Blog #6 Wm Campbell

Blog # 6- William Campbell

The impact television has had on the culture of man for the past 60 years has certainly been greater than any other force. Television has become the source of almost everything for man. It reports news, entertains the masses, regulates commerce, dictates lifestyles, defines social issues, and captures our attention for close to fifteen percent of our lives. Because of the profound experience that is television, it is often blamed for all our social ills and for the general failings of western civilization. Violence in television and its effects on children has been rigorously studied for decades. There are experts who state with certainty that violent television breeds violent behavior in children in addition to other undesirable behaviors. Conversely, there are experts who feel any tampering with the art of television is in violation of our first amendment rights and is purely a form of censorship. These experts place the responsibility of programming and of what children view squarely on the shoulders of parents.
It has been 20 years since the National Institute of Mental Health informed the public of their field study findings that violent television programs led to violent behavior in children and teenagers. Later research has defined three specific responses to viewing violence. (1) “Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others,” (2) “Children may be more fearful of the world around them,” and (3) “Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.”(American Psychological Association, p.249) Later real-life studies seemed to back up the field studies especially with regards to long term responses. Leonard Eron, Ph.D., and his associates at the University of Illinois, discovered that those who watched a great deal of television violence as children showed more aggressive behavior upon reaching their teens. These same subjects were more likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes as adults.(American Psychological Association, p.250) While there are many reasons why children include violence in their day to day play and dealings, it is known “from both therapeutic and cognitive perspectives, children use play to work out an understanding of experience, including the violence to which they are exposed.”(Levin, p.254) In other words, children are constantly struggling to work out and understand the violence in their lives. One of the outcomes of this effort to understand violence often leaves the child out of control and frightened, and, thus diverted from the positive lessons we want them to learn.(Levin, p.255) Children tend to see bad guys and violent behavior as one dimensional and do not understand what may make them bad in the first place. Good guys, on the other hand, are allowed to do whatever horrible things that need to be done just because they are good.(Levin, p.255) Children tend to want to play the role of the good guy or the superhero and often imitate violent behavior, especially during popular war play. George Gerbner, in his essay, “Television’s Global Marketing Strategy Creates a Damaging and Alienated Window on the World,” describes television as being more than simple programming, “…television is a mythology-highly organically connected, repeated every day so that the themes that run through all programming and news have the effect of cultivating conceptions of reality.”(Gerbner, p. 263) He goes on to say that growing up with television violence has three major costs, that when operating together creates what he calls the “mean world syndrome.” Viewed separately, the costs are (1) The programming “reinforces the worst fears and apprehension of people,” (2) The programming “desensitizes viewers to victimization and suffering,” and (3) The programming creates “the pervasive sense of insecurity and vulnerability” and people “are afraid of strangers and meeting other people.”(Gerbner, p.263) These costs closely resemble the three responses to violence the American Psychological Association defined earlier. Gerbner feels television violence is driven by the system of global marketing and in this form acts to censure what writers can write and producers can produce. He cites polls which list 85 percent of the participants as saying they want less violence in television programming. The problem is that the action of violent programming sells well on the world market, and in Gerbner’s opinion, within the marketing system of television “cultural decision making is now out of democratic reach.”(Gerbner, p.264)
While there is often general agreement that violence in television poses a potential threat to children, there are arguments as to how much of a threat it poses and disagreement with the methods of dealing with the threat. In his essay, “Stop Blaming Kids and TV,” Mike Males brings to light the often overlooked connection between children and parents. Males quotes James Baldwin from “Nobody Knows My Name,” “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”(Males, p.268) The contention is that violent behavior begins at home. While many point the finger at kids and the television programming that is claimed to corrupt them, federal reports show an increasing problem with alcohol and drug related crimes among adults who are the age group that are the parents of today’s children.(Males, p.271) Children do as parents do and react to violence as their parents react. The resolution of this issue becomes less complicated in theory than the TV violence and children connection. Males writes, “The inescapable conclusion is this: If you want to change juvenile behavior, change adult behavior.” Another school of thought focuses on the responsibility of parents to their children by taking action at home to “vote with the remote” or to simply turn the television off. “Don’t like it? Don’t watch it,”(Goodman, p.259) writes Tim Goodman, a media critic, in his article for the San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2001. Goodman contends the attack on television programming is wrong, is pure censorship, and blames the media for lax parenting.
The issue of violence in television will continue to be debated for years to come. The two sides of the debate, without empirical evidence to decide the outcome, will continue to promote their theories. To some, television will always be the demon. Gerbner feels television should not have the power to “drive an entire culture,” and children have “the right to be born into a more diverse, more fair, more sane, more equitable cultural environment.”(Gerbner, p.265) Others feel the issues of violence begin at home. Goodman writes, “Television is not the problem in our society. It may always be the scapegoat, but it’s nothing more than a bastard machine, not half as disturbing as the real thing.”(Goodman, p.260) Still others will straddle the argument and point out that we live in violent and threatening times as witnessed by September 11, 2001 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Levin feels any solution should “require adults to create a more peaceful world and limit children’s exposure to media violence…”(Levin, p.256)

Works Cited

American Psychological Association, “Violence on Television-
What Do Children Learn? What can Parents Do?”
www.apa.org/pi/pii/vio&tv.hmtl. Copyright by American Psychological
Association, 2003.

George Gerbner, “Television’s Global Marketing Strategy Creates a Damaging and Alienated Window on the World.” The Ecology of
Justice, Context Institute, (IC#38). Spring, 1994.

Diane E. Levin, “Beyond Banning War and Superhero Play:
Meeting Children’s Needs in Violent Times.” Young Children, May, 2003.




Mike Males, “Stop Blaming Kids and TV.” The Progressive,
October, 1997.

Tim Goodman, “Hate Violence? Turn It Off.” San Francisco
Chronicle, April 29, 2001.