Violence in the Media

In chapter 11 of James Potter’s Media Literacy he discusses the content of the media. In pages 177-179, he focuses on violence in the media. He says that not only has violence in the media increased over the years, its frequency is portrayed in the media more often than it actually occurs in life. In an example he gives about the television show COPS, he says that “FBI figures for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault were 13.2% of all crimes, but in the television world, these four violent crimes accounted for 87.0% of all crimes. (pg. 179)” It sounds like Potter is saying that violence is portrayed more to the audience to gain ratings. It makes sense, what average viewer wants to watch a police officer making mundane rounds and ticketing average speeders without any dramatic actions or conversations; sounds pretty boring.

     According to Dr. George Gerbner in ChallengingMedia’s The Killing Screens: Media & the Culture of Violence it is not the audience that wants to see all the violent acts; there are three simple reasons why violence has become so prevalent. First, since the main characters in the programs are usually men in the prime of health, the easiest story to write that suits them is one of conflict and violence. Second, violence is one of the easiest things to market in a global economy because it is understood without translation. Finally, because human beings can adapt to a given stimulus very quickly, they also become bored with a certain level of violence quickly and must be given a higher dose to remain entertained.

     Thinking about what Potter said about violence in parallel with what Gerbner said about violence, it appears that the audience is not responsible for the amount of violence they watch. No, the corporations are trying to package something that will appeal to the broadest group of people they can reach and repeatedly advertising that given media until the audience believes that they really want violence to the point of needing it. It makes sense to me; there are a lot of high grossing programs that do not have very much violent content if any at all that do better than violent based programs. The question doesn’t seem to be how much violence should be in the media anymore, but rather, how much violence are you willing to watch?