Culture Divided by David Trend

Author:David Trend [Trend, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594517464
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2010-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Through a Glass Darkly

Frightening narratives drive movie plots, and frightening news stories generate television ratings. Debates over media violence and its “effects” on viewers reveal a wide disparity of opinion about how and to what extent viewers are harmed or otherwise transformed by violent imagery. But one fact that can’t be denied is the overwhelming ubiquity of violence on television, movies, computer games, and the Internet. Most experts now dispute the popular wisdom that individuals can be seduced into imitating what appears in Grand Theft Auto or the Saw series. Of greater concern is the cumulative effect of a lifetime of exposure to violent stories. By current estimates, a young person will witness 200,000 simulated violent acts and 40,000 dramatized murders by the age of eighteen.24 George Gerbner asserts that sheer quantity of frightening material on television, in movies, and in other media produces a distorted set of perceptions in viewers’ minds through a phenomenon he terms the “cultivation process.” Over time, the repeated exposure to violent media can lead people to believe the world is more dangerous that it actually is and that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict. In this way, violence and its accompanying fear become naturalized and accepted as normal parts of everyday life. And as with many social constructions, this ideological process usually takes place in people’s minds without any realization that it is happening.

Television news thrives on frightening stories. By now it’s been well documented that news media report crimes, deadly automobile accidents, plane crashes, natural disasters, and illnesses are far out of proportion to their actual occurrence. And while the footage generally has become less gruesome (terrorism reports notwithstanding), the volume of violent reports has skyrocketed. As national murder rates in the 1990s fell by 20 percent, the number of stories rose by 600 percent.25 People in the United States are living longer than ever before and, despite an inequitable health care system, have access to remedies that have improved dramatically in recent decades. If statistics about the threat of disease were to be believed, 536 million U.S. citizens would now be gravely ill with heart disease and various cancers.26 To compete for viewers, news media have increasingly gravitated to such material. This is a direct consequence of the transformation of television news into infotainment. Two decades ago the major TV networks existed as independent entities, and competed against each other with at least a partial interest in journalistic integrity. Then several things happened. The rapid growth of cable and satellite TV diluted the once-monopolistic hold the networks held on viewership. This triggered budgetary problems that shrank the reporting capability of news programs. Next, larger parent corporations acquired the networks. General Electric purchased NBC in 1985. Capital Cities bought ABC the same year and sold it to Disney in 1996. Westing-house picked up CBS is 1995, later changing its name to CBS, Inc. With these purchases, any residual commitment to journalistic quality was replaced by the mandate to deliver profits to shareholders.

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