I think we have a couple of different ideas floating about here all under the guise of subliminal messages. Subliminal is defined:
1. Below the threshold of conscious perception. Used of stimuli.
2. Inadequate to produce conscious awareness but able to evoke a response: subliminal propaganda.
So by definition subliminal mssages are not perceptable. There are certain colors, sounds, etc. that can evoke feelings in many people and these are often used in concert with the goals of the store. This falls in line with the second defintion.
As for music/videogames/media etc., I do not think it really promotes these actions but has made the observer more desensitised to them. Oh, well just another school shooting, etc. We seem so over whelmed with negative images that we seem to be less atune to what is actually going on around us, until it reaches the level of noteworthy. I.E. the level that works under our perception is growing. We no longer tend to notice the loner walking down the street. 50 years ago, many small towns would call the cops on vagrants. We tend to ignore these things now. The individual has become more isolationist with its direct surroundings.
Ther have been no studies that indicated visual or auditory subliminal message really work as far as I know. They actually tried to use subliminal message to get the BTK killer to confess in the 80's. There have been a few cases against rock bands accused of having subliminal messages(Judas Priest) but they were found to be merritless. Much of what others read as subliminal is just a random bit of image that they interpret in such a way. In
The Clam-Plate Orgy and Other Subliminals the Media use to Manipulate Your Behavior by Dr. Wilson Bryan Key, he thought that the dots on a Ritz cracker spelled sex. (
http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/adcla.../clamplate.htm).
