Aggression: The impact of Media Violence is written by Sissela Bok, a well known writer about bioethics, applied ethics, biography and autobiography; and public affairs.
The author talks about the negative impact of media violence to the viewers especially the younger audience. She mention that media glamorizes aggressive conduct, removes inhibitions towards such conduct, arouse viewers and invites imitation. There are instances that viewers been affected by what they see whether it’s TV or Movie, sometimes it change our perspective in life or gives an impact to our point of view but it doesn’t necessarily provoke us to do what is beyond to commit a crime, mostly the ending gives the viewer a good lesson, a feedback to reflect our own lives.
Media board for TV and Movies are professional critique who controls the flow of a certain movie/show and they decide if a certain movie/show is suitable for public viewing or not. They pose a certain criteria and guidelines whether a show need to be air on screen on what specific time and day. Parents are there to monitor of what is suitable for their kids, sometimes they watch it together so they can explain further the movie/show to their children. Most of the TV nowadays has child lock buttons to block the channels for adult viewing.
Bok also talks about media coverage of violence. Far from declining has escalated since then (1990’s), devoting more attention to celebrity homicides and copycat crimes. She mentions some personalities such as MacGyver and Stone’s movie as her example of negative effect of media violence. Bok should also consider some factor such as psychological problem, peer group influence, drugs, alcohol, and family pressure. She also mention about the evidence indicates that if hypothetically, television technology had never been developed, there would today be 10,000 fewer homicides each year in the U.S,70,000 fewer rapes ,and 7000,000 fewer injury assault. She added that violent crime would be half of what is now is. I disagree with her; Media is just a piece of a puzzle. You can’t put the blame only on TV for every crime committed everyday. TV is already part of our lives.
Bok also talks about TV program affect a person more than the effect of tobacco smoking to cancer or drinking and driving to automobile accident. This is actually a different scenario. It is always a case to case basis. Whether Bok will accept it or not modernization comes with media coverage expansion and we can’t control it.
Younger viewers nowadays are more mature and smart to reply their drastic decisions on what they seen on TV. Although not all of them, they are more aware of the consequences for every action that they will do. Banning television technology will not help the present situation about violence. It is the society that needs our help.
Do you think you can imagine yourself to live without any media coverage or television technology just to lessen the violence in the society?
I couldn’t imagine myself being uninformed about local, national and international events. I think the problem is that to impress upon us how violent the crime/event was they personalize it – we’re given names of those involved, we invade privacy, show gruesome details. But, I think it is the reporters responsibility to share the news as it happens, not ‘wrap it up in a safe viewable package' - G-rate it. I think this would be perceived as censorship. However, children should have their viewing monitored by responsible adults. When visuals are gruesome the show is often not intended for a younger audience. Movies, ofcourse, have a rating so it’s much easier to decide what’s appropriate – the news is quite a different story.
ReplyDeleteThanks Marie for your response to Bok's ideas and the point you raise that media is simply showing the violence that exists in our society.
ReplyDeleteNow what to do about this violence? That's a good question.