lovehurts, if you're a film student, then you KNOW that "Birth of a Nation" is a propaganda film, and has no place in this discussion of films meant to be forms of entertainment. That's like comparing apples to apples that suggest you kill babies. Of course a propagandist film is going to have a specific promotion, and of course the people who respond most resoundingly to that promotion are people who have already taken interest in the subject matter. A film created to entertain is not going to have those propagandist qualities, and is not going to promote anything. It's merely going to tell a story.

Furthermore, media does not shape us. We determine what media to take in and what media to disregard. While it is true that there are some cases of people who have been "led" to violent acts as a result of viewing a certain media, these are the exception, not the rule. Normal, average, sane people are not influenced by an hour and a half's worth of flashy explosions to do something they didn't already want to do in the first place.

As a student of the media, you should understand that holding media institutions at fault for the actions of individuals is wrong. People determine their own lives, and the various forms of media in the world make commentary on that.