Critical Thinking
Learning
Effects of Media Violence
Abstract
Violence in media has been with us for centuries; it was very much a part of the media of the times just as it is today. Whereas the Romans may have had their spectacles in the Coliseum we have our slasher movies and video games. The specter of media violence crept up on us while we weren’t paying too much attention. It took its time at first and we got complacent and distracted by other things and before we knew it there it was right in our lap. Now all the parts are in place and the damage is being done and it is unstoppable, like a runaway train. The ones hit hardest by our neglect of this menace are the children and adolescents in our society, but actually it affects every one of us in one way or another. Many young adults and some older live with the effects media violence has left on them and so do many of those who became unwilling victims as a result of media violence. The sights and sounds and results of media violence are with us every day like a monkey on our backs that we just can’t shake. Listen to your local news, the national news and the world news, look at the entertainment section in your newspaper, turn on your radio or tune in to the sights and sounds of the current music videos. You will see evidence of media violence and all its spin-offs right there before you in all its glory, repugnant and in your face.
Generally it is the young people who take the lead when it comes to accessing new media and most parents and adults have no idea what the children are doing on the computer, like internet surfing, or video games or music downloads. This is particularly disturbing, given the results of a 1999 AOL survey that found online activities are emerging as a central facet of family life; and that a majority of parents believe that being online is better for their children than watching television. So now in 2007 thing are not any better, in fact they are worse. As a civilized society we must deal with the problem and stem this abuse of our children and the damage being inflicted to our society as a whole. This paper takes a look at the many faces of media violence, its effects and how it is hurting our children and our entire society.
Introduction
Do children learn to be aggressive or pugnacious by watching violence in movies and on television? Are adults more prone to violent behavior after years of being exposed to it? There are many who think so and research has shown that it is more often true than not. In September of 1999 the Senate Committee on the Judiciary published their report, Children, violence, and the Media: A Report for Parents and Policy Makers. In it they agreed that “violent juvenile crime is on the rise”, they further concluded that “a principal cause of this rise is the violence that permeates the media”. Children and young adults have access to more examples of violence and antisocial behavior than at any time in our nation’s history. At an age when they are the most impressionable, mimicking and learning from everything they see, the youth of today are for the most part left to make their own viewing choices with little or no adult supervision. Many are never taught what is considered proper socially acceptable behavior. Adolescents especially need to be taught the difference between right and wrong and they need strong role models. Too often the adults take no part in their child’s development, they are an absentee parent or they just don’t care. A child’s young mind is fragile and they need affirmation that they are doing the right thing. In the absence of a strong adult role model who do they turn to? Usually each other or the creeps and outcast they see on the TV screen, in video games in movies and on and on. The portrayal of the antisocial rebel is not new; this character has been with us for decades. Columbia University psychology professor A.T. Poffenberger wrote in 1921 that movies “might easily become a training school for anti-Americanism, immorality, and disregard for the law.” If that was true in 1921 it is even more so today. However our “Rebel without a Cause” of today is no longer dominated by the male gender, that role now belongs to females as well. This trend only serves to bolster the callous attitudes of the young males as they try to compete with and impress the young females. This antisocial attitude has now become part of the youth culture; it has actually migrated from the movie and television screens and embedded itself into the very fabric of our society. For many of today’s youth this behavior is not just something they see as entertainment on the screen, but glimpses of reality and lessons to be learned on how to act and respond in social situations. The younger children try to act like their older friends or siblings and seek approval from them, by the time they are young adults most have a seriously distorted and perverted grasp on reality. In fact this type of behavior is their reality so they seek reaffirmation in any way they can. This paper will take a look at the effect violent and antisocial portrayals in multi media, cinema and television has on the youth and eventually the adult in today’s society.
In The Beginning
When a human being comes into the world that baby is totally helpless and depends on the care and guidance of those older and wiser than itself to survive those first few years. As they acquire their senses they pick up signals from their environment and those around them. They learn how to smile when they first see their parents smiling at them. They learn how to make sounds and how to use those sounds to get what they want. In effect they are like little computers and store all the input they can hold. Their little eyes watch and their little ears hear everything. Eventually they learn how to do for themselves, think for themselves and speak. In computer technology there is a saying; “garbage in garbage out”. If you think about it this can also be applied to raising a child, what that child is exposed to and the things they experience will become part of their personality, the one advantage with a computer though is that you can wipe the hard drive clean and start over. This is not so easy to do with a child.
The Loss of Innocence
According to researcher George Gerbner, “Never was a culture so filled with full-color images of violence as ours is now.” Gerbner’s Cultural Indicators project, which has monitored TV violence since 1968, estimates that the average American child views more than 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television during the elementary school years. A 1992 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the typical American child will witness 40,000 on-screen murders by the age of eighteen. This tidal wave of violence can overwhelm a child’s senses and be very upsetting emotionally. This is not to say however that all children will become more aggressive as a result. Those with a strong role model and a good moral compass have a much better chance of understanding that this type of behavior is not acceptable. On the other hand there may be some adolescents who because of parental abuse or similar factors may be more prone to violent behavior in spite of being exposed to so much media violence. In any case it stands to reason that young minds should not be exposed to this type of stimuli. It can corrupt their growing process and have dire consequences in their mental development. Media violence has not just increased in quantity; it has become much more graphic, more sexual and more sadistic. Some children may have a much more difficult time dealing with all these images and become very disturbed and confused. When a child reaches eleven they are becoming more sexually aware as well and images and dialog of a twisted or sadistic sexual nature can severely affect their development and give then a much skewed idea of how males and females communicate. Judith A. Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education states that “for at least two decades, experts have warned that television, movies, music and other entertainment media are desensitizing young people to violence and death.” She warns “murder, rape and physical assault are common fare in movies and award winning television drama and some popular music genres have taken to glorifying sex, violence, murder and even suicide.” Is it not the responsibility of the adults in our society to protect the children? Instead through apathy and neglect their childhood is being defiled and stunted with an overexposure of violent and anti social so called “entertainment”. After being exposed to such a continual onslaught of violent and negative messages what will happen to our nation’s youth when they reach adulthood? Sadly we are seeing some of the results now; school shootings, children killing their parents and other family members, no fear or respect for authority and a cold callous attitude toward others in society.
A Downward Spiral
The National Committee on the causes and prevention of violence reported in 1969 that “violence in the media has a negative effect on children. Violent films encourage violent forms of behavior and promote violence in daily life as being acceptable.” What is meant by "negative effects" of children's behavior? William Bennett in his book “The Index of Cultural Indicators” offers us this; "In 1991, children under the age of ten committed more than 1000 acts of aggravated assault and 81 cases of forcible rape. Juveniles 12 and under committed ...murder, robbery, larceny-theft, and forcible rape.”
We all know these crimes are wrong, but when you realize that children committed these crimes a flag should go up. There is something very wrong in our society; we are allowing the minds of our children to be poisoned and leading them down a path of self destruction. You may find it hard to believe that simply viewing a movie could be so detrimental, but we are not talking about just one movie. These children are watching hundred of movies, and then there are the videos, TV shows, video games and more. There is indeed strong evidence of specific reenactments of scenarios from movies. Undeniable evidence "...comes in the configuration of corpses, mutilated by disturbed teenagers to resemble victims in slasher movies..."(Violence in America, Bender&Leone 163). If these movies are affecting our children so negatively, wouldn't it be easy to just not allow children to see "violent" movies? This seems to be a simple solution, but it’s not that simple for many reasons. To begin with, mainstream movies eventually end up on commercial television or on the cable channels where they can be seen unedited and most of these movies are extremely violent, containing graphic sex scenes, obscene language, and of course violent deaths. Once again I refer to the book by William Bennett where he gives us this list of the approximate number of deaths recorded in five popular movies:
Movie Death Count
Die Hard 2 - 264 Robocop 2 - 74
Rambo 3 - 106 Total Recall – 74
The Wild Bunch – 89
This is just five out of how many?
Professor Malamuth, chairman of communications studies at the University of California and Professor Edward Donnerstein, a psychologist at the Center for Communications Research at the University of Wisconsin, have both conducted studies that suggest viewers of media violence are detrimentally affected. Many psychologists also agree that as more violence is viewed, children will be more accepting of violence, and therefore more desensitized and more likely to become violent themselves. Dr. Eron and Huesman of the University of Illinois did a 22 year study of violent behavior due to "a diet of violent entertainment." The quarter of the children with the heaviest exposure to violence in 1960 at ages nine and ten were found to be convicted of criminal offences during their adult lives 150% more often than the quarter of children with the smallest exposure to violent entertainment. This is very compelling evidence that something is happening which deserves further attention. This trend toward violence and just plain psychotic behavior is not waning, if anything it is more prevalent and it’s only going to get worse. As we have learned there are obvious negative effects on children and young adults who view violent films etc., varying from petty theft to murder and rape
A Culture of Violence
Violent, sadistic, evil, it’s all there , bullets exploding from people’s chests in slow motion, dead bodies lying in pools of blood, sexual abuse, all this and more is thriving and doing quite well in the pop culture of today. Actually it is more of a subculture and many parents are not aware of it. Millions of viewers worldwide, many of them children, watch World Wrestling Entertainment where female wrestlers try to tear out each other’s hair and rip off each other’s clothing. Even comic books depict gruesome bloody scenes of graphic violence. Computer games have become the favorite pastime for thousands of today’s youth, and thanks to improved technology they are more realistic and vicious than ever. One entire genre of games is called “first person shooters” and encourages the player to dismember monsters and slay people. And a top-selling video game, Grand Theft Auto, is programmed so players can beat prostitutes to death with baseball bats after having sex with them. Another is called “Postal” in which the goal is to slaughter innocent bystanders, including cheerleaders who moan for mercy. “They’re incredibly violent, and they’re the most popular games on PC’s right now,” says Mike Davila, editorial director of Game Week, a trade magazine. “The object is to kill people - you see chunks of the body flying in different directions.” This is just an example of some of the games young children and teens are playing, does this seem normal? Is this the kind of entertainment these children should be spending their leisure time with?
And the Band Played On
Another sub culture favorite which is exclusive to mostly the younger generation is the music they listen to. This is nothing new; music has always been a cause of concern for parents and adults who don’t understand the behavior and lyrics of the songs. However as bad as the music back 50 years ago may have been considered to be, it was never as dangerous and obscene as some of the music of today. Today along with the music we also have music videos and they can be watched 24 hours a day. Together music and their videos are pushing into new and increasingly violent territory. A song by Jordan Knight, formally of New Kids on the Block, a seemingly harmless enough name for a group, released a solo album in 1999. In it is a song advocating date rape. How many parents know their children are listening to this? Another self proclaimed artist calls himself Eminem, his real name is Marshall Mathers. This extremely popular rap artist is often very violent and on the fringes of civilized society. For instance his lyrics include many examples of violence and hatred against women, His song Kim graphically depicts him murdering his wife; and Kill You describes how he plans to rape and murder his mother. He must be connecting with someone because Eminem continues to be a commercial success, winning more than one Grammy award and he is not the only one by any means. Other artist like Dr Dre and Limp Bizkit are doing the same thing. Exceptionally violent lyrics have made their way into the mainstream of the music industry and show no signs of going away any time soon. What has happened to these young people to make them want to include such violent and misogynistic lyrics in their music? Even Madonna’s 2002 music video What It Feels Like For a Girl contained such graphic violence that MTV refused to air it more than once. What did these people experience growing up and what do they see in the culture of today’s youth to make them want to produce such a vile form of entertainment. Why are so many children and young adults hooked on this type of music and their videos? What is the need or void in their life that makes this music satisfying to them?
Recent Research
Recent research is exploring the effect of new media on the behavior of children. Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman of Iowa State University reviewed dozens of studies of video gamers. In 2001, they reported that children and young people, who play violent video games, even for short periods, are more likely to behave aggressively in the real world; and that both aggressive and non-aggressive children are negatively affected by playing.
In 2003, Craig Anderson and Iowa State University colleague Nicholas Carnagey and Janie Eubanks of the Texas Department of Human Services reported that violent music lyrics increased aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings among 500 college students. They concluded, "There are now good theoretical and empirical reasons to expect effects of music lyrics on aggressive behavior to be similar to the well-studied effects of exposure to TV and movie violence and the more recent research efforts on violent video games."
In 1999, Professors Joanne Cantor and K. Harrison studied 138 university students; they found that memories of frightening media images continued to disturb a significant number of participants years later. Over 90 per cent reported they continued to experience fright effects from images they viewed as children, ranging from sleep disturbances to unwavering avoidance of certain situations.
The Business of Media Violence
If it is true that money talks then the media entertainment industry has plenty to say and it definitely is going to be heard.
These figures are a bit outdated; however they should still provide a good idea of the income this industry produces and the trend in growth for the future. In 2001, people around the world spent US$14 billion going to the movies. The U.S. domestic box office alone hit US$9 billion, that’s a 75 per cent increase from 1991 and let’s not forget about the huge revenues from home video, DVD sales, rentals and spin-off merchandise. But as much as that sounds even these profits are dwarfed by the music industry, the largest global media sector. In 2000, sales reached US$37 billion, with music consumption high among young audiences everywhere. Video games are not far behind: global sales for 2002 were anticipated to be US$31 billion.
Marketing Violence to Young People
Children and young people represent a huge market, due to both their own spending power and their influence on family spending decisions. No one knows this better than the communications industries. In September 2000, a Federal Trade Commission report revealed what many suspected: U.S. media corporations were routinely ignoring their own rating restrictions and actively marketing violent entertainment to children and teens. In fact, the study showed that 80 percent of R-rated movies, 70 percent of restricted video games, and 100 percent of music with "explicit content" warning labels were being marketed to kids under 17.
Conclusion
So you can see with statistics like that the media entertainment industry is not about to change anytime soon if ever. Let someone else deal with the social problems, we will keep on doing what we’re doing. Making the low budget, high action, gratuitous violent entertainment and of course lots of money.
Everyone knows there has always been violence in movies in many forms, be it a film about taming the Wild West, a biblical story or a good murder mystery. Sometimes the violence was necessary and contributed to the plot, but it was almost never gratuitous violence for the sake of shocking the audience. Even the classic horror movie of old left out the real gory and bloody scenes, leaving that to your own imagination. Today films and other forms of media go right for the jugular, nothing is left to the imagination, and it is all laid out right before your eyes. With digital computer generated special effects and over the top plots or no plots and realistic sound effects, they hit you over the head with their graphic depictions of sadistic, unspeakable depraved violence. It strikes me sort of odd that the entertainment industry will always speak right up and fight for truth, justice and the American way when it will benefit them but something like the psychological effects their art is having on the youth of America is not their concern. Everywhere you look, everywhere you go this pop subculture phenomenon will be lurking either in the shadows or right in your face. This is a problem we will never be rid of and we will have to learn to live with. The best we can do is to try to understand what is happening to our children, try to limit their exposure to such violent material and help them deal with the damage they will suffer after years of exposure. It will take an all out effort to end it but that would be impossible in an open society such as ours. One thing is for sure, the entertainment industry will never do anything about it. Oh sure, they may throw some money at it in a false gesture of concern and compassion but at the same time they are not going to kill that goose that is laying all those golden eggs.
References
Freedman, J. (2002) Media Violence and its Effect on Aggression. University of Toronto Press
Gerdes, L. Book Editor, (2004) Media Violence: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, Thomson Gale
Media Awareness Network.(7/10/2007) Research on the Effects of Media Violence
www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/effects_media_violence
Media Awareness Network. (7/10/2007)The Business of Media Violence
www.mediaawareness.ca/english/issues/violence/business_media_violence
Media Awareness Network. (7/10/2007)Violence in Media Entertainment
www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/violence/violence_entertainment
The Effects of Media’s Violence on the Behavior of Children
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~tonya/Film/film_violence.html
Torr, J. Book Editor, (2001) Violence in the Media: Current Controversies. Greenhaven Press
