Linkages: Violence and the Media

� Jenna Caplette

What is true for most of us these days is that we disregard the impact that the stories told by the media, by the movie and television industry, by video game manufacturers and designers have on us all.

This is a global issue created by global companies. This is an issue of young and old, though it is the young who are most vulnerable.

It�s the way we�re designed. I don�t know why, but I do know it�s true. Which is why the nature of the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, matters. What is true for most of us these days is that we disregard the impact that the stories told by the media, by the movie and television industry, by video game manufacturers and designers have on us all. And I do mean all of us � this is a global issue created by global companies. This is an issue of young and old, though it is the young who are most vulnerable.

As I parent, I told myself it didn�t matter that my daughter watched so much TV. I wasn�t concerned when she so identified with the hitman in "The Whole Nine Yards,"  laughing as he murders people. A friend of ours was horrified when she told him she wants to become a professional killer. I thought he was over reacting. Now I think otherwise. Now I think I was too willing to buy in to the idea that it all doesn�t matter, that she knew it was make-believe and a bizarre make-believe at that. I was too willing to think that emotionally intelligent people are impervious to the influence of what the media tells us, the messages movies send.

Did you know that before the age of six, children don�t have the ability to separate fantasy and reality? They don�t know that splatter movie parents are watching is fiction, certainly do not see it as entertainment. For them, they have met someone and then watched them be hideously murdered. As kids become teens, and mature toward adulthood, the brain continues to go through growth spurts and it is during those growth spurts that the impact of the media and video games is strongest. That impact shapes worldview, attitudes, and behaviors. Those behaviors are expressed at home, in our schools, in our community. They show in the kinds of violence we�re seeing and the age of violent perpetrators. They show themselves in skewed community attitudes.

Gloria Edwards, Gallatin County�s Victim Witness Program Director, says, "Watch what the national crime rate is doing. Although murder rates are down, aggravated assault and other violent crime rates are up. We�re seeing more violent crime; more random crime; more younger violence; more road rage. You can�t prevent it or protect yourself from it because it has nothing to do with anything you did.

"At Victim Services we�re seeing more teens assaulting parents; girls are assaulting girls. In one incident some kids were throwing rocks off one of the overpasses here, thinking it was fun. They smashed the windshield of a semi-truck. They didn�t understand the potential consequences at all.

TV makes you think everything happens in half an hour and you just go on. You don�t see long term consequences. In cartoons, kids just see someone bounce right back up after being hit or hurt."

This isn�t an issue of people with "goofy" and restrictive world views. I used to think it was. I thought I was being progressive by resisting the outrage against violent and
sex-oriented story telling. Now I wonder, how much was my attitude also a product of
media intervention?

There are scores of documented, peer-reviewed, and replicated studies that support the impact of media on our global mind, particularly on the minds and behaviors of children. In July of 2000 powerful voices from the public health community, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association, joined together to produce a statement on the impact of entertainment violence on children. In it they reported that amongst themselves they found, " a strong consensus on many of the effects on children's health, well-being and development." They based their conclusions on "over 30 years of research" and found that "viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. . . Its effects are measurable and long-lasting. Moreover, prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life."

Gloria Edwards says, "So many children spend hours and hours in front of the TV or playing violent video games. Their parents use those as babysitters. People have gotten where they look at violence as entertainment, that everything unfolds like it does on television. (Violence) victims say, �This is not CSI, this is not entertainment for us. This is our lives�."

"As people get used to media violence, they want and need a bigger dose of it to make an impression on them. That�s disturbing."

Media expert Dr. Peter DeBenedittis of New Mexico often teaches in Montana. Dedicated to creating a cultural revolution around media, DeBenedittis asks, "Would you let a complete stranger come in to your home if you knew that stranger was  going to teach your children violence, foul language, and to disrespect you?"

He pauses. "We not only let that happen, we invite it and pay for it."

We�re seeing more violent crime; more random crime; more younger violence; more road rage. You can�t prevent it or protect yourself from it because it has nothing to do with anything you did.

It is "interactive media" like video and computer games that may have the strongest and most long-lasting impact on violent behavior. It is with them that the link between media and violence becomes least abstract. Last year 48 were killed in American schools. Gallatin County Sheriff Jim Cashell supplies a powerful common denominator for those school killings. "All the kids who participated. . . played violent video games on a regular basis.

"For those kids who have problems, violence in the media can cloud their judgment and lower their inhibitions. " Cashell pauses, "But that can be true even of Louis L�Amour books."

In September 2000 testimony to the US Senate Commerce Committee, Donald E. Cook, M.D., the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told members of the US Senate Commerce Committee that "etiology of violence is complex and multi-factorial.
Entertainment violence is not the sole factor contributing to youth aggression, anti-social attitudes and violence. Family breakdown, peer influences, the availability of weapons, and numerous other factors may all play a part." He also told them, "Meta-analysis, a process by which the results from many different research studies are analyzed as a whole, shows that the strength of the correlation between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior is larger than that of. . . passive tobacco smoke and lung cancer or calcium intake and bone mass. . .".

On June 19^th CBS TV�s "60 Minutes" asked, "Can a video game lead to murder?" The story focused on a youth in Fayette Alabama who had "played Grand Theft Auto day and night for months. . . ". That youth killed three adults, two police officers and a 911 dispacher. Attorney Jack Thompson, "a long-time crusader against video-game violence, is bringing the suit. �What we're saying is that Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator,� says Thompson."

Why the increase in violence in the media and in games? In short, they are profitable. And they are profitable, party because they are mildly addictive. Over time you need more exposure to create the rush you�ve come to enjoy.

In addition to that, Peter DeBenedittis says in global media, the six companies that own 85% of the media want to "create stories that they can sell all over the world. Stories with nuances, like romantic comedies, don�t translate well. Violence and sex translate because they are about action, and they are not culturally specific. Conflicts hold attention. It�s a device that they can easily build plots around. Its a lot more difficult to build plots on cooperation, and when you do, you lose all the graphic images that don't need translating."

Mary Ann, a friend of mine, described her experience going to see the movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" with her daughter. A "People Magazine" review described the movie as making "marriage look like fun." How? Mr. And Mrs. Smith "crack wise and swap tender endearments � even while shooting at each other." Mary Ann said when she saw the movie, everyone in the audience seemed to find it uproariously funny. She and her daughter looked at each other and wondered if they had missed the punch-line.

Edwards cautions, "We need to ask ourselves if its really humorous to see someone�s brains being blown out. That kind of entertainment desensitizes people to real violence."

It is as parents that we have the most power to intervene in this trend.

It is as parents that we have the most power to intervene in this trend. Most video stores do not card youth who are buying inappropriate games. You will need to be the one who knows what�s in that game your child tells you all his or her friends are playing. There are plenty of websites that rate both video games and movies for violence. Find one you like and use it.

Teach your children about the impact media has on their lives. DeBenedittis says that in the media literacy curriculum he designed, "We show children that they are being manipulated, that they are having their brain chemistry played with. We tell them that the media is designed to keep you in a certain bio-medical state. It�s mildly addictive. You have to tune in to get the chemical release you�ve become accustomed to. Over time, you need to up your dosage to get that same release.

"When you quit, you have to develop a new set of chemicals. That may take awhile and in the meantime, you won�t feel right, or good."

"Quitting" means cutting back to one hour of media exposure a day, a number that seems to radically diminish media�s impact. It means taking televisions out of bedrooms so that children aren�t tempted to stay awake into the wee hours. For parents, it means making different decisions about our own attitudes, our own media exposure. It means remembering the delight in books. In Montana, we�re lucky. Because, we can tell the kids, go outside to play. We can take ourselves outside to play.

Daphne Collins, anthropologist and Gallatin Valley Communities that Care Coordinator, believes, "We have a capacity to limit the impacts of violent media. Even as adults, we can ask ourselves about what we�re watching, including things like MTV.

"We need to pay attention. To connect with people who will validate us in our concerns about violence. You can gain power when you find like-minded people."

Just the same, "awareness never changes anything." It�s action that matters. Educate yourself. Decide what makes sense to you. Then, as the school year begins, have a family meeting to set new guidelines about your household�s relationship with media.

When I took the television out of my daughter�s room two years ago, I saw a radical change in her behavior. I don�t tell her she can only watch an hour of media a day, but three days a week are media-free. And guess what? She does find other things to do with her time. And, I�ve begun to advocate for the difference between the abstract reality of her fantasy media world and this world where we live.

We need to resist pre-packaged stories, stories told for profit, stories that brutalize our world view and ethics. Then, each of needs to listen and watch for, then share, stories that express the world we want, and in that way, call it in to being.

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• Parent guide. Includes a page with information and resources related to violence.
  
• The Center for Successful Parenting includes links to resources that rate video
  games and movies.
  
• Media Literacy. Describes our media literacy services and includes links to resources.
  
• The National Institute on Media and the Family helps families and educators to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of mass media on children.

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