MediaChannel.org - ISSUE GUIDES | Media Mayhem  A Culture Of Violence On July 21, 1999, an alliance of U.S. politicians, clergy members, academics, business leaders and citizen advocates launched a public campaign against media violence. Their "Appeal to Hollywood" charged: "American parents today are deeply worried about their children's exposure to an increasingly toxic popular culture." Endorsing an call to action that was ambiguous at best, the petition asserted that something was deeply amiss in the culture of Hollywood and attracted over 5,000 additional signatures. Around the world, coalitions continue to express concern about the frequency and degree of violence in the mass media, especially in children's media. But while some scholars see real danger in violent media messages, others are concerned that focusing attention on media violence obscures more important political, social and economic issues.
How can we moderate violence in entertainment media without infringing on freedom of expression? How can reporters cover crime stories without being accused of "body-bag journalism"? And if popular culture is so "toxic," and we're so dissatisfied with media offerings, why is the TV on in the average American home for over 7 hours a day in the average American home? Why did we spend $6.88 billion dollars at the box office in 1998? Do we need to eliminate violence in media because we can't control our own lust for savagery?
Answers are easy for free-speech extremists or moral crusaders. But resolutions are hard to come by when those engaged with the issue can't agree on the problem. Lets listen to the arguments of legislators, scholars, journalists and teachers before we decide whom to support and whom to challenge.
- Aliza Dichter, editor
Media Violence: The U.S. Response In the wake of a rash of shootings by students in middle class, Middle-American high schools, the issue of violence in the media has come to the forefront of American public discourse.
The Benton Foundation's comprehensive overview of this hot-button issue includes scholarly studies,
policy initiatives, and debates. A study by the Parents' Television Council concludes
that the television industry ratings introduced in 1997 have actually led to an increase in violent programming. Epidemiologist Brandon Centerwall finds evidence linking exposure
to media violence with violent behavior by children, though he warns that proposals to
address such violence must not infringe upon free speech. Media critic Todd Gitlin challenges the very idea of focusing on media violence, suggesting that it draws public attention away from the real sources of crime.
From Communications Policy & Practice - Benton Foundation, June 17 1999  THE MESSAGES Living In A Mean World After 30 years of analyzing TV violence and its effects on viewer perception, researcher George Gerbner
concludes that the mass media have become the primary source of the information we use to make
sense of the world around us. Gerbner, considered by many to be the dean of media violence scholarship,
is not concerned about the impact of violent images per se. His studies have shown that there are
distinct patterns to violent conflicts in the media: certain groups are consistently shown to be effective
and powerful through their use of violence, while other groups are continually represented as victims.
For Gerbner, the real harm is that viewers learn to identify with the groups they see on television.
This is the dangerous impact of media violence on culture, according to Gerbner: that white males
are essentially trained to see themselves as, and to become, more aggressive; and women
and people of color learn to accept, and expect, victimization. From Cultural Environment Movement, August 1 1998 Is Japan Safe From Media Violence? Critics of the theory that media violence influences real-life violence often point to Asia, claiming that,
in comparison with the United States, Asia has equal, if not higher, levels of violence in pop culture media
but significantly lower rates of real-life violence. Now, however, crime and violence are increasing among
Japanese teens; le Monde diplomatique correspondent David Ensnault asks if the media might be
partially to blame.(Note: full article available to subscribers only) From Le Monde Diplomatique, September 9 1999 Culture Of Fear Forty to 50 percent of news airtime is devoted to violent topics, irrespective of actual rates of crime,
observes Rocky Mountain Media Watch, a non-profit organization that has analyzed local U.S. TV
newscasts for five years. As a result, the group concludes, viewers develop an exaggerated sense of
the world as a violent and dangerous place. RMMW Executive Director Paul Klite suggests that our
violence-obsessed entertainment and news media are "nurturing a culture of sadism." Klite recommends
that news broadcasters not only decrease the frequency of violent stories, but also become more sensitive
to their potential effects, educate viewers about these effects, and create news stories which seek to make
sense of the background and social context of crime, rather than simply churning out tabloid tales of horror. From Rocky Mountain Media Watch, May 24 1999 The News: Women Are Victims Concerns with media and violence are not limited to the United States. When three scholars from Canada,
Singapore, and Thailand got together to discuss media violence, they voiced similar concerns: that media
images of violence against women tend to reinforce concepts of women as victims and sex objects,
simplifying or ignoring the complicated social, economic, and cultural factors involved in these crimes.
Rose Dyson, Ubonrat Siriyuvasak, and Meena Shivdas offer specific suggestions for journalists and news
outlets to improve their coverage of violence against women. From World Assoc. for Christian Comm., January 1 2000 Fear Of The "Superpredator" If the U.S. has developed a fear of the "superpredator," the depraved and violent suburban white
teenager emblematic of a new, murderous, societal menace, Mike Males blames Rolling Stone
contributing editor Randall Sullivan. Males charges Sullivan with falsely creating an epidemic,
giving rise to a moral panic about teenagers and violence and inciting
"punitive policies" towards adolescents. From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), January 1 2000 White Pathology, Black Culture Not only does the media's obsession with violence obscure real issues of violence in society, it has a
dangerous racial component as well, writes Henry A. Giroux. In Giroux's analysis, the white killers in
Hollywood's world are pathological, nihilistic pop culture icons that do not demand identification from
their audience. But violence in the black world is presented in ways that suggest that it is a "black problem,"
that black culture and society are inherently bound up in violence. The result, says Giroux, is that
"black powerlessness becomes synonymous with criminality ." From Z Magazine/ZNet, March 1 1995 Murder Training Traumatize and brutalize them, teach them to laugh and cheer at violence, use human-like targets
instead of bulls-eyes, and condition them to believe that killing the enemy is a noble goal. These, says
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, were the incredibly effective techniques developed by the U.S. military to condition
soldiers to become better killers. And this is the way we are conditioning our children though violent media
and video games, according to Grossman and Media Watch, a 15-year-old organization dedicated to
creating "more informed consumers of the mass media." Media Watch is deeply concerned about the
sexist and violent messages of "point-and-shoot" video games which are played from a first-person
perspective with realistic 3-D effects. In the best-selling game "Duke Nukem," the targets are often half-naked
women---prostitutes and sex workers. Media Watch calls for a boycott of Toys 'R' Us, the largest distributor
of "Duke Nukem" games. From Media Watch, October 1 1999 It's Only A Game John Romero was co-creator of "Wolfenstein 3-D", the original "first-person-shooter" video game.
He's a rich man now, after revolutionizing the video game industry with Doom and Quake, which
evolved in later versions to include incredibly realistic, graphic depictions of blood and flesh and weapons.
Talking to Guardian reporter Paul Keegan, Romero doesn't seem too concerned about the attacks on his
products: "I make games I want to play. If people don't like it, they don't need to play the game."(Free subscription required to view article)
From Guardian Unlimited, June 1 1999 But Are The Studies Flawed? Content analysis methods and studies of media effects have been criticized for a number of reasons:
using broad, unspecific definitions of "violence" which equate cartoons with news reports; inaccurately
presuming audiences to be passive, unthinking receivers; and relying on faulty research techniques to
measure media-influenced personality changes. But while the World Association for Christian
Communication recognizes these critiques, it finds a substantial body of evidence which supports
the theory that media violence does affect viewers. Comparative content analyses from the United States, the U.K.,
Israel, and Germany have shown strikingly similar patterns in the way violence is represented in the media
of all four countries. Consistently, media portrayals of violence ignore social factors; misrepresent the
demographic facts, frequency, and outcomes of violence; and present violence as a natural, effective
means of conflict resolution.
From World Assoc. for Christian Comm., January 1 2000 Angry, Violent Men In September 1999, Children Now released the results of a study designed to examine media messages
about gender and masculinity and their impact on American boys. The national poll revealed that "almost
three fourths of children describe males on television as violent and more than two-thirds describe men and
boys on television as angry." The study also found most children say movies and video games are more
violent than television shows, supporting similar results from the study's content analyses.
From Children Now, September 1 1999 Missing The Point Music, clothes, video games, films, and websites have all been looked at as factors and causes
inciting kids to violence, influences leading to the 13 shootings in U.S. schools since 1996.
Is this simply an opportunity for censorship and dress codes, for increased regulation and moral crusading? Jim D'Entremont argues this cultural finger-pointing is
misdirecting public focus from the real issues at hand: "the crushing conformity of superficially 'diverse'
U.S. culture, the quality of U.S. education, the purportedly classless nation's preoccupation with status,
and the institutionally legitimized violence of the state."
From Index on Censorship, July 1 1999 THE RESPONSES How To Read Violence There's a formula to media violence, and understanding it can help you make judgements about the media
you consume, what is appropriate for children, and how to talk to children about media violence, asserts
Media Literacy teacher Barbara Osborn. Osborn provides guidelines to help identify and deconstruct the
messages in violent media.
From Center for Media Literacy, January 1 1993 Selling Killing To Kids Do the U.S. media and video game industry market violence to kids? This seemingly rhetorical question
is the focus of a new one-year, $1 million study by the Federal Trade Commission. President Clinton
announced the study in June, 1999, as part of the government's focus on the dangerous effects of media violence.
One goal of the study is to examine whether media and game industries are undermining their own rating
systems by marketing products to children younger than the product's rating specifies. From Connect to Kids - Benton Foundation, June 30 1999 Truth In Labeling Or Censorship? The Media Violence Labeling Act of 1999, on the table of the U.S. Senate, would require the music,
television, film, and video game industries to jointly develop an enforceable ratings system for violent content.
But First Amendment advocates fear an excuse for censorship, and are concerned that an arbitrary
definition of "violent content" would stifle artists and stigmatize works that explore issues of violence or
use violence in an important, meaningful way.
From Freedom Forum, September 3 1999 Reporting The Real News About Violence Journalists generally write about violence from a law-enforcement and criminal justice perspective.
But are they missing an important part of the story? For 20 years, U.S. public health institutions have
recognized violence as an epidemic, applying public health methods of data collection, statistical analysis,
risk assessment, and community initiatives to address violence as a public health crisis. The Violence
Reporting Project helps journalists learn about this information and incorporate it into their news coverage.
In this Nieman Report, the Project's leaders explain the value of the public health perspective and outline
specific steps for newspapers to transform their violence coverage and measure the effects of such changes.
From Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, August 19 1999 No More Body-bag Journalism For KTCA Local U.S. TV news has long been criticized for the unwritten policy, "if it bleeds, it leads." Public
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