[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 26 (Thursday, March 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     COMBATING TELEVISION VIOLENCE

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, many of my colleagues have heard me 
express my concerns about the television violence that plagues our 
society. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, by 
Ronald G. Slaby, a senior scientist at the Education Development Center 
and pediatric lecturer at Harvard Medical School, describes how, by 
design or by default, television serves as an educator for our 
children. Viewers can learn values, skills, and positive behaviors from 
watching television. They also learn about violence. Unfortunately, the 
violence they watch is often glamorized, legitimized, and rewarded, 
communicating a distorted yet influential message to our vulnerable 
children, who lack the critical judgment and real world experience 
necessary to differentiate distortion from reality.
  Mr. Slaby's article provides an interesting discussion about this 
complex problem, and offers some helpful suggestions. I urge my 
colleagues to read it.
  Mr. President, I ask that the full text of this article be printed at 
this point in the Record.
  The article follows:

                     Combating Television Violence

                          (By Ronald G. Slaby)

       ``Who killed him?'' asked the four-year-old girl when her 
     parents told her of the death of her playmate's father. The 
     parents were prepared to discuss the many concerns that a 
     child might have about the death of a parent, but not the 
     question that she asked. After explaining that her playmate's 
     father had died of a disease, they asked why she thought that 
     someone had killed him. ``Isn't that the way people die?'' 
     the girl asked. ``That's the way people die on TV.''
       The depiction of violence on television not only fosters 
     such misunderstanding, but also contributes to the rising 
     tide of violent death and injury in our society. The research 
     evidence is very clear on these harmful effects, a conclusion 
     that was reinforced last year in Violence and Youth: 
     Psychology's Response, the report of a commission appointed 
     by the American Psychological Association to conduct a broad 
     review of the scientific evidence.
       First and foremost, the research demonstrates that 
     television is a teacher--whether by design or by default. All 
     viewers, and particularly children, learn skills, values, and 
     behaviors from television. As Yogi Berra has been quoted as 
     saying: ``You can observe a lot--just by watching.'' Indeed, 
     television is one of the most pervasive and effective 
     teachers ever created. Unfortunately, American television 
     teaches many misleading and harmful lessons about violence.
       ``Entertainment violence'' (a strange term that many 
     industry observers have come to accept) commonly teaches us 
     that violence is legitimate, justified, rewarded, effective, 
     and clean. Sometimes violence is portrayed as heroic, mainly, 
     funny, and even pleasurable. Exposure to these unrealistic 
     and glorified portrayals of violence on television has 
     increased dramatically recently with the greater availability 
     of satellite, cable, video, and interactive video-game 
     technologies.
       Particularly high levels of unrealistic television violence 
     are presented to those most vulnerable to its distorting 
     effects--children. Children are generally more susceptible 
     than adults because they lack the real-world experience and 
     the critical judgment necessary to evaluate how unrealistic 
     and irrelevant to their own lives the distorted portrayals of 
     violence may be.
       Newcomers to the research evidence on violence generally 
     ask the question that the scientific community answered 
     clearly and conclusively more than a decade ago. ``Does 
     viewing violence on television affect people?'' This question 
     is usually accompanied by a comment that indicates the 
     expected answer: ``I understand that the research is not 
     clear on this point.''
       The simple answer is that several effects of viewing 
     television violence have been conclusively documented. 
     Serious concerns derived from this research have been voiced 
     repeatedly by professional organizations such as the American 
     Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, 
     the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public 
     Health Association in publications, resolutions, and policy 
     recommendations. Nevertheless, a huge education gap still 
     exists between what is known from the research and what is 
     understood by the general public.
       Until recently, researchers' voices have been drowned out 
     in the din of denial and disinformation coming from 
     executives of the television and movie industries, whose 
     self-serving defense of violent programming has prevailed. 
     The question that scholars should be asking themselves now 
     is, What can we do about this education gap?
       Television violence produces several different harmful 
     effects on viewers, documented by a large and diverse body of 
     independently replicated findings. Although not all of these 
     effects occur in all viewers and some viewers are more 
     susceptible than others, it appears that no viewer is immune.
       Research has shown that some viewers of television 
     violence, particularly those who strongly identify with the 
     aggressor, manifest what is called the ``aggressor effect.'' 
     They are more likely than non-viewers to display meanness, 
     aggressive behavior, and even serious violence toward others. 
     In longitudinal research that has followed individuals over 
     major portions of their lives--in some cases for up to 22 
     years--we see that viewing large quantities of television 
     violence when they were children is one of the best 
     predictors of violent criminal behavior among the adult males 
     studied, even when major demographic differences are factored 
     in.
       We have also documented the ``victim effect.'' Some viewers 
     of television violence, particularly those who identify with 
     the victim, are more likely to show fear, mistrust, and self-
     protective behavior such as carrying a gun. They display an 
     exaggerated belief that they are extremely vulnerable to 
     violence by strangers. In reality, one's risk of violence 
     comes mainly from families, partners, and acquaintances.
       Viewers of television violence who demonstrate the 
     ``bystander effect'' are more likely than other people to be 
     callous toward victims of violence and to be apathetic 
     toward others who engage in violence, because they have 
     been desensitized into accepting it. The ``increased-
     appetite effect'' occurs when viewers, particularly those 
     who have repeatedly seen violence portrayed in glorified 
     ways, begin to seek out more-violent material.
       The television industry has argued, ``We are only giving 
     you what you want,'' without owning up to the fact that 
     viewers' appetites have been cultivated by television itself 
     through repeated portrayals of violence glorified in many 
     different ways.
       We can better understand the gap between public 
     understanding and the research evidence on violence by 
     looking at similar situations in the past. Such gaps 
     frequently exist when a powerful industry or organization is 
     more interested in making dollars than in making sense. When 
     the U.S. Surgeon General first warned that cigarette smoking 
     was harmful to people's health, the tobacco industry denied 
     it, misrepresented the evidence, and promoted unsupported 
     counterclaims in response to each new scientific finding.
       Although the television industry at first resisted giving 
     up a major source of advertising revenue from tobacco 
     companies, it eventually was forced to do so by federal 
     regulatory pressure on stations to comply with the ``fairness 
     doctrine.'' That required giving public-service announcements 
     about the dangers of smoking the same amount of time giving 
     to tobacco advertisements. The television industry eventually 
     capitulated and adopted a voluntary ban on all advertising 
     for tobacco products.
       Once its financial ties with the tobacco companies were 
     broken, TV began to use its powerful educational potential to 
     help educate the public about the dangers of smoking. New 
     scientific findings were reported on television, the number 
     of smokers portrayed in shows was reduced, and TV reporters 
     confronted tobacco-company executives and poked holes in 
     their self-serving arguments in front of millions of American 
     viewers. Major health benefits for American citizens have 
     resulted from television's realistic presentation of the 
     damaging effects of smoking and publicity about strategies to 
     help smokers stop.
       Television's presentation of the issue of television 
     violence, however, has been shameful. As Marvin Kitman, TV 
     critic for Newsday, testified before a Congressional 
     committee: ``You could put the amount of social 
     responsibility the networks and cable have shown in the navel 
     of a gnat and still have room left over for the Bill of 
     Rights.'' Executives of the television industry generally 
     have dealt with the scientific evidence on TV violence by 
     ignoring, denying, misrepresenting, or attacking it with 
     unsupported counterclaims. Attacks and misrepresentations of 
     the evidence became so extreme in the early 1980's that 
     Surgeon General C. Everett Koop sent one of the TV networks a 
     letter of reprimand.
       Much of the American public, informed primarily by 
     television's own self-serving presentation of this issue, has 
     given credence to the many misleading assertions made over 
     the last four decades by the television industry. These 
     included contentions that viewing TV violence is a means of 
     draining off our aggressive energy, a non-issue, a mere 
     reflection of our society, a simple response to popular 
     demand, a problem of parental irresponsibility, or a problem 
     for only a few crazies.
       Much of the American public also has come to believe 
     misleading claims by the television industry--that remedies 
     are not needed, that the industry has already fixed the 
     problem, that citizens who call for changes in television 
     practices are simply ``special-interest groups,'' and that 
     all proposed remedies are equivalent to ``censorship.''
       In the 1960's and 1970's, top television executives 
     uniformly testified before Congress that TV violence reduced 
     aggression in viewers through ``catharsis,'' a process 
     purported to drain off viewers' aggressive motivations. A 
     better label for this notion, which has been unequivocally 
     discredited among scientists, might have been ``wishful 
     thinking.''
       Then, in the 1980's and early 1990's, the top television 
     executives uniformly dropped their claims of catharsis in 
     favor of another line of defense. They repeatedly and 
     vehemently have told Congress and the American public that 
     television violence has no effect on viewers. This claim 
     comes from the same executives whose businesses collectively 
     earn several billion dollars a year precisely because 
     television does, through advertising, affect viewers' 
     behavior.
       Meanwhile, four decades of denial have permitted TV 
     violence to continue undisturbed and to proliferate into many 
     new forms and delivery systems. The denial has delayed the 
     important task of developing responsible remedies for the 
     effects of TV violence. Worse yet, the education gap has led 
     us to overlook TV's potential to contribute to solving the 
     problem of violence throughout society--much as television 
     finally helped educate us about the dangers of smoking.
       The time has come for scholars to help close the education 
     gap and to enlist the participation of the television 
     industry in helping to solve some of the problems to which it 
     has contributed. Pressure on the TV and movie industries 
     to generate their own remedies has been applied by Sen. 
     Paul Simon of Illinois, former Surgeon General Koop, 
     Attorney General Janet Reno, and even President Clinton. 
     The recent decision by a federal appeals court overturning 
     the Federal Communications Commission's ``indecency'' 
     regulations for TV programming further increases the 
     importance of self-imposed regulation by the industry.
       Several regulatory and legislative strategies friendly to 
     the First Amendment also have been introduced. Rep. Joseph 
     Kennedy, Jr., of Massachusetts has introduced a bill that 
     would establish an 800 telephone number so that citizens 
     could send the FCC comments, suggestions, and criticisms 
     regarding television violence. This record would be made 
     available to the public, summarized periodically for 
     Congress, and sent to individual television stations for 
     their responses.
       Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts is sponsoring a bill 
     that would require each new television set to be outfitted 
     with a ``V-chip'' that would allow parents to block violent 
     programming coded with an electronic warning signal. Rep. 
     Charles Schumer of New York has introduced a bill that would 
     establish a Presidential commission with representatives from 
     TV, the public, and experts on television violence to propose 
     ways to reduce broadcast violence.
       William Abbott, president of the National Foundation to 
     Improve Television, a non-profit organization, has filed a 
     rule-making petition with the FCC that proposes a variety of 
     regulatory remedies that have been endorsed by First 
     Amendment scholars. For example, the petition proposes that 
     broadcasters and other telecasters be required to provide 
     programming designed to educate children about ways to 
     prevent violence. A number of scholars have been working with 
     the sponsors of these proposals.
       Such efforts and proposed remedies do have an impact. Last 
     July, top television-industry executives finally took a step 
     in the right direction. They admitted in a national press 
     conference that television violence does contribute to the 
     problems of violence in our society, and they promised to 
     present parental advisories at the beginning of violent 
     programs and in program listings. This, of course, is merely 
     a baby step on a long journey that industry leaders need to 
     take to own up to their responsibility for contributing to 
     the problem.
       Scholars must support a broad range of efforts to close the 
     gap between what they and the public know about television 
     violence. The advice of scholars in education, 
     communications, the behavioral sciences, criminal justice, 
     and public health is needed now more than ever before. Above 
     all, we must make sure that the important question remains 
     before the American public: What kind of teacher will we 
     allow television to be? The teacher of misleading, even 
     deadly, lessons about violence? Or the teacher of a broad 
     variety of accurate and potentially effective solutions to 
     society's violence? The time to act is upon us.

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