The
relationship of Violence in media with violence in society is the complex
issue, and the most fiercely debated concept among the people. However, there
are many points that are interesting of the influences of media and its
violence in the media which can lead to the violence in the society. Of course,
the violence in media could not lead to the violence in the society as soon as
it is shown. But when people are adapted to those violence behavior due to the
addicted; usually seeing things which are violence over and over and their
unconscious mind is automatically adapt the concepts and such kinds of
behaviors.
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| Consciously and Unconsciously people are trying to act like what they see, they like and their model who attracted, Influenced him or her. |
To
know more about the violence in media with violence in the society, we can look
into some aspects which is categories below by some of the western psychologist
and their research.
A.
Findings
Virtually since the dawn of television, parents, teachers,
legislators, and mental health professionals have been concerned about the
content of television programs and its impact, particularly on children. Of
special concern has been the portrayal of violence, especially given
psychologist Albert
Bandura's work on social learning and the tendency
of children to imitate what they see. As a result of 15 years of consistently
disturbing findings about the violent content of children's programs, the
Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social
Behavior was formed in 1969 to assess the impact of violence on the attitudes,
values and behavior of viewers. The resulting Surgeon General's report and a
follow-up report in 1982 by the National Institute of Mental Health identify
these major effects of seeing violence on television:
·
Children may become less sensitive
to the pain and suffering of others
·
Children may be more fearful of the
world around them
·
Children may be more likely to
behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others
Research by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron and
others found that children who watched many hours of violence on television
when they were in elementary school tended to also show a higher level of
aggressive behavior when they became teenagers. By observing these youngsters
into adulthood, Drs. Huesmann and Eron found that the ones who'd watched a lot
of TV violence when they were eight years old were more likely to be arrested
and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults. Interestingly, being aggressive as
a child did not predict watching more violent TV as a teenager, suggesting that
TV watching may more often be a cause rather than a consequence of aggressive
behavior.
Violent video games are a more recent phenomenon; therefore
there is less research on their effects. However, research by psychologist
Craig A. Anderson and others shows that playing violent video games can
increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in
laboratory settings and in actual life. In fact, a study by Dr. Anderson in
2000 suggests that violent video games may be more harmful than violent
television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require
the player to identify with the aggressor.
Dr. Anderson and other researches are also looking into how
violent music lyrics affect children and adults. In a 2003 study involving
college students, Anderson found that songs with violent lyrics increased
aggression related thoughts and emotions and this effect was directly related to
the violent content of the lyrics. "One major conclusion from this and
other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters,"
says Anderson. "This message is important for all consumers, but
especially for parents of children and adolescents."
B.
Significance
A typical child in the U.S. watches 28 hours of TV weekly,
seeing as many as 8,000 murders by the time he or she finishes elementary
school at age 11, and worse, the killers are depicted as getting away with the
murders 75% of the time while showing no remorse or accountability. Such TV
violence socialization may make children immune to brutality and aggression,
while others become fearful of living in such a dangerous society.
With the research clearly showing that watching violent TV programs
can lead to aggressive behavior, The American Psychological Association passed
a resolution in 1985 informing broadcasters and the public of the potential
dangers that viewing violence on television can have for children. In 1992, the
APA's Task Force on Television and Society published a report that further
confirmed the link between TV violence and aggression.
C.
Practical
Application
In 1990, Congress passed the Children's Television Act
(CTA), which outlined new regulations for commercial broadcast stations. As a
result of the CTA (which was updated in 1996), stations are required to air at
least three hours of programming "that furthers the education and
informational needs of children 16 years and under in any respect, including
children's intellectual/cognitive or social/emotional needs." These
programs must be labeled with the designation "E/I" and have clearly
stated, written educational objectives. These educational programs generally
contain both direct and indirect messages fostering cooperation and compassion
rather than aggression. Parents now have positive options when it comes to
choosing TV programs for their children. Research on television and violence
has also led to the development of content-based rating systems that allow
parents to make judgments about the programs' content before allowing their
children to watch a show.
Besides warning of the harmful effects of violent media
content, psychology has a strong history of bringing out the best in
television. For example, Daniel R. Anderson, a professor of psychology at the
University of Massachusetts, has worked with producers of children's programs
like Sesame Street and Captain Kangaroo to help TV shows educate children.
Apart from that we can also see the
influence of media in many fields issues; likewise
(A) Media Violence as a Public Health Issue
On the other hand, many social scientists have concluded
that there is a weak correlation between watching media violence and real life
aggression—enough to convince organizations like the Canadian Pediatric Society
and the American Medical Association that media violence is a public health
issue. After all, governments don't wait for scientific certainty before they
act to protect the public from smoking or drinking; all that's required is
proof of a risk. If there is evidence that an activity or substance will
increase the probability of negative effects, then the state is
justified in intervening.
(B) Media Violence as Artistic Expression
However, others maintain that the crusade against media
violence is a form of censorship that, if successful, would seriously hamper
artistic expression. Researchers R. Hodge and D. Tripp, for example, argue
that, "Media violence is qualitatively different from real violence: it is
a natural signifier of conflict and difference, and without representations of
conflict, art of the past and present would be seriously impoverished."
Many commentators, from artists to film makers to
historians, agree. Comic-book creator Gerard Jones contends that violent video
games, movies, music and comic books enable people to pull themselves out
of emotional traps, "integrating the scariest, most fervently denied
fragments of their psyches into fuller sense of selfhood through fantasies of
superhuman combat and destruction." Pullitzer-Prize-winning author Richard
Rhodes says that video game violence enables young people to safely challenge
their feelings of powerlessness.
Psychologist Melanie Moore concludes:
"Fear, greed, power-hunger, rage: these are aspects of
ourselves that we try not to experience in our lives but often want, even need,
to experience vicariously through stories of others. Children need violent
entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they've been
taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more
complex, more resilient selfhood."
(C) Media Violence as Free Speech
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
lists a number of reasons to protect media violence as a form of free
expression:
·
censorship won't solve the root
causes of violence in society
·
deciding what is
"acceptable" content is necessarily a subjective exercise
·
many of the plays, books and films
banned in the past are considered classics today
·
it's up to individuals and not
governments to decide what's appropriate for themselves and their children
And, as the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) noted
in its 1999 study of entertainment violence, media violence can be compelling
social commentary. According to CMPA, the most violent film in 1999 was Saving
Private Ryan, a fictionalized account of the D-Day invasion of Normandy
which has been critically acclaimed for its realistic portrayal of the horrors
of war.
Many media critics, like George Gerbner and Joanne Cantor,
agree that censorship is not the answer. However, they question whose rights
are protected when governments give, in Gerbner's words, a "virtual
commercial monopoly over the public's airwaves," in effect delivering our
"cultural environment to a marketing operation."
As journalist Scott Stossel notes, parents used to tell
children scary stories face-to-face, so they could moderate the content and
teach life lessons: "Children today, in contrast, grow up in a cultural
environment that is designed to the specifications of a marketing
strategy."
Shari Graydon, past president of Canada's Media Watch, and
Québec activist René Caron remind us that the air waves are a public utility,
and those who control their access and distribution must do so in ways that
represent the best interests of all Canadians. Caron states, "violence has
been used by the industry to capture the attention of boys, to captivate them
and manipulate them." Although this strategy may be profitable,
"from a social viewpoint, from a moral viewpoint, this approach has had
abominable repercussions."
(D) Media Violence and The Uncivil Society
The repercussions aren't limited to a potential increase in
aggressive behaviour. Many commentators worry that media violence has become
embedded in the cultural environment; that, in some sense, it's part of the
"psychic air" that children and young people constantly breathe. That
environment of violence, profanity, crudeness, and meanness may erode civility
in society by demeaning and displacing positive social values.
Todd Gitlin goes further. He argues that media violence is a
red herring that allows politicians to divert attention away from very real
social problems. He writes, "There is little political will for a war on
poverty, guns, or family breakdown ... we are offered instead a crusade
against media violence. This is largely a feel-good exercise, a moral panic
substituting for practicality... It appeals to an American propensity that
sociologist Philip Slater called the Toilet Assumption: once the appearance of a
social problem is swept out of sight, so is the problem. And the crusade costs
nothing."
Rather than focusing on violent content, Gitlin argues we
should be condemning "trash on the grounds that it is stupid, wasteful,
morally bankrupt: that it coarsens taste, that it shrivels the capacity to feel
and know the whole of human experience."
(E) Media Violence and the Inequitable Society
Gerbner warns that the search for a link between media
violence and real life aggression is in itself a symptom of the problem itself.
For Gerbner, media violence demonstrates power: "It shows one's place in
the 'pecking order' that runs society."
For example, Gerbner's decades-long study of television
violence indicates that villains are typically portrayed as poor, young, male
members of visible minorities, and victims are overwhelmingly female. He argues
that by making the world look like a dangerous place, especially for white
people, the majority will be more willing to give the authorities greater power
to enforce the status quo.
This is an argument that Michael Moore used in the
award-winning movie, Bowling for Columbine. Journalist Thierry Jobin
writes, "[Moore] denounces the way in which the government and the
media foster a feeling of insecurity, pushing Americans to barricade
themselves in their homes, a loaded 44 Magnum under their pillows."
Gerbner worries that this sense of insecurity and powerlessness will be used to
justify a weakening of democratic values.
(F) Media Violence as Consumer Choice
Opponents of regulation argue that it's up to the viewer to
decide what to watch. If you don't like television violence, they say, then
turn off the TV. However, research indicates that the popularity of a TV show
depends less on content and more on scheduling. As Gerbner points out,
"... violence as such is not highly rated. That means it coasts on viewer
inertia, not selection. Unlike other media use, viewing is a ritual; people
watch by the clock and not by the program."
Joanne Cantor criticizes the media industry for saying it's
up to parents, not the industry, to decide what their children watch:
"They make harmful products, which come into our homes automatically
through television, they market them to children too young to use them safely,
and they try to keep parents in the dark about their effects." Cantor
argues parents need tools to help them decide what is healthy and unhealthy for
their kids.
One such tool is the V-chip, which enables parents to
program their televisions with pre-set industry ratings to screen out certain
shows. Keith Spicer, former chair of the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission, calls the V-chip a "sexy, telegenic little
gizmo that fulfills the fantasy of a magic wand."
The industry has been quick to endorse V-chip technology but
critics argue that its real function is to protect the industry from parents,
not the other way around. Gerbner states, "It's like major polluters
saying, 'We shall continue business as usual, but don't worry, we'll also sell
you gas masks to 'protect your children' and have a 'free choice!' ...
Programming needs to be diversified, not just 'rated.' A better government
regulation is antitrust, which could create a level playing field, admitting
new entries and a greater diversity of ownership, employment, and
representation. That would reduce violence to its legitimate role and
frequency."
(G) Media Violence and Active Audiences
Researchers like David Buckingham in the U.K. and Henry
Jenkins in the U.S. add another dimension to the debate. They argue that rather
than focusing on what media do to people, we should focus on what people
do with media.
As Jenkins writes, media images "are not simple
chemical agents like carcinogens that produce predictable results upon those
who consume them. They are complex bundles of often contradictory meanings that
can yield an enormous range of different responses from the people who consume
them."
From this perspective, people don't just passively absorb
messages transmitted through the media; they choose which media to consume and
are actively involved in determining what the meaning of the messages will be.
And that process doesn't occur in a social vacuum. Personal experiences affect
what we watch and how we make sense of it. Our class position, our religious
upbringing, our level of education, our family setting, and our peer groups all
have a role to play in how we understand violent content.
Jenkins draws a different lesson from the shooting in
Littleton: "Media images may have given [the Columbine shooters] symbols
to express their rage and frustration, but the media did not create the rage or
generate their alienation. What sparked the violence was not something they saw
on the internet or on television, not some song lyric or some sequence from a
movie, but things that really happened to them... If we want to do something
about the problem, we are better off focusing our attention on negative social
experiences and not the symbols we use to talk about those experiences."
In
a nutshell, those categories above were the research which is done by many psychologists
in the points of view of the psychiatrist. Actually, it is the inform choice
which people are tried to follow; act like the particular behavior and tense to
behave like the way they have seen and being influenced by the media; movies,
films and cartoons. These kinds of unconscious mind adapted the mal-adjustment
attitude and behavior. Therefore, the contribution of violence in media leads
to the violence in the society.
