Sissela Bok’s essay Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence tells readers that just like smoking is banned from public places, there needs to be a guideline in censoring the amount of violence in our media. Bok talks about how violence and aggression are showing up more and more everywhere and in younger people more often. I believe that she directs this essay at families and working class people because these people will most likely identify with the concerns of violence in entertainment.
As for the intentions of the author I am somewhat confused because after reading this I am leaning more so towards not allowing others to decide what I can and cannot watch. Before reading this I would have generally agreed with the author’s intent, because I do feel strongly about keeping violence from children who cannot comprehend its meaning. Bok does use a form of ethos by stating the refuting evidence that would contradict her conclusions, but because she does this so well she makes her own evidence seem insignificant. At one point she states that “No reputable scholar” (Bok 87) would blame television for crime rates being so high. Then after she uses a study that estimates TV violence being accountable for half of the violent crimes, which completely takes credibility away from the case study. Many of Bok’s examples are not very effective, but there were a few that did hit home. When she related TV violence to a study done with sexual violence and watching violent pornography, she showed how becoming desensitized to crime makes it easier to commit one. Bok also ended on a strong point by using an example that would have a protective instinct on families. I realize that this article was written about ten years ago, but many parents that I know would not allow their children to watch Loony Toons because of the violent nature, so all in all Bok would get two thumbs out of five.
So if you could rewrite this essay today would you push for censoring children’s programming? Adults? Or maybe none of it? Why?
I think parents should be censoring what their children watch and are exposed to and media should have creative rights. Looking back at the old cartoons I used to watch I can see how violent it is and the omnipresence of racism and sexism but as a kid I was too innocent to catch on to this or even know what it meant and I feel it did not have a negative effect on me.
ReplyDeleteI too grew up watching those cartoons and can say today that I am not a violent person. I certainly do not think that violent cartoons will affect every child to become a crazy violent person, just like everytime someone drinks and drives they don't necessarily die or kill others. I think the key is prevention so those chances are less. I also do agree completely that instead of parents looking to media moguls for censorship of cartoons, we should all look at what we ourselves can do.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is partly both parents/caregivers and the media companies. First I would like to say that as a parent I make the choices of shows that my children watch. I also sit down with them and talk about any violence I see being emulated after watching these shows. I firmly believe that it's the adults responsibility to differentiate tv and reality. On the flip side, a media network who is marketing to children should be responsible for putting only age appropriate programs on those stations. If they are marketing for children, then keep it safe. Look at teletoon for example. The programs are all non-violent. It's a great way to market and be true to the age group. Then look at say Y-TV. That's got a lot of violence in it and is an example of a network who markets to children and does not keep it safe.
ReplyDeleteIn the end it still comes down to parents for me. Is my child going to be clicking through the channels on his own? Not a chance. But do I think that parents should blame the networks when they are using the tv as a babysitter, again not a chance.
I agree with your analysis. Although the writer seeks to convince us of the correlation between violent programming and acts of violence, the broad scope of her topic and inconclusive evidence fail to carry her theory.
ReplyDeleteBut she does get us talking about the topic of violent programming, as the responses to your blog reveal. And we learn to be careful when we write our own research papers. We need to bring in the other side, but not in such a way that the reader starts to lose sight of the author's strong argument, or worse still sides with the opposing view.
Do you think there are things we can learn from Bok's example, things we can hope to do better in our own papers?