent games with aggression more broadly.

I don't believe either "Practice Range" or "Grand Theft Auto" harms minors, although of course some games may have morally objectionable content. But the NRA can't claim, "Video games create mass killers. Oh wait, hey, not this one!"

There are reasonable things we could do to reduce gun violence while respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to own guns. For example, better and more consistent background checks and required reporting by mental health professionals when patients make violent threats (requiring the removal of firearm licenses from those individuals) would go a long way. We can also put out public health campaigns to warn people of the risks of gun ownership so they could make informed decisions of their own without their constitutional rights being violated.

Sensible changes will not occur if the nation indulges in a moral panic about violent video games as it did after the Columbine massacre. This, undoubtedly, would be exactly what the NRA would like to see happen.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Christopher J. Ferguson.

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13 home buying tips for 2013

(MoneyWatch) Although housing prices started to rebound last year and are expected to continue rising in 2013, it's still a buyer's market. Prices remain 30 percent below their peak before the housing crash and mortgage rates hovering at all-time lows. If you are ready to jump in to the real estate market, here are 13 house-hunting tips for 2013.

1. Run the numbers. Put together a financial plan to determine whether you can really afford to buy. After all, just because it's a good time to purchase a home doesn't mean it's a good time for YOU to buy. It's important to understand how much home you can afford and whether home ownership might preclude you from addressing other important financial issues in your life.

2. Save 20 percent for a down payment. I'm not a huge fan of putting down less than that amount (although the Federal Housing Administration allows it). Keep your downpayment fund in cash or cash equivalent accounts, so that market movements don't thwart your plans.

3. Use this great "rent vs. buy" calculator from the New York Times. Renting might still be the better deal in your area.

4. Be an informed buyer. You're not going to buy a house simply because there's a pretty photo posted online, but you can conduct a lot of price research. That said, there's nothing better than talking to people in the neighborhood for "on the ground" intelligence.

5. Obtain a copy of your credit report. If you haven't done so in a while, go to AnnualCreditReport.com and request your free copy. It's important that you correct any errors on the report before you start the mortgage process.

6. Get pre-approved for a mortgage. Pre-approval is a good gut check on your price range for a home. Gone are the days that banks will fork over cash to anyone with a heartbeat. The best way to start is to ask friends for referrals from mortgage brokers and to shop around with banks and credit unions. Make sure to compare apples to apples and to ask the broker about your total costs to you at closing. You should also know that once you actually find a home, the mortgage process is on the same pain level as a root canal, only it requires more patience and there's no Novocain. You'll need to dig up tons of paperwork and fair warning -- there will be multiple requests for even more documents as you move toward closing. Eventually, you will need "commitment letter," which details the terms of your loan approval.

7. Find an agent. As much as everyone complains about realtors, I still think that it's tough to go through the home buying process alone. In some markets, buyers' brokers are available, but the most important qualities in brokers are honesty, experience, good connections with other agents, and good referrals from buyers like you. Remember that most agents represent the seller, not the buyer.

8. Hire a real estate attorney. This is a major transaction in your life, so don't try to save money when it comes to legal fees. Even if your mortgage company provides a lawyer, hire your own to help draft all documents and to ensure that your interests are being represented at every step of the process.

9. Get an appraisal. An appraisal will determine the market value of the property and ultimately will be used by your lender to determine the amount of your loan. You have a legal right to get a copy of this and will want a copy for your records.

10. Schedule a home inspection. Think you've found your dream house? Maybe, but unless you have an engineer walk through the premises with you, you might be buying a new roof in a couple of years. Don't get freaked out if a problem arises during the inspection; it can often be addressed with a simple adjustment in price. It's imperative to protect yourself, so don't blow off this important step.

11. Start with a fair offer. The offer should be based on similar houses sold in the neighborhood in the past six months. Your agent will help you with the process, but the offer should include the price you're willing to pay for the house, your financing terms and contingencies such as specifying what will happen if any problems come up during the inspection.

12. Purchase homeowners insurance. If you are a life-long renter, this can be an eye-opener in terms of cost. Make sure that you understand the difference between insuring the structure and insuring the contents. And if you are buying property that is close to water, make sure that you have an agent who can help you enroll in the national flood insurance program.

13. Review your HUD statement BEFORE closing. The government document provides basic details about the involved parties and a lot of numbers. Mistakes do occur, which is why it is vital that you review the statement and confirm that everything is correct.

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Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence

Flanked by four children from across the country, President Obama today unveiled a sweeping plan to curb gun violence in America through an extensive package of legislation and executive actions not seen since the 1960s.

Obama is asking Congress to implement mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales; reinstate a ban on some assault-style weapons; ban high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds; and crackdown on illicit weapons trafficking.

The president's proposal also includes new initiatives for school safety, including a call for more federal aid to states for hiring so-called school resource officers (police), counselors and psychologists, and improved access to mental health care.

Obama also initiated 23 executive actions on gun violence, policy directives not needing congressional approval. Among them is a directive to federal agencies to beef up the national criminal background-check system and a memorandum lifting a freeze on gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," Obama said at a midday news conference. "If there's even one thing that we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we have an obligation to try.

"And I'm going to do my part."

The announcement comes one month after a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left 26 dead, including 20 children. Obama called it the worst moment of his presidency and promised "meaningful action" in response.

Maqndel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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The proposals were the work of an Obama-appointed task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that held 22 meetings on gun violence in the past three weeks. The group received input from more than 220 organizations and dozens of elected officials, a senior administration official said.

As part of the push, Obama nominated a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which leads enforcement of federal gun laws and has been without a confirmed director for six years. The president appointed acting director Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, to the post, if the Senate confirms him.

The administration's plan calls for aid to states for the hiring of more school resource officers, counselors and psychologists. Obama also directed the Department of Education to ensure all schools have improved emergency-response plans.

He also called on Congress to make it illegal to possess or transfer armor-piercing bullets; it's now only illegal to produce them.

"To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act," Obama said. "And Congress must act soon."

Officials said some of the legislative measures Obama outlined could be introduced on Capitol Hill next week. The pricetag for Obama's entire package is $500 million, the White House said.

"House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations," a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response to Obama's announcement. "And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

The proposals are already being met with stiff opposition from gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, which overnight released a scathing ad attacking the president as an "elitist hypocrite."

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" the narrator of the NRA ad says. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?"

Obama has questioned the value of placing more armed guards at schools around the country, although his proposal does call for placement of more police officers at public schools. The NRA opposes most of the other gun restrictions Obama has proposed.

"Keeping our children and society safe remains our top priority," the NRA said in a statement after Obama's announcement.

"Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation," the group said. "Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy."

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Are gun curbs just symbolism?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Gun violence recommendations are expected from Vice President Biden on Tuesday


• The proposals are expected to contain substantive and symbolic ideas to curb gun violence


• Presidents use symbolism to shift public opinion or affect larger political or social change

Washington (CNN) -- The pictures told the story: Vice President Joe Biden looked solemn, patrician and in control as he sat at a long table in the White House, flanked by people on both sides of the gun control issue.

The images conveyed a sense that the White House was in command on this issue.

And that's the point. Historically, presidential administrations have used symbolic imagery—at times coupled with marginal actions—to shift public opinion or affect larger political or social change.

"Politics is a risk taking project," said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian and CNN contributor. "They put together these commissions in response to some crisis. You try a hundred things and hope something works."

As Biden's gun control task force recommendations land on the desk of President Barack Obama, political experts say it is important that his administration sends a clear signal that it has things in hand.

Obama says gun lobby stokes fear of federal action

That is especially critical in what will likely be an uphill battle to push specific changes, like an assault weapons ban, as part of a broader effort on gun control.

The first move in the image battle will be to appear to move quickly and decisively.

"You have to give the Obama administration credit for one thing: They've learned from history to do things quickly," Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said of previous task force initiatives that fizzled.

In 2010, Obama appointed a bipartisan commission headed by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, a former Democratic White House chief of staff, to come up with a proposal to balance the budget and cut the debt.

Like the gun task force, Simpson-Bowles reviewed current regulations, gathered input from the public and engaged in tense internal conversations. But after months of working on a proposal—a blend of steep revenue increases and spending cuts—the group struggled to agree to a solution. The president did not take up the recommendations.

Obama largely avoided the issue of gun control during his first term.

He wrote an opinion piece two months after the 2011 assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, acknowledging the importance of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. In the piece he also called for a focus on "effective steps that will actually keep those irresponsible, law-breaking few from getting their hands on a gun in the first place."

Newtown searches for answers a month later

But in the aftermath of that shooting and as the election season loomed, the Justice Department backed off from a list of recommendations that included a measure designed to help keep mentally ill people from getting guns.

For now, at least, there is a sense in Washington that the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting where 26 people -- 20 of them young children -- were slaughtered could lead to meaningful legislative reform.

Public opinion would seem to suggest that the White House efforts are well timed.

In the month since the massacre, a new poll showed the percentage of Americans who said they were dissatisfied with America's gun laws has spiked.

The Gallup survey released on Monday showed 38% of Americans were dissatisfied with current gun regulations, and wanted stricter laws. That represented 13-point jump from one year ago, when 25% expressed that view. "You want to strike while the iron is hot," Sabato said. "We Americans have short attention spans and, as horrible as the Newtown shooting was, will anyone be surprised if we moved along by spring?"

The White House has since worked overtime to show it considers gun control an urgent matter.

The vice president has spent the last week meeting with what the White House calls "stakeholders" in the gun control debate.

On Monday, Biden was to meet with members of a House Democratic task force on guns, along with Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services.

Universal background check: What does it mean?

In a series of face to face discussions on Thursday, Biden sat down with the National Rifle Association and other gun owners groups before conferring with representatives from the film and television industry.

In a sign the White House is prepared to move aggressively on its proposals, Biden made public comments just before meeting with the National Rifle Association, the country's most powerful gun lobby.

"Putting the vice president in charge of (the task force) and having him meeting with these groups is intended to show seriousness and an effort to reach out and respond to concerns and wishes of various groups," said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University.

Still, the NRA expressed disappointment in its discussion with Biden and later released a statement that accused the administration of mounting "an agenda to attack the Second Amendment."

Organizations seeking tougher gun control laws insist an assault weapons ban is critical to addressing the nation's recent rash of mass shootings. However, such a ban could be difficult in a Congress mired in gridlock.

"The bully pulpit is limited. It's hard for the president to sustain that momentum," Zelizer said of the White House's gun control efforts after the Newtown shootings. "The thing about symbolism is, like the shock over Newtown, they fade quickly."

Newtown opens eyes to other gun violence against young people

CNN's Jim Acosta and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report

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Facebook launches search engine for friends' content

MENLO PARK: Facebook launched a search engine Tuesday for shared content as a way to find out more about friends on the huge social network in a potential challenge to Google and other Internet firms.

"We look at Facebook as a big social database," chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in announcing the so-called "graph search" function. "Just like any database, you should be able to query it."

The search engine aims to help members better navigate the vast amount of information on Facebook, which is not available on Web search engines such as Google.

Facebook emphasised that the new effort is not Web search, but can help find certain information archived within the network and in the content of friends.

"Every piece of content on Facebook has its own audience, and most content isn't public," a Facebook statement said.

"We've built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook. It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook."

Zuckerberg said that Facebook will also use its partnership with Microsoft's Bing search engine for the new effort and to find content housed outside the social network.

"I don't necessarily think a lot of people will be coming to Facebook to do Web search because of this, but it is a very good search engine," he said.

He said Facebook had discussed working with Google but that "Microsoft was just more willing to do things that were specific to Facebook."

The social network offered examples of graph search queries including "friends who live in my city," "people from my hometown who like hiking," "friends of friends who have been to Yosemite National Park," "software engineers who live in San Francisco and like skiing," "people who like things I like," or "people who like tennis and live nearby."

Zuckerberg said the tool is aimed at "giving the people the power and tools to take any cut of the graph (of data) they want and make any query they want."

He added that "We are not indexing the Web here, we are indexing our map of the graph."

The company said the new function goes back to its original goals of helping people make connections.

"When Facebook first launched, the main way most people used the site was to browse around, learn about people and make new connections," the statement said.

"Graph Search takes us back to our roots and allows people to use the graph to make new connections."

Tech analyst Jeff Kagan said the new Facebook effort is a modest challenge to Google.

"If I were Google, I would see this as a Facebook warning shot across their bow. This is not an immediate attack, but nevertheless an attack is coming," Kagan said.

"Can Facebook transform the search engine world? If the answer is yes than this is a bigger threat to Google."

Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott said Facebook's initiative aims to get people more engaged on the social network.

"Facebook's worst nightmare is a static social graph; if users aren't adding very many new friends or connections... their personal network becomes less and less active over time," Elliott said.

"But that may be happening: We haven't seen significant growth in the average number of friends per user recently. Graph search seems designed to encourage users to add more friends more quickly. If it means users' personal networks change more frequently, and become more active, then that keeps them coming back to the site -- which is vital to Facebook's success."

- AFP/jc

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U.S. quietly giving up its oil addiction

President Obama at an oil and gas production field near Maljamar, New Mexico in March, 2012.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Frida Ghitis: The U.S. will become the world's leading oil producer in a few years


• Ghitis: It is truly transformational that the U.S. is giving up its addiction to foreign oil


• Despite energy independence, we need to keep looking into green energy, she says


• Ghitis: It's beneficial for the U.S. to not rely on unstable, undemocratic Middle East for oil

Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns

(CNN) -- We pay a lot of attention to revolutions when they emerge suddenly and violently, but when a transformation arrives gradually and peacefully it's easy to miss.

Let's stop for a moment and take a look at a slow-motion development changing the world as we know it: The United States is giving up its addiction to foreign oil.

For decades, we bemoaned the awful toll this addiction has taken. The need for oil and natural gas -- much of it from Middle Eastern dictatorships -- shaped the foundation of global geopolitics. It created morally questionable alliances and repeatedly placed Washington in a position to choose between its fundamental values and its economic interests. Now all that could change.

When President Obama started his first term, the country faced stiff economic headwinds. Now, as he prepares to start his second term, the country enjoys a rare and unexpected tailwind, propelling it in one of the most important areas, with a host of positive implications.

Frida Ghitis

Clearly, the booming American oil and gas businesses are not problem-free, but the benefits -- economic, geopolitical and environmental -- of this impending energy independence far outweigh the drawbacks.

The days when Mideast oil-producing dictatorships and their friends at OPEC could so easily wave their power over a trembling, oil-thirsty West are on their way to becoming a relic of the past.

America still needs imported oil. But growing production and shrinking consumption have created a most promising trend. According to the International Energy Agency, the United States will become the world's leading oil producer in just a few years. Imagine that. The United States could produce more oil than Saudi Arabia as early as 2017 and become a net oil exporter by 2030.

And if you count other petroleum products, the future is already here. In 2011, the United States exported more petroleum products -- including gasoline, diesel and other fuels -- than it imported. That had not happened in more than half a century.

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The first major sign of impact is visible in Iran. The loosening of oil markets has strengthened the world's hand against oil-rich Iran. One main reason the international community has been able to impose strong sanctions on Tehran, aimed at persuading the regime to stop its illegal nuclear enrichment program, is that the global economy can do without Iranian oil. Iran's production has fallen 40%, a drop that not long ago would have created unacceptable economic hardships for the rest of the planet.

The trend is even more dramatic when you include natural gas, a product that is revolutionizing energy markets. The United States is about to become the second-largest exporter of natural gas behind Russia. Gigantic oil and gas finds in the United States and elsewhere are transforming the landscape, in some cases quite literally.

Other than rising oil prices, the reason for this shift is that new and controversial technologies such as fracking and horizontal drilling have multiplied the amount of viable deposits in unexpected places. The techniques take an environmental toll, but there are upsides.

Fracking, as we keep learning, is creating very troubling problems, which deserve scrutiny. But it is helping to replace coal, the dirtiest form of energy production, with much cleaner natural gas.

Another dark lining in this silver cloud is that cheaper oil and gas will reduce incentives to produce green energies. Rather than abandoning the new sources of energy, efforts should focus on finding ways to reduce the negative impact of fracking and on continuing the push for alternative energy.

Fracking protesters say drilling jobs not worth environmental risks

The Obama administration now faces a balancing act as it starts its new term. Energy policy, the quest for full energy independence, must be weighed against the growing threat of climate change.

A decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is imminent and political pressure against fracking will grow. The president should support strong climate legislation, without reversing the powerful gains of surging U.S. oil and gas production, with all its transformational benefits. The two goals are not mutually exclusive.

Once upon a time, America was the Saudi Arabia of whale oil, the fuel of its day. Whale oil was displaced by hydrocarbon production, which the United States also dominated. That started changing with enormous geopolitical consequences after easy, high quality oil was found in the Arabian Peninsula and other parts of the Middle East.

The United States built alliances with autocratic regimes as part of a commitment to satisfy its needs and preserve the free flow of oil, which became the life-blood of the global economy.

For oil-rich countries, this brought enormous fortunes, but it also brought something known as the "resource curse." With wealth concentrated in the hands of autocrats, corruption mushroomed, and other sectors of the economy withered.

A trend away from the concentration of oil production in such an unstable, undemocratic part of the world bodes well. It bodes well for human rights, and it also bodes well, ironically, for the economies of oil-rich countries, which may at long last find an incentive to diversify into other industries. It certainly bodes well for the U.S. economy, which is already creating tens of thousands of jobs in industries related to the new boom.

William Bennett: Damon's film overlooks fracking's boon

In what sounds like something from another era, the Energy Information Administration forecast declining gasoline prices for the next few years. That's the first bit of good news for American consumers. The really good news is the knowledge that soon, every time you fill up your tank you will not be sending a piece of your paycheck to the Middle East.

That, among other things, is excellent news for America's balance of trade and for the soundness of the U.S. economy, which sadly now struggles with a politically dysfunctional Washington.

No matter how much oil the United States and its friends in the Western Hemisphere produce, the Middle East remains a principal global petroleum producer for the foreseeable future. The United States still needs to ensure the free flow of oil, because a stop in production will cause prices to spike on global markets, affecting the entire planet.

But America and its friends are becoming much less vulnerable to oil shocks. And supplies from other parts of the world are becoming more plentiful. The emerging changes in the world's energy markets, if they continue to develop, are nothing short of revolutionary.

As Obama prepares for a new term in office, they are gradually rerouting us from a destiny that we had thought was inescapable and rather dismal to one that, while far from assured, looks much more promising.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frida Ghitis.

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Facebook announces new site search feature

Facebook announced that it is launching a search engine for the social network called "graph search."

At a press event in Menlo Park, Calif., Tuesday CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is launching a search engine that will run inside of Facebook.

"What is graph search? It's not web search," Zuckerberg told reporters.

During a comparison of graph search with a web search, Zuckerberg demonstrated that graph search will deliver answers to questions like, "Who are my friends that live in San Francisco?"

Graph search focuses on people, photos, places and interests. Users can type a question into the search bar on Facebook and ask questions. An option to refine searches is also provided.

Zuckerberg showed off other searched like: "Mexican restaurants in Palo Alto, Calif, my friends have been to" and "Photos of me and  Priscilla." The search is in still in its beta phase.

Facebook users can search for specific photos, like "photos of Berlin, German from 1989," "photos of my friends before 1990" or "photos I've liked."

Zuckerberg also touched on privacy concerns and pointed out to privacy shortcuts, which are located at the top right section of the website. The setting lets users see what photos have been uploaded, tagged and hidden from Timeline.

Facebook Graph Search is in the early stages of development. Because of a partnership with Bing, any results that cannot be found on Facebook will pull from Bing.com.

The social network was previously rumored to unveil a "Facebook phone," even though Zuckerberg has publically shot down speculation that Facebook was planning to build a smartphone.

"It is so clearly the wrong strategy for us," Zuckerberg said at a September technology conference in his first public interview after Facebook's May initial public offering. "It doesn't move the needle for us."

Facebook's graph search is in closed beta. Users who want to sign up for the test can join the waiting list on Facebook's website.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company reports 1 billion monthly active users, 240 billion photos and 1 trillion connections.

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Is China easing up on local media?

A protester calls for greater media freedom outside the headquarters of Nanfang Media Group in Guangzhou on Jan. 9.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Young: Handling of Southern Weekly row demonstrated tolerant side of new leadership


• Traditional, newer media can serve as tools for achieving goals in China's modernization


• The fight against corruption in China is at the top of the list for incoming leader, Xi Jinping


• Young: Media has also emerged as an important tool for combating other social problems

Editor's note: Doug Young teaches financial journalism at Fudan University in Shanghai and is the author of The Party Line: How the Media Dictates Public Opinion in Modern China published by John Wiley & Sons. He also writes daily on his blog, Young's China Business Blog, commenting on the latest developments in China's fast-moving corporate scene.

Shanghai, China (CNN) -- China's traditional iron-handed approach to the media has taken a surprise turn of tolerance with Beijing's soft handling of a recent dispute with local reporters, in what could well become a more open attitude toward the media under the incoming administration of presumed new President Xi Jinping.

The new openness is being driven in large part by pragmatism, as the government realizes that both traditional and newer media can serve as powerful tools for achieving many of its goals in the country's modernization.

The recent conflict between reporters at the progressive Southern Weekly and local propaganda officials over a censorship incident left many guessing how the government would respond to the first clash of its kind in China for more than 20 years. The result was a surprisingly mild approach, including mediation by a high-level government official and a vague promise for less censorship in the future.

Read: Censorship protest a test for China

The unusually tolerant tack could well reflect a new attitude by Xi and other incoming leaders set to take control of China for the next decade, all of whom have come to realize the media can serve many important functions beyond its traditional role as a propaganda machine.

At the top of Xi's list is the fight against corruption, a problem he has mentioned frequently since taking the helm of the Communist Party last year. The party has tried to tackle the problem for years using its own internal investigations, but progress was slow until recently due to protection many officials received through their own sprawling networks of internal relationships, known locally as guanxi.

Read: Corruption as China's top priority

All that began to change in the last two years with the rapid rise of social media, most notably the Twitter-like microblogs known as Weibo that are now a pervasive part of the Chinese Internet landscape and count hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese among their users. Those social media have become an important weapon for exposing corruption, allowing thousands of ordinary citizens to pool their resources and build cases against officials they suspect of using their influence for personal gain.

This increasingly sophisticated machine was on prominent display last year in a case involving Yang Dacai, a local official in northwestern Shaanxi province who infuriated the online community by smiling at the site of a horrific accident scene. Netizens quickly turned their outrage into an online investigation, and uncovered photos of him wearing several luxury watches he could hardly afford on his government salary. As a result, the government ultimately opened an investigation into the matter and Yang was sacked from his posts.

In addition to its role in battling corruption, the media has also emerged as an important tool for combating and addressing many of the other social problems that China is facing in its rapid modernization. Barely a week goes by without a report on the latest national food safety scandal or case of illegal pollution in both traditional and social media, with such reports often followed by government investigations.

Beijing leaders have also discovered that the media can also be an important vehicle for improving communication between the government and general public -- something that was a low priority in previous eras when officials only cared about pleasing their higher-up party bosses.

Following a Beijing directive in late 2011, most local government agencies and other organizations have all established microblog accounts, which they use to keep the public informed about their latest activities and seek feedback on upcoming plans. Such input has become a valuable way to temper traditional public mistrust toward the government, which historically didn't make much effort to include the public in any of its internal discussions.

Lastly, the government has also discovered that media, especially social media, can be an effective tool in gauging public opinion on everything from broader national topics like inflation down to very local issues like land redevelopment. Such feedback was difficult to get in the past due to interference by local officials, who tried to filter out or downplay anything with negative overtones and play things up to their own advantage. As a result, central government officials often received incomplete pictures of what was happening in their own country.

With all of these valuable roles to play, the media has become an increasingly important part of Beijing's strategy in executing many of its top priorities.

The government also realizes that a certain degree of openness is critical to letting the media perform many of those roles, which may explain its relatively tolerant approach in the recent Southern Weekly conflict. Such tolerance is likely to continue under Xi's administration, helping to shift more power towards a field of increasingly emboldened reporters at both traditional and new media and away from their traditional propaganda masters.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Doug Young.

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'Very happy' Bush the elder leaves hospital

WASHINGTON: Former US president George H.W. Bush was released from hospital on Monday following more than two months of treatment for bronchitis, a bacterial infection and a persistent cough.

"Mr Bush has improved to the point that he will not need any special medication when he goes home, but he will continue physical therapy," said physician Amy Mynderse.

Bush, at 88 the oldest surviving former president, was admitted to the Methodist Hospital in Houston on November 7 and released after 12 days only to be readmitted four days later when his cough flared up again.

"I am deeply grateful for the wonderful doctors and nurses at Methodist who took such good care of me," Bush said in a statement after being picked up by his wife Barbara.

"Let me add just how touched we were by the many get-well messages we received from our friends and fellow Americans. Your prayers and good wishes helped more than you know, and as I head home my only concern is that I will not be able to thank each of you for your kind words."

Bush's spokesman Jim McGrath told AFP that the former president and his wife had returned immediately to their home in west Houston where he would continue to receive "some strength training or conditioning."

Calling it a "wonderful day" for the ex-president, the spokesman said Bush had understood the need to be in hospital but was delighted to be out.

"He's not a man who is known to enjoy sitting still for too long, and as long as he didn't need to be in the hospital he wanted to get out. He's a very happy former president today," McGrath added.

No more tests were scheduled but the spokesman said they would "take these things one day at a time."

Doctors had hoped to have the elder statesman home for Christmas, but he was instead forced to spend the holiday season in the hospital, where he was joined by his wife Barbara, son Neil and grandson Pierce.

Bush, a Republican, served only one term in the White House, from 1989 to 1993, despite sending US troops to victory in the first Gulf War in which an American-led coalition expelled Saddam Hussein's invading forces from Kuwait.

Bush, a decorated World War II veteran, had earlier served in several top government posts, including as vice president to Ronald Reagan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and as US ambassador to the United Nations.

He was also chief of the US Liaison Office in China when Washington had official ties with Beijing's foe Taipei.

His son George W. Bush served two terms as president and also went to war with Iraq, this time sending US-led troops all the way to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam, whom he had wrongly accused of hoarding weapons of mass destruction.

- AFP/jc

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Oscar's message: Reality bites

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A.S. Hamrah: Oscar-nominated films deal in disaster, trauma, upheaval, ruined lives


• He says filmmakers this year depict consequences of exposure to violence


• He says "Argo," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Lincoln" show grim events; "Les Mis" shows misery


• Films also long, adding to ordeal, he says. Filmmakers' message: Deal with it

Editor's note: A.S. Hamrah is film critic at n+1, a print magazine of politics, literature and culture published three times a year. He edits the magazine's film review publication, the N1FR, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

(CNN) -- Sunday night's Golden Globes came hot on the heels of the announcement of this year's Oscar nominations, which were pushed up so they wouldn't come out during the Sundance Film Festival. Awards season is now a blur of gowns, cleavage and red carpeting. But in Hollywood, looking good is still more important than feeling good, except in the movies themselves, where the situation is often reversed. And in this year's dire crop of nominees, there is not much feel-good.

Consider "Argo," one of this year's nine nominees for the Best Picture Academy Award. The Hollywood sign that looms over Los Angeles was in reality spruced up just before the 1979 events depicted in the film, but it makes sense that we see it damaged and collapsing instead in Ben Affleck's movie about Hollywood's intervention in the Iran hostage crisis.

That's because all the Oscar-nominated films this year deal in disaster, trauma and upheaval. Whether the damage is historical or personal, familial or environmental, or some combination of the four, the films the academy singled out this year tell stories of catastrophe and its aftermath.

While CIA movies like "Argo" and Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" are "based on first-hand accounts of actual events," as a title at the beginning of Bigelow's film informs us, this year even a movie as colorful as "Life of Pi" or a musical like "Les Misérables" brought us ruined lives and devastated landscapes.

For the first time in decades, the societal and psychological consequences of constant exposure to violence were actually something big-budget filmmakers took into account. That they have been rewarded for it at awards season is ironic and necessary in a year that witnessed a mass killing in a movie theater showing the last in a dark trilogy of superhero fantasies.

Even light-hearted genres were affected. Romance, in the neo-screwball comedy of "Silver Linings Playbook," blossoms between people with serious problems recovering from violent loss. That film, set in a recognizable lower-middle-class milieu, deglamorized the rom-com, moving it into a new era. In David O. Russell's film, the characters played by Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper don't dream of having it all. Happy to score a five instead of 10, they exult in their ability just to participate in normal life.

Opinion: Despite Newtown, we crave violent movies

Lawrence and Cooper are outpatients, but many of the academy-acknowledged films this year feature bedridden performances by actors playing characters with broken or failing bodies.

Naomi Watts, nominated as Best Actress for her performance in "The Impossible," spends half the film on death's door in a Thai hospital. In "The Sessions," John Hawkes, nominated for Best Actor as a poet suffering from polio, spends the entire movie on his back. Denzel Washington, nominated for his lead performance as an alcoholic pilot in "Flight," wakes up in a hospital and suffers the physical effects of his crash through most of the film. In Michael Haneke's "Amour," we watch Emmanuelle Riva slowly dying, slipping into immobility, incoherence and unconsciousness as she suffers.

The desire for a new understanding of historical trauma accompanies this new investigation of damaged minds and bodies. Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, in "Lincoln" and "Django Unchained," both show slavery as the original disaster of American history, an inhuman institution defined by vicious abuse that ended in bloody civil war. Neither film tolerates the conciliatory old Hollywood portrait of the South as noble and romantic. As violent as Tarantino's view is, Spielberg's is just as condemnatory. When Jackie Earle Haley, known of late for playing deviants and psychopaths, shows up in "Lincoln" as a representative of the Confederacy, you can be sure his cause is as wrong as it is lost.

The post-revolutionary settings of "Argo" and "Les Misérables" are chaotic and dangerous, but the greatest danger facing the characters in this year's Oscar movies comes from nature. The scope of this danger is biblical, but it's rooted in real events linked to climate change. Great floods wash away the bonds of family, among other things, in "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Life of Pi," "The Impossible" and "Moonrise Kingdom" (nominated for Best Original Screenplay). "Les Misérables" begins with an ark-like ship being dragged into port, a heavy symbol in a movie drowned in Anne Hathaway's tears.

Part of this sense of ordeal has to do with the epic length of the ever-lengthening Hollywood blockbuster. The average length of the Best Picture nominees this year was 135 minutes. Remove the indie "Beasts of the Southern Wild" from the list, by comparison a short subject at 93 minutes, and the average running time jumps to 141 long minutes, a length that sorely tests the ever-shortening patience of most viewers not to check their phones for texts.

For decades, disaster films were metaphors. In the 1950s, for instance, they turned the real threat of nuclear devastation into science fiction, helping viewers cope with a frightening future. In our post-collapse era, disaster is closer than ever. The new, post-metaphoric disaster movie avoids subtext by forefronting "actual events." The message here is: Deal with it. Did Hollywood finally catch up with the world, or did the world just catch up with the disaster film?

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of A.S. Hamrah.

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