The 11 Myths of Media Violence

W. James Potter

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780761927358
• eBook ISBN: 9781506320762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

"Potter?s The 11 Myths of Media Violence is a groundbreaking, innovative look at a problem that continues to produce controversy even though researchers have been studying it for more than half a century. . . By explicitly describing the various forces that impede public comprehension of the issue, and by organizing the book around 11 central misunderstandings, Potter brilliantly illuminates the thorny issues that surround the media violence debate. His writing is both clear and compelling. Students, researchers, journalists, policy-makers, and parents will enjoy this book and achieve an in-depth understanding of the issues and their implications for society."

-Joanne Cantor, Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Mommy, I?m Scared: How TV and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Protect Them

"The 11 Myths of Meida Violence is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the issue media violence. Potter?s thought-provoking challenges to arguments that media violence is harmless or benign are clearly articulated, empirically sound, and undeniably essential in our violence-saturated culture. This book is certain to be a primary reference for students, scholars, and policy makers dealing with how best to address the psychological, social, and legal implications of violence in the media."

-Mary Beth Oliver, Penn State University

"It is a wonderful summary of the key issues in this hotly debated area. . . This book is a "must read" for anyone involved in the media violence debate."

-Craig A. Anderson, Iowa State University

"The 11 Myths of Media Violence is a must read for everyone who has ever sat in front of a television. Potter indicts our culture thirsty for a quick fix and simple black and white answers. He reminds us we live in a wonderful world of mystery, complexity and untold shades of gray. I must order more copies of this book for the many friends and cohorts with whom I attempt to discuss the harms of media violence."

-Ann Simonton, Director of Media Watch

"This well-written study adds many fresh perspectives to a continuing social and public policy debate. . . . Highly recommended."

—CHOICE

 

Violence sells. The media industries say they are simply businesses responding to market desires, but when they are criticized for contributing to a culture of violence, they claim First Amendment protection. If anything, media violence is more prevalent today than at any other time in the past. Yet, although scientific researchers have produced a strong body of evidence demonstrating that exposure to media violence harms society, that evidence has never been translated into practical and accessible ideas.

 

The 11 Myths of Media Violence clearly explains why media violence has not only been allowed but encouraged to escalate. Esteemed author W. James Potter challenges many of our assumptions about the relationship between media and violence. He argues that these assumptions are the primary barriers preventing us from confronting the issue of violence in films, TV, and video games.

While dispelling misperceptions and evoking emotions, each chapter:

• identifies a myth, its origin, its acceptance by the public, and its growth in popularity.
• analyzes the faulty nature of the myth and shows how it deflects attention away from the truth.
• presents "dilemmas" that challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions.
• includes a list of indispensable references.

The 11 Myths of Media Violence provides an in-depth review of how Congress, journalists, and researchers contribute to the problem and raises important questions that place the reader at the heart of the conflict. W. James Potter takes a broad social science approach, presenting technical information in a direct, balanced, and very readable manner.

Students and scholars of Mass Media, Communications, Film, and Sociology will find The 11 Myths of Media Violence inspires passionate discussion and innovative research. Consumer activists, teachers, and families will find it an essential resource and invaluable step toward finding solutions to this critical social issue.

 

 

ONE

CURRENT CONTEXT

The problem of media violence has been with us for as long as we have had mass media. From the earliest days, storytellers have been presenting conflict in the form of violence, and the public has sought out these stories. As each new medium has come on the scene and consumed more of the population’s attention, exposure to violence in the media has grown, and along with the exposure, criticism of the violence has also grown. With the arrival of the medium of television into most American households during the 1950s, criticism of media violence became widespread throughout the population. The U.S. Congress picked up on public concern 50 years ago and began holding official hearings on the problem—and those hearings continue up until today. The problem attracted scores of researchers who conducted studies to determine the nature of violence in the media and its potential effects on the population. Despite all this activity and concern, the problem is still with us today; we are no closer to a solution or even an amelioration. Why?

In this book, I will show that the persistence of this problem can be traced to the context in which it has grown. This context is an arena in which four players—the public, producers, policymakers, and researchers—have grappled with this issue in a largely adversarial manner. The primary conflict is between the public and the producers of media violence. The other two groups—policymakers and researchers—have over time been moved into roles to facilitate this conflict.

If all four groups had the same goal and worked together cooperatively, we would likely have seen movement toward a solution. But the groups have had different goals. The public is motivated by a fear that vulnerable elements in society—such as children and unstable people—are being influenced by violent portrayals to learn how to commit crimes and are being stimulated to act on their aggressive drives. The public wants the federal government to exercise some sort of control over producers in order to reduce these risks. Producers are motivated to maximize their profits, which requires them to create programming that they believe will attract the largest audiences.

The other two groups—policymakers and researchers—are facilitators of this central struggle between the public and producers. Policymakers provide a forum for the other three groups to air their concerns. Over the past five decades there have been 28 major hearings by Congress—in addition to less formal sessions—to discuss this problem. Throughout this time, policymakers have been successful at keeping the issue on the public’s agenda of problems, but they have not had much success in brokering a compromise that could bring about more of a balance of power and hence a greater sharing of goals.

Researchers have generated a great deal of potentially useful information, but little of that potential has been realized. One finding—that exposure to violence in the media puts people at risk for behaving more aggressively—has worked its way into the public’s knowledge base. But there is little evidence that the public, much less producers and policymakers, realizes that there is a broad spectrum of risks or understands the process of influence that can alter those risks. So much of what the public thinks it “knows” about the issue of media violence is based not on factual evidence but on intuitively derived opinions. Researchers have been far more successful at generating valid information about the nature and effects of media violence than they have been at getting the public, policymakers, and producers to understand or accept that information.

Because the goals of the groups differ, each group argues louder in the hopes that its voice will be heard and convince the other groups that its goals are more important than the goals of the other groups. However, as all groups raise their voices, the noise level gets louder, and the ability to understand the other groups gets lost. Frustration builds, and we are locked in a situation where no one really hears or understands the values of the people in the other groups. The players think they know what the other groups are saying, but this is a misperception that leads to misinformation, which then circulates and takes on a life of its own. People accept this misinformation, blend it with their intuitions, and use this dangerous mix to create their opinions.

THE PUBLIC

Over the past several decades, many public opinion leaders have spoken out against media violence (see Table 1.1). Public opinion polls show that the people generally are critical of the media, because they feel there is too much violence in the media and that this violence is causing harmful effects (see Table 1.2).

Although the belief that the media are causing a harmful effect is widespread in the public, knowledge about the nature of the negative effects and how they work seems to be lacking. A good illustration of the misinformed nature of the topic among well-meaning people occurred just after the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in the spring of 1999. This horrible event triggered national news coverage that lasted for weeks. This gave columnists a chance to write about violence in our society. One example is John Leo, who writes a weekly column for U.S. News & World Report. In his column titled “The Devil With Ms. Jones,” Leo (1999a) railed against violence in the media, especially in video games. By arguing for the elimination of violence in the media, his intention was clearly to stir up controversy and elicit strong reactions from readers, which he did. Two weeks after Leo’s column appeared, U.S. News & World Report published five letters to the editor in response to that column. The ideas expressed in Leo’s column and in the five responses provide a good illustration of what is wrong with public opinion on the issue of media violence. Each presents a sliver of insight but misses the bigger picture, so each is faulty not because of what it says but because of what it leaves unsaid. Each is a sound byte that entices the imagination but has little—or misleading—informational value. In one of the reaction letters, the writer chides Leo for blaming the media, saying, “We are a country full of finger pointers. When tragedies occur, we blame the media, the movie industry, the video game industry—the list goes on and on. However, no one bothers to look in the most obvious place, the mirror.” Of course, the writer is correct that the adolescent shooters at Littleton had the power to control their actions and should be held responsible. But this should not mean that the media had no role in shaping their values and behaviors. The media should not be regarded as blameless merely because there are also other sources of blame. This is an example of partial understanding. We need to get past the limitation of searching for single causes—life is more complicated than that. There are many factors that shape who we are, and the media are an important—but not the sole—factor in that shaping.

Table 1.1 Opinion Leaders Perceive Harm

---

Public Health Groups
1976	American Medical Association’s House of Delegates declares violence an “environmental hazard.”
1984	The American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Children and Television releases a report cautioning physicians and parents that television may promote aggressive behavior.
1985	The American Psychological Association Commission on Youth Violence releases a report linking television violence and real-world violence.
1992	The American Psychological Association calls for a federal policy to protect the public from the harms of televised violence.
1993	The American Psychological Association says, “There is absolutely no doubt that higher levels of viewing violence on television are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior. In addition to increasing violent behaviors toward others, viewing violence on television changes attitudes and behaviors toward violence in significant ways” (p. 33).
1995	The American Academy of Pediatrics, which represents 48,000 pediatricians, says the evidence is clear: Violence in entertainment makes some children more aggressive, desensitizes them to real-life violence, and makes them feel they live in a mean and dangerous world. “There’s no debate. There is clearly a relationship between media violence and violence in the community,” says Vic Strasburger, author of the pediatricians’ statement and chief of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Dr. Strasburger continues, “We are basically saying the controversy is over. There is clearly a relationship between media violence and violence in society” (“Doctor’s Push,” 1995, p. A16). Similar statements are also released by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Public Health Association, and the National Association of Attorneys General.
1996	The American Medical Association says, “An extensive body of research amply documents a strong correlation between children’s exposure to media violence and a number of behavioral and psychological problems, primarily aggressive behavior. The evidence further shows that these problems are caused by the exposure itself” (American Medical Association, 1996).
Government Leaders
1969	The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence issues a report stating that exposure to television increases physical aggression.
1972	The U.S. Surgeon General issues a report on violence stating a causal link between violent behavior and violence on television and motion pictures.
1982	A National Institute of Mental Health report confirms a link between television violence and aggressive behavior.
1984	The Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence releases a report claiming that television violence contributes to actual violence.
1991	Deborah Prothrow-Stith, the former Massachusetts commissioner of public health, writes in her book about youth and violence, Deadly Consequences, “Children who watch a great deal of violent TV are desensitized to the wrongness of what they are seeing” (Robb, 1991, p. 27).
1993	Attorney General Janet Reno supports the regulation of violence on television, saying that in her opinion, “TV violence legislation will pass constitutional muster” (McAvoy & Coe, 1993, p. 6).
1994	Reed Hundt, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), announces an agenda to support restrictions on violent content on television, saying that the violence children view “affects their behavior negatively to some measurable and meaningful degree” (Eggerton, 1995).
1995	Former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS), running for President, says that cultural messages affect “the hearts and minds of our young people.” Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) says, “We are past questions on the research” (Leland, 1995, p. 16).
	Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) calls the situation a “crisis,” because each year hundreds of millions of people witness thousands of deaths. Killing for romance, killing for sex, killing for dinner, and killing for time are just some of the money-making themes coming out of Hollywood (Lutterbeck, 1995). Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC, reflecting on the research studies about media violence, says, “All of them consistently show that television violence contributes to real violence” (Minow & LeMay, 1995, p. 28).
1996	Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-MA) says, “Study after study has shown that television violence causes aggressive and violent behavior in children who watch it. Despite this growing body of evidence, TV and cable companies continue to broadcast murders, rapes, and gratuitous violence into our living rooms” (Kennedy, 1996).
1998	Vice President Al Gore says, “Numerous national experts have demonstrated that children who do view a large amount of TV violence are significantly more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior.” He continues, “There’s really no serious controversy about that linkage” (Jones, 1998, p. 1).
2001	In January, U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher says, “Exposure to violent media plays an important causal role in this societal problem of youth violence.” He adds that repeated exposure to violent entertainment during early childhood causes more aggressive behavior throughout a child’s life (Leeds, 2001, p. A1).
Consumer Action Groups
1975	The National Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) adopts a resolution demanding that networks and local television stations reduce the amount of violence in programming.
1980	The National Coalition on Television Violence is formed.
1994	Barbara Hattemer, president of the National Family Association, says that television teaches “that violence is an everyday occurrence and an acceptable way of solving problems” (1994, p. 360).
1996	The National Foundation to Improve Television (a reform group in Boston) says, “Three different Surgeons General, the U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on Family Violence, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and many others have spoken out about the dangers of television violence” (National Foundation to Improve Television, 1996).
1999	William Bennett, head of Empower America, says, “Almost no one, except for a few blinded by financial stakes, thinks that the popular culture is not having a coarsening effect on our kids.” He adds, “The evidence, empirical and anecdotal, is overwhelming.” He says that there is an “inescapable logic” that a culture brimming with violence does in fact beget violence (Stern, 1999a).
	Dr. James E. Savage Jr., director of the Institute for Life Enrichment in Washington, D.C., which focuses on problems of black men, agrees that exposure to violence can lead people to violent behavior. “There’s an unconscious part of ourselves that tends to sometimes become uncontrolled,” he says. “Society has a lot of loose boundaries as it relates to violence, and it permits this to manifest.”
Religious Leaders
1985	The National Council of Churches of Christ says that the results of the congressional hearings and research reports indicate a clear causal relationship between television violence and aggressive behavior and that the broadcast industry’s demands for absolute proof of such a relationship are “self serving and unprincipled” (Parley, 1985).
1994	Pope John Paul II says that much of the content on television is excessively violent and harmful to the world society.
1995	Rev. Don Wildmon, head of the 1.9 million-member American Family Association, says, “We are beyond a crisis. “We are at the stage of serious business now because [media violence] is affecting everybody” (Lutterbeck, 1995).

---

Another letter was from a 16-year-old Ohio boy who also complained that Leo was blaming the media. He wrote, “These two [the perpetrators of the Littleton massacre] were obsessed with such things because of latent violent tendencies, not the other way around.” He continued, saying that movies and games “are not a whetstone to turn dull male adolescent angst into coldblooded homicide.” This writer sets himself up as the perpetrators’ psychologist. How can a person who never met these boys be so sure that things are the other way around? Perhaps things are as the writer guesses, but shouldn’t we be more careful to find out first before acting so sure?

Another writer complained that Leo “blurs the lines between reality and fantasy.” He says, “It cannot be violence and killing in a video game or in a movie if you are not killing or harming anything that is real. If I take a stick and beat a brick with it, am I killing the brick or committing violence against it? No, of course not. And yet pseudo characters in the video games and the movies are even less real than the brick.” This writer exhibits the problem that he himself is complaining about—that is, he blurs the distinction between reality and fantasy. Of course the video game characters themselves are fantasy, but the people who play the games are real peopl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Current Context
• 2. Myth 1: Violence in the media does not affect me, but others are at high risk.
• 3. Myth 2: The media are not responsible for the negative effects of their violent messages.
• 4. Myth 3: Children are especially vulnerable to the risks of negative exposure to media violence.
• 5. Myth 4: There is too much violence in the media.
• 6. Myth 5: Violence in the media reflects violence in society.
• 7. Myth 6: The media are only responding to market desires.
• 8. Myth 7: Violence is an essential element in all fiction.
• 9. Myth 8: Reducing the amount of violence in the media will solve the problem.
• 10. Myth 9: The First Amendment protects the media from restrictions on violence.
• 11. Myth 10: The rating systems and V-chip will help solve the problem.
• 12. Myth 11: There is nothing I can do to make an effect on reducing the problem.
• 13. Prognosis for Improvement
• References
• Index
• About the Author