 |
 |
Mass media: sex and violence
|
|||
|
Mass media: sex and violence
|
Every so often the debate over the effects of media sex and violence flares up in the popular press, as it did when Michael Ryan went on a killing spree in Hungerford, his mind supposedly warped by a diet of Rambo videos. A similar claim was made when the toddler, Jamie Bulger, was brutally murdered by two children who were supposed to have copied their crime from violent videos. The 'ironic' horror film Scream has often been blamed for copycat murders, a US judge commenting that it is a 'very good source to learn how to kill someone'. In November 2001, a Belgian lorry driver was accused of the brutal 'copycat' murder of a teenage girl, after first withdrawing to another room to don his Scream costume. After the murder he rang his father and a colleague to confess and told police that the murder had been premeditated and motivated by the movie. (Source: The Guardian, November 17 2001)
Following on such events, typically, the press will call for tighter restrictions on video rentals, greater control of film, supported by the moral entrepreneurs of National VALA. As a result of such pressure, we in Britain have the Video Recordings Act and the Broadcasting Standards Council, the ITC and similar watchdogs (intended, according to the UK government's 2001 white paper on broadcasting to be rolled into one super-watchdog, Offcom). (For brief comment on public pressure in the US to curb media violence, see the section on BBFC research.)
As you may have seen from the section on media violence, the evidence from various research studies is inconclusive. Amongst the best known studies from the past are the 1961 Television in the Lives of Our Children by Schramm et al. and the huge 1969 Violence and the Media, edited by Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Robert Baker. Of these, the former strengthened the 'limited effects' view of media violence. The conclusions were that some children, under some circumstances may be adversely affected by media violence, but that the roots of such anti-social behaviour went much deeper than mere exposure to media violence, the most likely cause being some lack in the child's life, such as a broken home or feelings of rejection. The latter report, however, in the section on entertainment television, which drew on extensive research conducted under the direction of Professor George Gerbner, concluded that violence was portrayed as a means of resolving problems and achieving goals. Entertainment television did not emphasize alternative methods of conflict resolution, such as debate, compromise and co-operation and, the researchers concluded, children could very well learn from TV that violence was an acceptable means towards conflict-resolution.
Amongst the most recent reports, such conflicting conclusions are still in evidence: the BBFC study shows no correlation between viewing habits and violent behaviour, whereas the Newson report claims that the link is no longer in doubt.
As a general rule, the call for censorship of the media tends to come from the right of the political spectrum, the left being extremely wary of any ill-considered moves to limit freedom of speech. If you have examined the sections on media theory, you will be aware that left-wing commentators often claim that the mass media play an important rôle in the transmission and maintenance of the dominant bourgeois ideology. Often this claim is made, as Anderson and Sharrock have pointed out (1979), without any real attempt being made to demonstrate the mechanism by which this claimed effect takes place. It may seem odd, then, that such critics, in support of their case against censorship, point out that no mechanism for the supposed effects of media sex and violence has been identified and that a clear effect is not proven.
Interestingly, this apparent self-contradiction was recently pointed out by Greg Philo of the left-oriented Glasgow University Media Group. According to The Guardian of June 2 1996, Martin Barker of the University of the West of England was planning a book on media censorship called Ill Effects. Apparently, his intention was to show that newspapers have wildly exaggerated the dangers of television's influence on the young. He is said to have approached the Glasgow University Media Group for a contribution. When the essay from Philo and Miller arrived, it was rejected, allegedly because it did not support the view expressed in the rest of the book that TV has little or no influence. Philo commented of his 'complacent' colleagues:
Liberals in cultural studies have allied themselves with the media corporations and the likes of Melvyn Bragg and Michael Winner. They seem to be saying that the fear about TV violence has been generated by the newspapers. But how can they believe that one medium, newspapers, can produce a moral panic while denying that another, television, can influence attitudes to violence?
- an unusual departure from the liberal anti-censorship orthodoxy.
Research into violence
Research into pornography
|