[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 23, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        CAN WE STOP TV VIOLENCE?

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, one of my favorite columnists is 
William Raspberry. One of the weaknesses we have in life is that we 
tend to like the people we agree with, and, with rare exceptions, I 
agree with Bill Raspberry. He offers insight, as well as being a good 
journalist, and he has a heart and shows it, as well as having common 
sense.
  Recently, he had a column on TV violence that puts forward the 
common-sense reality that we have to face, and we are gradually facing, 
now in our society.
  I ask to insert the Bill Raspberry column in the Record at this 
point.
  The column follows:

            [From the Annapolis (MD) Capital, Feb. 7, 1994]

              TV Violence Is Harmful--But Can We Stop It?

                         (By William Raspberry)

       Atlanta.--``In my field of psychology, there's a lot of 
     ambiguity,'' Arnold P. Goldstein admits. ``But after a while, 
     there's enough research to say we have a fact.''
       This, he says, is a fact: Television violence begets real-
     world violence.
       Goldstein, director of the Center for Research on 
     Aggression at Syracuse University, is here as the featured 
     consultant at a two-day conference on school violence. He has 
     made a major sideline of instructing professionals--this time 
     members of the National Association of School Psychologists--
     in ways of reducing violence. His books on teaching social 
     skills to anti-social youth--``skill streaming,'' he calls 
     it--are respected across the nation.
       But he believes his work would be a good deal easier if 
     television weren't so doggedly violent.
       ``There's just no question of the effect of television,'' 
     he tells me. ``Literally hundreds of studies all point to 
     this conclusion. The only people who seriously question the 
     link--like the tobacco industry questioning the link between 
     cigarette smoking and cancer--are the TV people themselves, 
     and even many of them are coming around.''
       Goldstein lists three main categories of effects: The 
     aggression effect, the victim effect and the bystander 
     effect.
       The first includes so-called copycat violence. ``There are 
     188 separate studies, involving 244,000 viewers, showing that 
     a substantial number of viewers will become more aggressive, 
     more violent after watching violent TV shows. Younger 
     children are affected more than older ones, boys more than 
     girls. In terms of types of show, the violently erotic are 
     the worst.''
       He said studies show that there is more copying of violent 
     acts when the violence is justified or rewarded in the 
     script, when it involves how-to specifics and when it is 
     shown as relatively painless, or when victims of violence are 
     shown quickly recovering from their injuries.
       The ``victim effect'' principally involves an ``increased 
     level of fearfulness about the world in general,'' according 
     to Goldstein. ``What troubles me most, though, is the 
     bystander effect. You know, the Kitty Genovese syndrome. 
     Televised violence increases the degree of callousness and 
     indifference to actual violence. People who watch TV violence 
     become less helping toward the victims of violence and 
     display more tolerance for higher and higher levels of 
     aggression.''
       Most of us know--or have strongly suspected--what 
     Goldstein's analysis of reams of studies demonstrates. 
     Television knows it, too. The question is what to do about 
     it.
       For Goldstein the answer is something short of official 
     censorship but ``something beyond the tips-to-parents 
     advice--sitting with your children, talking about the 
     violence, monitoring their viewing, that sort of thing.'' But 
     he doesn't know just what.
       I don't either. The violence-content labeling recently 
     adopted by the industry (following a major public outcry and 
     congressional hearings) is a help, but principally for at-
     home parents of small children. Older children, including 
     ``latchkey kids'' who baby-sit themselves until their parents 
     get home, won't bother with the labels--except, perhaps, as a 
     guide to which are the really cool shows.
       Various channel-blocking devices could be helpful in 
     locking out, say, certain cable channels. But what parent 
     would take the time to check each day's listing and block out 
     specific objectionable shows (assuming it was clear which 
     shows were objectionable and assuming there were machines 
     capable of such selective blocking)?
       And who, in households where parents can't tape tonight's 
     ``Jeopardy'' show without help from the kids, would program 
     those machines? (``OK, Mom, I've got it set so it'll only get 
     PBS and the Gospel Hour. You and Dad have a nice evening.'')
       The violent influence cited by Goldstein--he says there 
     are, on average, eight violent acts per prime-time hour on 
     television--may be beyond the means of technology to control.
       Indeed, it's hard to see what, within the confines of the 
     First Amendment, might control it. The most frequently 
     mentioned alternative is a boycott of sponsors of worst-
     offending programs. But there are two problems with that.
       First, many cable shows (including some of the raunchiest 
     and most gratuitously violent on television) are unsponsored.
       And second the reason TV operators keep bringing us this 
     stuff that is scaring us, numbing us and, yes, killing us is 
     that they are privy to our dirty little secret:
       We want it.

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