Notes

The Debate over Violence in the Media

Part 1, Introduction

Ok, at this point, you're probably familiar with the complaint that the media are filled with violence. And
the media critics of violence say that if you surf the TV and cable, you will most likely see people getting shot
by big weapons, fighting with each other, swerving in car crashes, and other confusion. If you want more, you
can go to the movies where expensive special effects are used to portray even more sophisticated violence. Or
play a video game. Or listen to gangsta rap that contains violent lyrics. And this is the entertainment media
we're talking about. You can also watch the news channels or look at the newspaper where you'll find pictures
of bombings, murders, and wars pretty much on a daily basis.

Many academic studies support the critics who say the media is full of violent images. Many are
concerned about the consequences of all this media violence. They point to stories about people who commit
horrible violent acts that they saw on TV or in films. They also talk about many academic experiments and
surveys to support their claims that media violence is harmful to individuals and society. Over the decades
scholars have reached a number of findings about violent media that are a bit scary.

CD II: Track 11 : Activity 12, page 124, Part 2

Critics of Media Violence

Today we're going to talk about four arguments the media critics have. The first is that researchers have
found that even young children learn aggressive behavior from TV. Whether they copy the behavior right away
or later on in life depends on the child's family, personality, and the situation. For example, children from
families who are either encouraged to be aggressive or not discouraged will be more likely to transfer the
violence they see in the media to their real lives.

Another argument that researchers have is that people exposed to large amounts of violence in the media
can be desensitized. Does anyone know what desensitized means? Close. In this context, it means that
watching a lot of media violence can dull our reactions to real-life violence. Uh... this means we might not



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react as strongly to violence as we normally would and as a result we might even think that violence is not so
bad. The researchers claim that the more desensitized we are to violence, the easier it might be for us to act
violently.

Thirdly, bringing together the results of many studies, researchers have concluded that children who
consistently watch a high number of violent programs on television are more likely to act aggressively when
they get older than children who don't watch all these programs. This is kind of related to the first argument
we talked about.

Now, I want to talk about one more idea. There are other researchers who have strong opinions of the
long-term negative consequences of media violence. They agree with the critics we've talked about who say
that media violence can cause desensitization or lead people to commit violence. But these researchers argue
that even a greater consequence of overexposure to media violence is the idea that many Americans believe
that their country is a mean and scary place because of what they see on TV. These researchers use statistics
from the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to point out the numbers of real murders, robberies, and
rapes. According to the researchers, these numbers show that the quantity of these violent acts on broadcast
TV exceeds the actual number in the US. That is, there is more violence on TV than actually exists. Therefore,
people who watch a lot TV almost always overestimate the amount of actual violence in the world and in
general are more afraid of the world. . The researchers conclude that media violence constantly reinforces the
idea in many people that the world around them is more dangerous than it actually is. And this thinking can
lead to, you know, a general fear and suspicion of people, and even a willingness to give up individual freedom
for more police protection, for example.

CD II: Track 12 : Activity 12, page 125, Part 3

Defenders of media

So, now that we have all of these strong criticisms against media violence, do you think it's possible that
anyone would speak in favor of it? Well, it is hard to find anyone who is totally gung ho about media violence,
but there are defenders of media violence who say, "Hey, calm down, we do not need to be that concerned".

And one argument that they use is that they remind us that aggressive behavior has been around since the
beginning of time. They say, look at The Bible, or look at the classics like Homer's Odyssey, or Beowulf. Some
of the violence in those books makes prime time TV look pretty calm. Therefore, these defenders say that it is
wrong to say we are in a crisis situation with media violence. A better way of stating it is that American mass
media are simply continuing along with our basic instinct to tell stories.

Another argument by defenders of media violence is that people who conduct research about violence
sometimes don't define it realistically. In other words, what is "violence" according to the research? When the
character Bugs Bunny hits his enemy Elmer Fudd in a cartoon, is this really violence? The defenders say no,
these are simply comic behaviors that virtually every child would understand are not real. They add that if
critics call this humor violence, then they are severely exaggerating the amount of violence on TV, on videos,
and even in the movies.

Thirdly, defenders of media violence point out that for the vast majority of people, media violence doesn't
instigate, or cause violence. There are some youngsters who might already have an aggressive personality and
if they see violence on TV or in films, they might imitate it. If the violence wasn't on TV, something else in their
home life or background would probably cause them to act in this way anyway.



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Lastly, in response to the idea that media make people think that the society is more violent and scary
than it really is, defenders of media violence say that it is a fact that the world is a violent place. They say that
the FBI statistics don't tell us the whole story anyway, so instead of thinking that media are scaring people, we
should maybe think about the fact that the media help teach us how to protect ourselves. According to them,
there's nothing wrong with that.

As you might imagine, critics of media violence have responses to these defenders and vice versa. And so,
the debate goes on.