The final, arguably most important impact that television has had on our culture is its double sided effect on our fears, attitude towards violence and overall values. Television programming and news stations often paint a picture of the world as a terrifying, violent place. This creates an inflated sense of fear among viewers while also desensitizing the public to violence and cruelty. Research shows that heavy television viewers perceive that world as a much more dangerous place than those people who don’t watch nearly as much television. When the evening news comes on TV, the majority of the stories are saturated with crime and violence. Such stories often times result in a spike in ratings and viewership, especially among viewers who watch television later at night. (1990: 93) “Violence and other adult themes increase with the hour. The 8 o’clock (news) has more violence than the two earlier ones, and 10 P.M. programs have even more.”
The violence doesn’t stop at the news. American television programs are notorious for containing scenes of violence, especially in prime-time slots. In a study done by Gerbner in 1985, data shows that five to six violent acts per hour were found in prime-time television shows, often times within some sort of action series. Today, shows that air on premium networks like HBO and Showtime are often extremely violent, holding little to nothing back in the department of blood and core. Shows like Dexter, where the main character is a serial killer and Boardwalk Empire, which chronicles the violent lives of prohibition gangsters, build every episode around violence. It is not rare to see a couple murders, often times detailed and gruesome, in each episode. Violent programming is not limited to such channels, however. Network television features increasingly graphic shows, as well. Law & Order: SVU (Special Victims Unit, is a show the follows the cases of a crime unit in New York Police Department, who specialize in special cases, nearly always involving some combination of rape, murder, and assault. For years, this show has aired in prime-time weeknight time slots; currently airing on Wednesdays at 9 P.M. SVU is just one example of violent network television programming. Others include Revolution, a post-apocalyptic setting riddled with fight scenes and killing, 666 Park Avenue, a show that falls in the horror genre rife with violent murders and references to the devil, and NCIS, a show much like Law & Order where the writers serve up stories about abductions, sexual assault, and child pornography. All three shows air on different networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS respectively and all have a rating of TV-14, indicating that they are not appropriate for children under the age of 14. It is safe to assume, however, that simply flashing a rating on the top corner of the TV screen at the beginning of an episode is going to do very little in the way of deterring underage viewers.
Now that we’ve established the fact that violence exists on TV, the next step is to weigh the consequences of such. There are conflicting schools of thought on whether or not media violence has a positive correlation with real life violence or not. In a study done by Neil Malamuth of the University of California, Malamuth states that (1990: 99) “steady viewing of graphic violence, including sexual assault, was associated with greater tolerance for and less disapproval of rape and wife-beating.” According to Smith, “the evidence is becoming overwhelming that just as witnessing violence in the home may contribute to normal adults and children learning and acting out violent behavior, violence on TV and movies may lead to the same result.” Not everyone is so convinced however. Freedman sees that there is a slight correlation between TV violence and aggression, but not enough to positively determine that Tv violence is the cause of increased aggression. According to Freedman, “Something in their personalities or behavioral patterns, some predisposition, trait, combination of environmental pressures, learning history, or whatever, causes people to like aggressive programming and also to be aggressive.” Freedman feels that a clear determination between whether the violent television leads to an aggressive personality or if the aggressive personality draws the person to violent television cannot be made. Personally, I have to side with Malamuth and Smith on this particular issue. It seems intuitive to think that a person who is exposed to violence in the media is going to be desensitized to violence in real life; if for no other reason than the fact that if a horrific event happens to them or they pay witness to such an event, a person familiar with seeing such events on TV will likely be able to cope with the trauma by mentally reverting to the comfort of their homes, sitting in front of a TV screen.
The specific areas of life affected in addition to the extent of the impact have been debated for years. Naturally, a medium as intrusive and extensively involved in American life will have long term consequences on the way people act, think, and perceive. Learned television watching behaviors, such as eating, talking, and going to the bathroom whenever you please often translate into other areas of life, going from strictly an action performed in the privacy of our homes to an action performed in movie theatres, lecture halls, and office buildings. Culture, which according to its definition includes learned, shared understandings, has been forever changed as the mass media has the ability to spread a message to people from all walks of life, affecting the collective knowledge that we, as a people, share with one another. Finally and most importantly, television affects the way we think, especially in reference to violence. We have been desensitized due to the scheduling of violent programming in addition to a focus on violence in news broadcasts. Countless examples and various studies have been performed testing all sorts of different theories out about what the long term effects of such a dominating invention will have on our society, yielding a lot of different results. The one constant that remains, however, is that there are some definite effects; strong ones at that. The mass effect of television on our culture cannot be taken lightly, and an ever-continuing research effort is a must for the better understanding of such a powerful tool.
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