ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200033
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ellen Goodman
SOURCE: ELLEN GOODMAN
ED DONNERSTEIN is not a cultural coroner. He doesn't believe that you can understand the problem of violence on television by merely doing a body count. Or a bullet count.
As one of the lead researchers on a study done at the oceanside Santa Barbara campus of the University of California, he wants to make it perfectly clear that not all the violence on television is equally harmful nor are all young viewers equally harmed.
No, he would not oppose televising ``Romeo and Juliet'' despite the bodies in the last act. And no, he does not believe that violence on television is the sole or primary cause of violence in America. A But he says, ``we can no longer deny that violence on television contributes to the problem.'' He offers this message slowly and distinctly, as if trying to be heard over the din.
The National Television Violence Study that he and his colleagues labored over for three years was released this month into the middle of heated political debate. It made Page One just as the Telecommunications Act became law with its controversial provision for a v-chip, a device to help parents block out programs rated too violent. It hit the evening news just as broadcasters were pondering the president's invitation for a Feb. 29 trip to the White House woodshed.
Rep. Ed Markey, the man with the v-chip on his mind, immediately praised the study as a Perry Mason Moment, the perfect evidence against an industry in the throes of denial. An NBC executive called the research ``ridiculous.'' Variety suggested a lobotomy.
The analysis of 2,693 television programs from 23 channels showed that a majority of programs contain what the researchers call ``harmful violence.'' These were programs that posed three distinct threats to public health: ``learning to behave violently, becoming more desensitized to the harmful consequences of violence, and becoming more fearful of being attacked.''
``The issue for us,'' Donnerstein says, ``is not just that there was violence but how it was presented.'' In analyzing the plots, images and programs, the team asked, what makes violence a public-health problem? What contexts should we worry about?
For one thing, violence turns out to do a lot of harm when it looks harmless. One of the lessons children learn watching television is that there are few consequences to the person who commits violence, or to the victim.
In 73 percent of the scenes, the violence went unpunished. In nearly half of the programs with slugfests and shootouts, the victims miraculously never appeared harmed. In 58 percent they showed no pain. In fact, only 16 percent of the programs showed any long-term problems - physical, emotional or financial.
Add to this ``positive'' portrayal of negative behavior the fact that children's programs were least likely to show the bad effects of violence and most likely to make it funny. As Donnerstein says, ``We're showing children violence that goes unpunished, is unrealistic and humorous.''
As for other messages? Only a minuscule 4 percent of violent programs had an anti-violent theme. Or showed any alternative to the gun, the fist, the fight.
It's not surprising that this study is being touted in Washington as a sound basis for rating television violence. Last week, for the first time, the four networks began to discuss a voluntary rating system. If the v-chip is to become what Clinton called the ``parents' power chip,'' we need a ratings system that's more sophisticated than one that counts dead bodies.
Indeed, selling the v-chip to an audience of Virginia parents, Clinton not only quoted the dark facts of the violence research, he promised that ``new technologies can put you back in the driver's seat in your life. ...'' It's an appeal to parents who want to regain some modest control over the messages coming into their houses and to their children.
But the same National Television Violence Study also hints at the limits of a technological fix to what is not really a technological problem.
The portrait that emerges from this analysis, after all, is not just of the television environment. It's a profile of an industry that narrowly equates entertainment with violence. It's a profile of a galaxy of broadcasters, producers and programmers who have shown more imagination in claiming their programs are harmless than in changing the destructive plots.
The v-chip is a violence block. But the real problem in the television industry is a creative block. Soon we'll have the v-chip. Does anyone know how to get rid of the c-chip?
- The Boston Globe
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB