NO
George Gerbner is the former dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1996, he founded the Cultural Environment Movement to examine the role of media violence in American society. He says media violence is tantamount to censorship by media conglomerates who effectively shut out diverse points of view.
George Gerbner is the former dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1996, he founded the Cultural Environment Movement to examine the role of media violence in American society. He says media violence is tantamount to censorship by media conglomerates who effectively shut out diverse points of view.
YES
A high-profile veteran of the 1960s peace movement, Todd Gitlin has become a leading U.S. commentator and author on media and culture issues. In his essays and books, he has called the crusade against media violence "hollow" and "cheap." He says media violence isn't dangerous, it's just stupid.
A high-profile veteran of the 1960s peace movement, Todd Gitlin has become a leading U.S. commentator and author on media and culture issues. In his essays and books, he has called the crusade against media violence "hollow" and "cheap." He says media violence isn't dangerous, it's just stupid.
Gerbner starts:
Formula-driven media violence is not an expression of crime statistics, popularity, or freedom. It is de facto censorship driven by global marketing, imposed on creative people, foisted on the children of the world. Far from inciting to mayhem, media violence is an instrument of fear and social control.
Formula-driven media violence is not an expression of crime statistics, popularity, or freedom. It is de facto censorship driven by global marketing, imposed on creative people, foisted on the children of the world. Far from inciting to mayhem, media violence is an instrument of fear and social control.
Violence dominates television news and entertainment, particularly what we call "happy violence" - cool, swift, painless, and always leading to a happy ending in order to deliver the audience to the next commercial message in a receptive mood.
The Cultural Indicators Project has found that heavy viewers are more likely to overestimate their chances of involvement in violence; to believe that their neighborhoods are unsafe; to state that fear of crime is a very serious personal problem; and to assume that crime is rising, regardless of the facts.
Heavy viewers express a greater sense of insecurity and mistrust than comparable groups of light viewers. They are more likely to be dependent on authority and to support repression if it is presented as enhancing their security.
Gitlin responds:
Television violence is mainly redundant, stupid, and ugly. The deepest problem with TV violence is not that it causes violence - the evidence for this is very thin. The problem is that the profiteers of television in the United States - the networks, the program suppliers, and the advertisers - are essentially subsidized (e.g., via tax write-offs) to program this formulaic stuff.
Television violence is mainly redundant, stupid, and ugly. The deepest problem with TV violence is not that it causes violence - the evidence for this is very thin. The problem is that the profiteers of television in the United States - the networks, the program suppliers, and the advertisers - are essentially subsidized (e.g., via tax write-offs) to program this formulaic stuff.
Professor Gerbner may well be right about TV watchers - the more violence they watch, the more dangerous they think the world is. They may therefore support heavy-handed, authoritarian responses to crime.
But consider the case of Japan. There is far more vile media violence - including more widely available violent pornography - in Japan than in the United States. But there is less real-world violence - particularly sexual violence - in Japan than in the United States. This is not to say that television is healthy for American society. To the contrary.
It would help to provide alternatives. We could use some government-subsidized programs devoted to something other than mindless, transitory entertainment. We could tax television sets, as in Great Britain, or subsidize public broadcasting through taxes, as in Canada, or - in a more American mode - charge fees to networks, which now avail themselves of the public airwaves, buy and sell licenses, and amass immense profits, all without charge.
Gerbner rebutts:
"The case of Japan" argument surprises me from Professor Gitlin. It is the knee-jerk retort of apologists, of whom Mr. Gitlin is certainly not one. The argument assumes that media violence is the only, or major and always decisive, influence on human social behavior - extensio ad absurdum. Media violence (or any other single factor) is one of many factors interacting with other influences in any culture that contribute to real-world violence.
"The case of Japan" argument surprises me from Professor Gitlin. It is the knee-jerk retort of apologists, of whom Mr. Gitlin is certainly not one. The argument assumes that media violence is the only, or major and always decisive, influence on human social behavior - extensio ad absurdum. Media violence (or any other single factor) is one of many factors interacting with other influences in any culture that contribute to real-world violence.
I completely agree that the main problem behind violence is virtual commercial monopoly over the public's airways. No other democracy delivers its cultural environment to a marketing operation.
But apologists might also argue that the free-market environment delivers programming tailored to its audience. However, our studies show that violence actually depresses ratings. Instead of popularity, the mechanisms of global marketing drive televised violence. Producers for global markets look for a dramatic formula that needs no translation, speaks "action" in any language, fits every culture. That formula is violence.
The V-chip is not the solution. That technology merely protects the industry from the parents, rather than the other way around. It only facilitates business as usual. 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.
Gitlin explains:
By citing the case of Japan, I mean simply to restore some balance to a discussion that, like so many other American debates, gets pinned to single-cause theories and sound-bite nostrums. TV versions of violence are egregious, coarsening, and produce a social fear and anesthesia which damage our capacity to face reality, but I think many liberals have gone overboard in thinking that if they clean up television, they have accomplished a great deal to rub out violence in the real world. To make television more discriminating, intelligent, and various would be an achievement worthy in its own right, but let's not kid ourselves: The deepest sources of murderous American violence are stupefying inequality, terrible poverty, a nihilistic drug-saturated culture, and an easy recourse to guns. TV's contribution is a target of convenience for a political culture that makes it difficult to grow up with a sense of belonging to a decent society.
By citing the case of Japan, I mean simply to restore some balance to a discussion that, like so many other American debates, gets pinned to single-cause theories and sound-bite nostrums. TV versions of violence are egregious, coarsening, and produce a social fear and anesthesia which damage our capacity to face reality, but I think many liberals have gone overboard in thinking that if they clean up television, they have accomplished a great deal to rub out violence in the real world. To make television more discriminating, intelligent, and various would be an achievement worthy in its own right, but let's not kid ourselves: The deepest sources of murderous American violence are stupefying inequality, terrible poverty, a nihilistic drug-saturated culture, and an easy recourse to guns. TV's contribution is a target of convenience for a political culture that makes it difficult to grow up with a sense of belonging to a decent society.
I'm not against the V-chip as such, since any device that enables parents to redress the imbalance of power they suffer under the invasion of television is all to the good. Given the power of nihilistic corporations over TV programs, any reasonable off-switch is defensible. But again, let's not kid ourselves about just how easy it will be to address the problem of TV violence all by itself. The Hollywood mania for dumb-bunny action is driven - as Professor Gerbner rightly says - by the export imperative. Entertainment is America's second-largest export in dollar value. The industry is not going to go quietly.
Gerbner speaks:The V-chip is a sideshow and a diversion. I have observed this game since the 1970s. It is called "the carrot and the stick." Legislators posture in public, shaking the stick; and then vote the carrot of multibillion dollar windfalls for the same companies they pretend to threaten. They may even extract some meaningless concessions to calm the waters, take the heat off their media clients - who are among their major bankrollers - and call it a victory.
But the industry knows better. The cover story of the 14 August 1996 issue of the trade journal Broadcasting & Cable is titled "The man who made the V-chip." Pictured on the cover is "the man," liberal House Democrat Edward J. Markey, who should know better. The cover story is titled "Why the Markey Chip Won't Hurt You." In fact, it can only help the industry. It's like the 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!'"
There is no free market in television. Viewers are sold to the highest bidders at the lowest cost. That drives both violence and drivel on television. The giveaway of the public airways to private exploitation damages our children and swamps any effort toward democracy. Only a broad citizen movement can turn this around.
Gitlin responds:
V-chips or the like are sure to come - they are perfectly tailored to the American can-do attitude that there is a technological fix for every social problem. Though I don't regard them as pernicious - parents deserve all the technohelp they can get - I agree with Dr. Gerbner that the irresponsibility of the broadcasters is the fundamental issue. They are nihilists who spend many millions of dollars to buy a supine government. Pat Robertson's willingness to sell his "Christian" channel to Rupert Murdoch, master exploiter of brainless smirkiness and sexual innuendo, shows what kind of values are in play among the movers and shakers.
V-chips or the like are sure to come - they are perfectly tailored to the American can-do attitude that there is a technological fix for every social problem. Though I don't regard them as pernicious - parents deserve all the technohelp they can get - I agree with Dr. Gerbner that the irresponsibility of the broadcasters is the fundamental issue. They are nihilists who spend many millions of dollars to buy a supine government. Pat Robertson's willingness to sell his "Christian" channel to Rupert Murdoch, master exploiter of brainless smirkiness and sexual innuendo, shows what kind of values are in play among the movers and shakers.
The problem of TV goes far beyond violence. The speed-up of imagery undermines the capacity to pay attention. Flashy sensation clogs up the synapses. The cheapening of violence - not so much the number of incidents as their emptiness and lightweight gruesomeness - leads to both paranoia and anesthesia. The coarsening of TV inhibits seriousness. The glut of entertainment cheers consumers on primitive levels. Whiz-bang new technologies like high-definition TV will offer sharper images of banality.
To the idea of a citizen's movement, hooray! At the least, let all who want a more vital America - and more vital arts - support antitrust action against the media oligopoly.
Gerbner's last word:
We agree: The problem goes beyond violence, ratings, or any single factor, to the heart of the system. Television is driven not by the creative people who have something to tell, but by global conglomerates that have something to sell.
We agree: The problem goes beyond violence, ratings, or any single factor, to the heart of the system. Television is driven not by the creative people who have something to tell, but by global conglomerates that have something to sell.
Citizens own the airways. We should demand that it be free and fair, and not just "rated." Besides, the current so-called rating system is fundamentally flawed:
Ratings flash on during opening credits, but never again Producers rate their own programs, resulting in inconsistencies across networks Ratings designed by the industry is like letting the fox (no pun intended) guard the chicken coop
So - don't just agonize; organize! The Cultural Environment Movement (CEM) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters worldwide, united in working for freedom and fairness in media. For more information, email CEM@libertynet.org.
Gitlin's last word:The moneymaking machines that control as much of the culture as they can get their hands on will make just as many moral-sounding reforms as they think they need to keep Congress and the FCC off their backs. They will trim an ax-murder here, insert a V-chip there, and later - when public-interest groups and the FCC have taken their attention elsewhere - throw in another ax-murder, or six. The reforms, most likely transitory, will have a pleasant ring and will gain much well-meaning support. In the meantime, for the foreseeable future, the culture - the unofficial curriculum of American children - will remain infantile, degraded, and, among other things, tolerant of and conducive to a violent nihilism. Those who have access to the Web will feel that they have broken free of the tripe, but this is at least half-fanciful. Much of what goes on the Web, however decentralized and freely chosen, is as glib, shallow, and weightless as commercial TV. The great Fun Leviathan churns on.
I have been trying to argue in these few words that we are imprisoned in a mania for easy sensation. We have more and more delivery systems for hollow toys. The virtual eclipses virtue. This year's shoddy goods displace last year's. The freedom to choose is debased into the pursuit of the next kick. The frantic search for electronic sensation does violence to the reflection and deliberation that a democracy needs. No quick fixes, no "just say no" is adequate. It would make sense to curb our own hunger for distraction, as we need to curb the reach of the moguls who now lord it over the catering business.