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Violence in the Media? Monkey see, monkey do? has become a well-known saying in today? s modern, media warped society, but is it correct? What has the world come to these days?
It often seems like everywhere one looks, violence rears its ugly head. We see it in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. The last of these, our homes, is a major source of violence. In many peoples living rooms there sits an outlet for violence that often goes unnoticed. It is the television, and the people who view it are often pulled into its realistic world of violence scenes with sometimes devastating results. Much research has gone into showing why our society is so mesmerized by this big glowing box and the action that takes place within it.
Only a mere sixty years ago the invention of the television was viewed as a technological breakthrough with black and white ghost-like figures on a screen so small, hardly anyone could see them. Today that curiosity has become a constant companion to 90 % of the American population (Sherrow 26), mainly, children and teenagers. From reporting the news and advertising in order to persuade us to buy certain products, to providing programs that depict violence, television has all but replaced written material. Unfortunately, it is these violent programs that are endangering our present-day society. Violent images on television, as well as in the movies, have inspired people to set spouses on fire in their beds, lie down in the middle of highways, extort money by placing bombs in airplanes, rape, steal, murder, and commit numerous other shootings and assaults. (Brown 78) Most of what is broadcast or transmitted even in the news today is with reference to the chaotic condition of our planet, or something else that society as a whole sees as detrimental or damaging.
The average American child will witness 200, 000 acts of media violence by the time that child graduates from high school. ? (Sherrow 6) Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, James Baldwin wrote in Nobody Knows my Name. But they have never failed to imitate them. (Sherrow 56) This basic truth has all but disappeared as the public increasingly treats teenagers as a robot-like population under sway of an exploitative media. White House officials lecture film, music, Internet, fashion, and pop-culture moguls and accuse them of programming kids to smoke, drink, shoot up, have sex, and kill. A recent report from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) pools evidence from over 2, 500 studies within the last decade on over 100, 000 subjects from several nations to show that the compiled evidence of the media? s influence on behavior is so overwhelming that there is a consensus in the research community that violence in the media does lead to aggressive behavior (Methvin 49).
Given that the majority of scientific community agrees that the research findings of the NIMH publication support conclusion of a causal relationship between television violence and aggressive behavior (Wurtzel 21), why is it that the Saturday morning cartoons? are the most violent time slot on television? (Methvin 49) And that despite slight variations over the past decade, the amount of violence in the media has remained at consistently high levels (Wurtzel 23). Despite the negative effects media violence has been known to generate, no drastic changes have been made to deal with this problem that seems to be getting worse. We, as a whole, have glorified this violence so much that movies such as? Natural Born Killers? and television shows such as?
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers? are viewed as normal, everyday entertainment. It? s even rare now to find a children? s cartoon that does not depict some type of violence or comedic aggression. It is this aggression that is rubbing off on our society, and it is this aggression that we are trying to hide.
Why is it that like the tobacco companies twenty years ago, the present day television broadcasting companies refuse to consent that violent films and programming can and do have harmful effects on their viewers (Rowland 280) What can be done to combat the stubborn minded broadcasting companies and to reduce the amount of violent scenes that infest every aspect of our senses? The media giants of today, such as ABC, CBS, and NBC continue to air violent shows, because they make money off of these programs. In general, society finds scenes of violence simply exciting (Feshbach 12). Broadcasting companies argue that based on the high ratings, they are giving the public what it wants, and therefore are serving the public interest (Feshbach 34). Michael Howe states: We have to remember that children and adults do enjoy and do choose to watch and listen to those programs and music that contain violence (48).
At the same time, however, we must also remember the undeniable truth that there is clear evidence between television violence and later aggressive behavior (Palmer 120). Because violent media has been proven time and time again to play an active role toward inciting hostile behavior in children, the level of combative programming and movies must be reduced. The media argument that high ratings correspond with the publics best interest is simply not valid. Even the American Medical Association agrees that the link between media violence and later aggressive behavior warrants a major organized cry of protest from the medical profession (Palmer 122). The issue of the publics infatuation with Media can be paralleled with that of a young child and his desire for candy and junk foods. The child enjoys eating such foods, though they produce the harmful effects of rotting away at his teeth.
With a parent to limit his intake of such harmful sweets, however, the child is protected from their damage. Similarly, the American public desires to view violent programs at the risk of adapting induced aggressive behaviors. Because the networks refuse to act as a mother, and to limit the amount of violence shown on television, there are no restrictions to prevent televisions violent candy from rotting away at the teeth of society. Harry Skornia claims that it is naive and romantic to expect a corporation to have either a heart of a soul in the struggle for profits and survival (34).
But who, then, is to take responsibility for the medias actions if not the industry itself? Because there has not been any sufficient answers to this question so far, Media violence has not diminished greatly; nor have Saturday morning programs for children, marked by excessively violent cartoons, changed much for the better (Cullingford 61). One may ask: Why cant the government or the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intervene to control the amount of violent programming that currently circulates during most broadcasting hours? Edward Palmer states: The Fcc's reluctance to regulate especially directly about violent content is consistent with that of many other groups. Because the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, no direct censorship os programming has ever been advocated by responsible groups concerned with the problem of television violence (124). The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) holds fast to its claim that there are no scientific findings that show a link between television violence and unusually violent behavior in children (Rowland 279).
The network executives at ABC express the ideals that they are self-confident about the lack of both a serious case against them and of any sincere willingness by Congress to pursue beyond the heat of rhetoric the matters of broadcasting profitability and commercial purpose (Rowland 280). One can derive from this statement that the networks are clearly not worried about any form of government intervention or even the slightest bit concerned about the barrage of scientific data that correlates violent television and hostility among children. Because of the First Amendment to the Constitution, the government and the FCC are rendered virtually ineffective in the pursuit of limiting the current amount of violence on television and movies. Public action is the only other option if society wishes to create a stronger programming schedule for todays children.
Several organizations such as the National Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) have urged their members to lobby public force against advertisers on high-violence programs and movies (Methvin 53). The public must dictate its feelings by not lending support to those companies that advertise during violent television shows. The viewer has a right to declare that he is not going to help pay for those programs by buying the advertised products or going to the movies (Methvin 52). To aid public, The National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV) publishes quarterly lists of the companies and products that sponsor the most mayhem, and also companies that allot the largest portion of their budgets to violent programming (Methvin 53). Public boycott of companies who advertise on violent programs seems to be the only way to inform the networks and syndicator's that a public health problem exists with which they must deal (Methvin 21).
Michael Howe claims that over many years, little more than lip service has been paid by the television networks to the expressed need to protect children from the injurious influences (Chaffee 09). History shows too, that cries of protest, even when accompanied by rigorous data, have had little influence on the media industry in the past (Palmer 177). A public boycott of violent programming, lyrics, and movies apparently, is the only way to make the production staff accept media violence first and foremost as potentially damaging, rather than regarding it principally as potential entertainment (Belson 527). Only when the public is able to change the current attitudes of the media on the topic of aggression and television, can a plan to engender more beneficial and useful forms of television content be implemented (Brown 259). Despite the continuously mounting evidence that violent media has harmful effects on its young viewers, the three major broadcasting companies, ABC, CBS, and NBC, refuse to acknowledge these findings.
One may find it ironic that out of over 2, 500 reports on television violence, only seven do not indicate a link between the violence on the screen and aggressive behavior in young children (Chaffee 33). Even more ironic is the fact that one such report was heavily funded by The National Broadcasting Network (NBC). The NBC funded report claims that their study did not find any evidence that, over the time periods studied, television was causally implicated in the development of aggressive behavior patterns among children and adolescents (Milavsky 489). In a CBS study, the network succeeded in reducing the amount of violence reported by excluding a significant (and unreported) amount of violent representation (Chaffee 33). Studies by the large networks can easily be rigged to present values to support the broadcasters hypothesis that media aggression does not influence violent behavior by changing the definition of what constitutes a violent act.
The network studies only count the use of force against persons or animals, or the articulated, explicit threat of physical force to compel particular behavior on the part of a person (Wurtzel 27). Unlike the NIMH study, the network program did not include violence from comedy and slapstick, accidents and acts of nature such as floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes (Wurtzel 27). By excluding certain types of violence, the broadcasters are able to manipulate their data to support the conclusion that media violence does not incite hostile behavior in children. The big media giants cannot be trusted to present accurate surveys of violence, because evidence shows that their findings are the result of loaded statistics and data. The current networks stand, stubborn and deaf, to the cries of the American Medical Association, suggestions by the Federal Communications Commission, and the concerns of other public organizations.
The networks do not wish to alter their present displays of violence, because they fear financial losses and economic decline. To force the media to acknowledge public opinion against aggressive television programming, society must create financial distress for the television networks and force them to recognize the harmful effects of televised hostility on children. Only when the broadcasters and producers of violent programming admit and realize the damaging results of violence on society and our children will significant improvements be made to generate productive and imaginative entertainment. af 1 Work Sited Belson, William A. Television and the Adolescent Boy. Great Britain: Saxon House, 1978.
Brown, Ray, ed. Children and The Media. Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications Inc. , 1996. Chaffee, Steven H. , George Gerber, Beatrix A.
Hamburgh, Chester M. Pierce, Eli A. Rubinstein, Alberta E. Siegel, and Jerome L. Singer. Defending the Un defendable.
Society Sept. -Oct. 1984: 30 - 36. Cullingford, Cedric. Children and Media Violence. New York: St.
Martins Press, 1996. Himmelweit, Hilde T. , A. N. Oppenheim, and Pamela Vince. Television and the Child. London: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Howe, Michael J. A. Television and Children. London: New University Education, 1977. Lowe, Carl, ed.
The Media and American Culture. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1981. Methvin, Eugene H. T.
V. violence: the shocking new evidence. Readers Digest Jan. 1993: 49 - 54. Milavsky, Ronald J. , Ronald C. Kessler, Horst. H.
Still, and William S. Rubens. Television and Aggression. Orlando: Academic Press Inc. , 1982. Palmer, Edward L.
Children and the Faces of Television. New York: Academic Press Inc. , 1980. Pearl, David. Violence and Aggression Society Sept. -Oct. 1984: 17 - 23. Rowland, Willard D. Jr.
and Horace Newcomb. The Politics of T. V. Violence. Sage Publications Inc. , 1983. Feshbach, Seymour and Robert D.
Singer. Television and Aggression. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass Inc. , 1971. Skornia, Harry J.
Television and Society. New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1965. Wurtzel, Alan, and Guy Lometti. Researching Television Violence. Society Sept. -Oct. 1984: 22 - 31. Sherrow, Victoria.
Violence and the media. Connecticut: The Millbrook Press, 1996
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