What if we knew that the fictional rapes in HBO’s mega-hit “Game of Thrones” caused real rapes in the real world? What if we knew that the portrayals of gay characters in “Modern Family” caused actual states to legalize same-sex marriage? The catch, of course, is causation. Medical research can prove that cigarettes cause cancer, but the best social scientists can do is to say whether there’s a “correlation,” or not, between media and behavior. And sometimes even that isn’t clear.

When you comb communication research for evidence for or against a correlation between violent video games and violent behavior, for example, you can find enough on both sides to muddy any conclusion. Yet this doesn’t correspond with our experience. More reporters than I can count have said they became journalists because of “All the President’s Men.” Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who died last Friday, played Inspector Erskine for nine seasons of “The FBI,” and his Los Angeles Times obituary noted that he was awarded the FBI’s highest civilian honor for being “an icon who inspired a generation of FBI agents.”

As Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker, the dean of West Point, along with three of the most experienced military and FBI interrogators in the country, flew to Hollywood to tell the creative team behind “24,” which begins its 12th season this week, that his students, despite being told by their teachers and textbooks that torture is wrong and doesn’t work, were learning the opposite lesson from Kiefer Sutherland’s character, Jack Bauer.

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