ESSAY ON YOUTH VIOLENCE AND THE MEDIA : In summation, despite the fact that the media are among many factors, they should not be ignored, regardless of the level of their direct impact. Because social violence is a pressing problem, even those factors that only modestly 'contribute to it are important. Small effects the media accumulate and appear to have significant long- term social effects.
ESSAY ON YOUTH VIOLENCE AND THE MEDIA
In summation, despite the fact that the media are among many
factors, they should not be ignored, regardless of the level of their direct
impact. Because social violence is a pressing problem, even those factors that
only modestly 'contribute to it are important. Small effects the media
accumulate and appear to have significant long- term social effects.
The research strongly indicates that we are a more violent
society because of our mass media. Exactly how and to what extent the media
cause long-term changes in violent behavior remains unknown, but the fact that
it plays an important, but not independent role is generally conceded.
What policies are suggested by the knowledge we now posses
about media and violence? Not all of the factors discussed above are good
candidates for public intervention strategies, but there are three sources of
youth violence that government policy can influence.
In order of importance they are: extreme differences in
economic conditions and the concentration of wealth in America; the American
gun culture; and exacerbating the problems created by the first two the media’s
violence enhancing messages.
Family neighborhood and personality factors may be more
important for generating violence in absolute magnitude, but they are not
easily influenced by public actions.
Since 1975, we have increased the rate of juvenile
incarceration steadily. Today we hold in custody approximately one hundred
thousand juveniles every year. Despite our strengthened capacity to punish,
however, youth violence has not abated.
This result should have been expected because two social
mechanisms are needed to reduce violence punishing violent criminal behavior
and rewarding law abiding, nonviolent behavior.
While punishment of violent behavior is certainly necessary
and justified, its emphasis, coupled with the concentration of wealth in
America, has resulted in the degrading of the equally important social capacity
to reward law-abiding behavior. By emphasizing one, we have lamed and
discredited the other.
Non-material rewards like social status, an esteemed
reputation, and a clear conscience have been losing their legitimacy with the
young, while material rewards for law-abiding life-styles such as careers,
comfortable incomes, and affordable goods are less generally available to our
poorest and, not surprisingly, most crime-prone and violent citizens.
We have chosen to emphasize the mechanism, punishment that
is actually the weaker of the two in actually influencing behavior. As operant
conditioning theory would predict, punishment, if severe enough, can suppress
one type of violent crime. But the suppression of one behavior gives no push
toward a desirable replacement activity, and a substitute violent crime will
likely emerge.
So “smash and grab"
robberies give way to “bump and rob” holdups. Shaping behavior requires a
credible reward system. In social terms, youth must see law-abiding behavior as
credible and potentially rewarding as well as seeing violent behavior as
potentially resulting in punishment.
The second area that government police immediately address
is the gun culture in America. Our culture of violence, referred in the opening
quote, is made immeasurably more deadly by the enfolded gun culture. The
availability of guns as cheap killing mechanisms is simply a national insanity.
The mass production of these killing "toys" and
the easy access to them must be addressed. The most recent statistics show that
one out of every ten high school students report that they carry a handgun.
Gun buy-back programs should be supported, and production
and availability must be reduced if a positive net effect is to be expected.
Irrespective of the difficulty of controlling the sources of individual violent
behavior, the implements of fatal violence should not be ignored.
The third area of policy concern, the mass media,
exacerbates the gun culture by portraying guns as glamorous, effective,
omnipotent devices. The mass media also heighten the negative effects of
economic, through their consumer messages in advertizing and entertainment.
Although both of these effects that add to the problem of
youth violence are sometimes discussed, the debate about the media remains
tightly focused on measuring, and reviewing violent media content. Within this
the emphasis has been on counting violent acts rather than on exploring the
context of its portrayal. Deciphering the media's moral and value messages
about violence has been mostly ignored.
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