How far do games such as manhunt and manhunt 2 provoke actual violence?

Throughout the internet I found hundreds of articles and a lot of them appear to be more biased towards the idea that video-games (in particular manhunt and manhunt 2) provoke violence among teenagers and that of younger ages. The interesting thing about these opinions is that not many of them show actual facts/figures backing up their arguments, and those that do feature links to news reports never officially state that the game itself was responsible.

They always state that the teen had a copy of the game in "his/her bedroom" and then upon further research of that particular case there is a lot more evidence backing up an alternate reason to do with the murderer robbing the victim in order to obtain money to feed his drug addiction.

However upon reading other articles and web pages across the internet is seems that articles disagreeing with these theories stating that video games encourage murder and violence, generally have more of a leg to stand on and generally have links and quotes made by top scientists who know a lot more on the subject than biased opinion based people.

http://games.kikizo.com/news/200408/009.asp

Topic Decision

I have decided on a definite topic, which is topic 4 Crime and the Media. I will now research the topic generally looking at theories and other media professional's  opinions in order to gain a wider knowledge.

This will help to answer my specific question in more detail, in order to answer this question I will have to determine my opinion on whether "Violent video games contribute to violence" or whether this statement is wrong. However I could gather from my research that on some occasions that this is true but not on all occasions.

Newspaper Article

Article

Topic Research

I have decided that I am either going to choose Topic 4: Crime and Media, Topic 2 Children and the Media or for my final choice Topic 7 Television and Drama. I will have to research both topics in detail in order to determine which one I will decide upon.

I will use the internet for sources of information as well as Media related magazines, newspapers and relevant television programs in particular the news both local and world wide. I will also conduct interviews/questionnaires with people in order to find a variety of opinions.

Which ever specific Topic I decide upon I will have to thoroughly research it in depth, then create a question relating to that specific Topic.