life

Meeting Media in Every Corner of Our Lives

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 57
Sub Head: 

One man's reflection on why media literacy is important.

Body: 

I was a high school student when William Freidkin's The Exorcist found its way to theaters in my Midwest hometown. In light of what has hit the screens since, the movie's special effects and horror techniques are almost quaint; but at the time the film (and the hype surrounding it) packed quite a punch.

My friends and I became completely absorbed in the phenomena that grew up around its opening. We were fascinated by the stories that people were becoming sick in screenings. Some of us plotted to attend, somehow (since we were under the age of the R rating); others piously turned away. A friend who was an usher fed us stories of audience reactions and security precautions. For a while he was quite a celebrity by association. In my church youth group, urgent discussions of devil theology erupted, as we debated whether attendance might leave us demon-possessed.

We were possessed, all right, but not so much by Satan's conjurings as by the film producers. The Exorcist was just a movie. Nevertheless, for a while it affected every relationship I had: my friends begged me to go or not go, my parents clarified their restrictions on my recreation time, my church sisters and brothers were either titillated or scandalized, and I was expected to concur accordingly.

Here's a modern question: Is it possible to have a human relationship that is not in some way altered by the media?

Not an hour goes by in our lives that we do not speak about, refer to, or plan for the use of the media in our relationships. How do we describe the media's influence? More important than saying whether it is good or bad is recognizing that it is pervasive, like air: all around us, impossible to avoid, everywhere, all the time.

Consider that as you walk through a day of your life, you are perhaps never — not for a second— out of sight of a corporate logo or advertisement.

The first action step in becoming more media literate is to acquire an understanding of what a significant player media are in our lives. Could you chart your personal history in terms of the significant "media moments" in your life?

Not an hour goes by in our lives that we do not speak about, refer to, or plan for the use of the media in our relationships

Here are some I've collected from my own life and the lives of friends. Notice especially how these events influenced important relationships.

    • In first grade, I went to bed early, before the TV show Combat came on. The next day, all the guys would play out the episode on the playground and those of us who missed it had to find something else to do.
    • The mother of a teenager speaks with him about women — and he laughs. She doesn't have to tell him, he explains, the male morning disk jockey duo on the radio deals with babes every morning. "I realized I no longer have anything to say to him because someone funny got to him first," she laments.
    • During the "Watergate summer" of 1974, after my junior year in high school, I watched the television coverage of the hearings, then visited Washington with friends and attended them myself. We wanted to be in the audience of what had become the hot new TV series. We were there the day the existence of the White House tapes was revealed. I felt my innocence about presidents, and about high-level politicians in general, come to a painful end.
    • Women have reported that the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, and its dramatic media coverage, will change their office relationships. "I was sexually harassed years ago," one woman said to me, "and because of Anita Hill, I would not let it go unmentioned again."
    • All of us have markers for media events that were moments of mass emotion: when Kennedy was shot, when astronauts walked the moon, when our planes began bombing Iraq, the most exciting sporting event we've viewed. We tell these as though we were direct participants— even if we never meet even one of the true actors in these real-life dramas.

We all know well that media events or stories influence and illustrate our interpersonal relationships. But as you recall your own 'turning points,' you'll recognize much more than that. As in Combat's effect on playground dynamics, media can determine and create our relationships as well. Parents feel that the terms of their family life (dinner topics, vacation spots, nutritional and health decisions) are set by the media before they have a chance to raise the issues themselves. Couples and pals take for granted that part of their negotiation is choice and use of movies, TV shows, audio equipment and the sports section. None of us feel we can keep up with our reading, whether newsweeklies or catalogues or self-help digests — and we'll even shun social engagements in order to try.

We all have landmark turning points that seem to define us or set us in a new direction. How many of them are related to media?

In Bruce Beresford's film, Black Robe, several Native Canadians watch a Jesuit missionary endlessly making messy scratches onto a pad: his journal. They laugh at him because they believe this diligence to be nonsense. In order to show them what he's doing, he asks them to say a brief sentence, writes it down, and takes it to an interpreter to read aloud. As they listen to their words come back to them, they are angered that their thoughts have been stolen and captured in this way, and they conclude that the missionary must be a demon— with dire consequences for the missionary.

Like it or not, our personal lives and important relationships are redirected, sometimes radically, by the media. The question is not whether this will occur to us or not. The question is how we will perceive and handle it, how we will welcome the media or barricade ourselves against it.

Will we see the media as an Uncle Buck— overweight, embarrassing and inevitable— who barges in on our families and threatens to upend our ordered lives with crass behavior? If so, we may find ourselves victimized, counting the days until it all goes away. Of course, in the case of the media, it won't.

Or will we see the media as a foreign exchange student, a total stranger from somewhere else who comes to live with us and challenges the way we think, our habits, diet and recreation? If so, we can come away broadened in our tastes— or hardened in our stereotypes.

At best, we'll see the media as another friend: one who is worth introducing to others, one who lets us give as well as receive, one we enjoy for moments but not usually day in and day out; and, as everyone with a friend knows, one who from time to time can be completely wrong-headed.

QUESTIONING THE MEDIA

Bruce Campbell's story is a personal account of the media's role as a player in his life. The following questions can help you look at its often-unrecognized impact on your life and relationships.

    • What media moments have become landmark events in your life?
    • Do commercials, ads and entertainment figures "set the agenda" for you and your family by telling you what to buy, where to go, how to act?
    • In what ways have news, movies and television served as models or reflections of events you've experienced?

 
Author Bio: 

Bruce Campbell is a writer and producer who has worked in radio, television, film, and newsprint, as well as corporate and advocacy communications. His play, "Hooker's Night Off" was featured in the inagural Indiana Playwright's Festival, and his feature film, "Knowing Lisa", won a silver medal at the Houston International Film Festival. Bruce and his family live in Tarrytown, N.Y.

STARTING POINT: Dare to be Aware

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 35
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Television... computers... radio... video... music... film... billboards...cable... Everywhere you look: media!

As the media world expands, many of our readers tend to be casualties of the Media Age — from children who suffer nightmares from televised violence to families whose income diminishes as credit rises and automatic tellers fluorish. On the other hand, many see the potential of new media as a solution. For example, coomputerized electronic bulletin boards can efficiently centralize services for the disabled while audio tapes and telephone trees keep the elderly in touch with their lifelong community of friends.

Understanding today's complex media revolution is not easy. But the first step is awareness. And that's what this issue is about. In developing the articles, we worked on the premise that neither avoidance nor passivity is appropriate for the media-aware individual. Instead the aware viewer-listener is like Jacob wrestling with the angel, who determines that "I shall not let you go unless you bless me." As with the patriarch of Israel, the match results in change, danger — and the freedom to cross the river.

We hope the thinking and action-ideas in this issue will be a major resource not just for your own learning but for you to help others cross over to living fully in the coming Media Age. And do let us know how you use this issue and any results. It will help us prepare future issues to keep the media working for you.

 

No More Blood at Eleven: Alternatives to Crime Reporting

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 63
Body: 

I made a resolution years ago to stop watching cop shows right before I went to bed. The corpses and car chases gave me nightmares. More and more often, the broadcasts open with the "nightside" reporter standing in front of the blood-soaked pavement next to the coroner's van.

Now it's the real life corpses that are keeping me up nights. It didn't used to be this way. A couple of years ago, it was fashionable to lead with a fire – any fire. One news director confessed he'd open his nightly newscast with flames and firemen from a blaze anywhere in the nation. The pictures of an active catastrophe made "good television."

These days, fires are out. Today, if it bleeds it leads.

Ironically, crime stories usually provide a dearth of interesting images for a medium that relies so heavily on pictures. Washington Post TV columnist Jack Carmody says local coverage of crime stories' "make lousy TV." 'It's never very dramatic," he says, "the reporter relating the latest horror within the glare of police lights with yellow crime tape flapping in the wind."

Don't just show us the chalk drawings of the body in the street...give us something we can do besides tighten the iron bars on our windows.

Yet, Reed Manville, the general manager of NBC's affiliate in Los Angeles, defends his station's preoccupation with violence. He says viewers want to see crime stories– "It makes them feel better about their own situation," to know "that it's not their family."

I disagree. Crime stories do not make us feel better. They scare the dickens out of us. Sure, scary stuff has always been good copy from Edgar Allan Poe to Halloween, Part 25. In fact, newspapers owe their rise in popularity at the end of the last century to the orgy of crime crammed onto their front pages. Today we criticize such reporting as "yellow journalism." What will future generations call the kind of news we put on the air today?

But why look ahead to the distant future? What messages are we sending to the youngest generation of viewers watching today? Bad guys get their 15 minutes of fame just by "taking out" a cop, shooting up a rival gangbanger or targeting some pregnant woman in a carjacking. If you were a kid today, who would your heroes be?

There is a better way to cover crime stories. If violence is of such great interest, why not put it into some kind of context? Don't just show us the chalk drawing of the body in the street. Give us some insight about why two street gangs are willing to go to war for the sake of a few blocks of turf. Show us how a typical police investigation works. Walk us through the criminal justice process. Bring us in on a crime victims' support group.

Or better yet, give us something we can do besides tighten the iron bars on our windows. Profile that under-funded group trying to keep kids out of gangs or the anti-truancy program that's been rounding up the ones playing hooky. Such programs are always starving for money– and volunteers. Give us a story about the correlation between illiteracy and a life of crime. Then show us a literacy program that works.

Television is a wonderful and powerful medium. It can tell a story with little else but pictures. But use those pictures to tell the rest of the story– don't just focus on the blood on the boulevard. Television news programs have a responsibility to inform the community without airing a montage of gore. I'm not advocating goody-two-shoes news here. But if you're going to make money from the tragedies in our communities, then take some responsibility for the life of our communities. Or else there might not be much of a community left when the TV lights are turned off.

 
Author Bio: 

Kitty Felde is a veteran journalist and public radio talk show host in the Los Angeles area.

20 Ways to Create a Caring Culture - Part II

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 63
Sub Head: 

Action Ideas for Children, Families, and Groups

Body: 

< < Read Part I: Introduction

 

  1. Nonviolent Computer Game
    Using CD-ROM technology, a computer game along the lines of Carmen Sandiego would challenge players to solve conflicts nonviolently. Anger management and conflict resolution skills could be employed as modes of action. The game would be equally effective as entertainment in the home and an educational tool in schools. Design and format could be developed for different age groups.

     

    What You Can Do: Parents and teachers can help kids design a game and submit it to a computer software company or a computer programmer.

     

  2. MTV "Rock The Violence"
    Similar to the "Rock the Vote" campaign that encouraged young adults to take an active role in the democratic process through voting, such a campaign would encourage and promote nonviolent behavior through PSAs from celebrities, rock stars and musicians with whom the MTV crowd can identify. In fact, MTV aired a 15-second animated spot called "Silence the Violence" in which marching machine guns turned into flowers. This is a good start for a larger program.

     

    What You Can Do: Work with local cable access channels and radio stations to get a pilot program started. Call MTV in New York (212)258-8000.

     

  3. Nonviolent Student of the Month
    Due to the rise of violence in elementary and secondary schools, a highly-visible media campaign highlighting nonviolent students would help disarm the fear and suspicion that schools are dangerous places. Students who solve conflicts nonviolently or deter others from using violence would be awarded special recognition by the school and community. Promotion would include extensive television and newspaper coverage. Local TV stations might sponsor the program.

     

    What You Can Do: Begin at home by rewarding your own children. Contact the PTA about developing such a program or supporting one already in place.

     

  4. Nonviolent Line of Video Games
    Already under criticism for the graphic violence in Mortal Kombat, which features bloody decapitations and dismemberment, Nintendo (as well as Sega and Genesis) could develop a line of video games whose characters score points through nonviolent action. Competition would be based on creative thinking, innovative problem-solving.

     

    What You Can Do: "Reinvent" a violent video game with your kids as they play -- propose "peaceful" characters and action. Write to Nintendo, Sega or Genesis with a new game idea.

     

  5. Nonviolent Video Projects for Kids
    A series of film-industry-sponsored video projects in which children explore alternatives to violence in film and television. Kids would film a scene of conflict and with the assistance of a screenwriter, director or producer, find ways to film the scene without violence. Techniques and methods of filmmaking would allow kids to get beneath the surface of media violence -- how it is used and why -- by promoting a contextual understanding of its purpose in the scene.

     

    What You Can Do: Initiate a program at your local TV station or cable access channel. Organize projects for afterschool programs.

     

  6. Ethics Training in Film Schools
    Most people preparing for public service professions like law enforcement or medicine are required to take ethics courses during their training. Because television and film are considerable forces in defining American culture, a similar requirement should be made of film and television students. Classes would focus on the role of the filmmaker as a participant in a democratic society, the political and social implications of the film as well as the potential moral and ethical imprint of media on different types of audiences.

     

    What You Can Do: Work with local television stations to develop and implement a community-based public service communcations code.

     

  7. Video Comparing Real Violence to Media Violence
    An educational video similar to Scared Straight, a film study of prison life, could demonstrate the differences between real and media violence. Primarily shown in schools, the video could also be part of an educational awareness program facilitated by film and television professionals (perhaps stuntmen or news reporters). It might compare the depiction of violence in film and TV to real violence with particular attention to the consequences of aggression.

     

    What You Can Do: Point out the difference between "real" and "fake" while watching "action" shows with children.

     

  8. A School Play Promoting Non-Violence
    A theatrical play or a performance art piece demonstrating and advocating nonviolent solutions could be performed in a school district as part of an educational program on violence. Written, produced, acted and staged by a multicultural cast of students, the play would emphasize anger management, conflict resolution skills and promote understanding between ethnic groups. The production could travel from school to school and also be tailored to fit a particular school's "personality."

     

    What You Can Do: Volunteer to help produce the play. Work with a local high school drama teacher or young people to write the play.

     

  9. A Slogan to Crystalize a Movement to Non-Violence
    "Buckle Up, It's the Law" and "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste" both capture their respective causes well. So much so that they're part of our cultural lexicon. A similar slogan to bolster the nonviolence movement could crystalize the public in a massive joint effort to reduce violence. Perhaps a campaign to find a slogan could start in schools and business. PSAs, bumper stickers, T-shirts and similar promotional material would help disseminate the slogan.

     

    What You Can Do: Brainstorm slogan ideas with your family, community group and church. Contact local radio talk show or TV station to promote your slogan.

     

  10. Kids' Advisory Panel to Media
    Most major organizations and businesses have a board of directors that helps guide the organization. Similarly, a "board of directors" paneled by kids would serve as creative consultants to advise various media. A board could be established in local schools and community groups and sponsored by a local television station. It would primarily function as a way to get children involved in the business of media.

     

    What You Can Do: Form your own "family" kids' panel at home. "Board members" would decide on program selections, viewing hours and video rentals following agreed upon guidelines.

     

  11. Nonviolent Promotional Advertising on Products
    Stories of individuals who have used non-violence to solve difficult problems could be promoted on products with high exposure to children, i.e., milk cartons, cereal boxes, trading cards and school lunch trays. Besides the traditional histories of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, stories should feature local heroes and community leaders that kids could identify with easily.

     

    What You Can Do: Teachers might organize a classroom writing project to research a collection of stories. A parent group could help find ways to publish the stories.

     

  12. TV Show in Which Character Roles are Switched
    Action and drama shows often feature only one point of view, usually that of a "good guy" who overcomes obstacles to defeat a "bad guy." This technique creates a false sense of needing to create an enemy that justifies the use of violence. A show that switches protagonist and antagonist roles and highlights different perspectives could promote and urge viewers to understand all sides of an issue before resorting to violence. "Humanizing" the enemy is a valuable way to open the lines of communication between conflicting parties.

     

    What You Can Do: Have a youth group or after school kids club rewrite and replay an "action" show with different members assuming different roles.

     

  13. Major Advertiser Endorsement
    Leading media advertisers such as Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds and Nike could develop a series of PSAs endorsing nonviolent television shows, products and programs. They could also promote awareness of nonviolent solutions by sponsoring or endorsing educational projects in schools. A commercial slot such as during the Super Bowl would help get the promotion in high gear. Local corporations could use full- page pullouts in newspapers supporting peaceful solutions to community conflicts.

     

    What You Can Do: Lead a postcard drive to enlist a local company to get the idea started

     

  14. Red Ribbon Week in School
    Similiar to the awareness created by the red AIDS ribbon, a colorful ribbon would represent a commitment to make the schools and the community less violent and a positive learning environment. Week-long projects and events would involve students and teachers in nonviolent activities that raise nonviolence awareness. The ribbon would eventually be profiled by highly-visible celebrities too.

     

    What You Can Do: Make, design and wear the ribbon.

     

  15. A Violence "Tax"
    Modeled after the idea of "sin" taxes, film companies, cable channels and television networks who use violence as a means of promoting and selling their products would be subject to a violence tax. Since paying taxes isn't a pleasant idea for most people, film producers and writers would give considerable thought before using violence as a means of storytelling or creating action. Especially accountable to this tax would be producers of slasher and horror films which often feature numerous scenes of gratuitious violence.

     

    What You Can Do: Decrease allowances to children who use them to rent Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser or similar slasher films.

     

  16. Peace Week on TV
    Cable channels and television networks would schedule programming featuring positive, pro-social and nonviolent content. Movies would be aired only if they contain limited scenes of violence whose context was fully explained. Sitcoms, dramas and soap operas could develop special episodes featuring nonviolent solutions to conflicts. Local and national news would make an effort to limit reporting of "negative" stories.

     

    What You Can Do: Schedule a week-long family viewing of only nonviolent programs. PTA or church groups can develop and publicize a list of recommended nonviolent videos and TV shows as well as work with local TV stations on the idea.

     

  17. Anti-Violence Fair/Convention
    A major community event where national corporations, local businesses, film studios, cable channels, television networks, gather to explore new developments and the latest programs dedicated to the reduction of violence in media and society. Seminars, demonstrations, informational material could be disseminated. High visibility of the event in the media would increase the impact of the programs. Corporations could sponsor school field trips to the fair/convention.

     

    What You Can Do: Organize a block or street party centered around nonviolent activities. Teachers can conduct in-classroom nonviolence "seminars."

     

  18. TV Series/Videos with Stories of NonViolent Heroes
    Modeled after the Arts&Entertainment Channel's Biography series, this program would highlight a nonviolent historical figure or personality whose use of non-violence serves to inspire others. Besides detailing an individual's nonviolent action, the program would also show the local and global benefits of nonviolent behavior. A localized show could feature community members who have used alternatives to violence to resolve conflicts within their own community.

     

    What You Can Do: Have children interview neighbors or family members about heroic actions they have performed or witnessed. Produce with a video camera.

     

  19. Family to Family Media Event
    A high-profile media event where families join in group activities to establish community coalitions and de-program ethnic stereotyping. Such an event would foster communication between ethnic groups that have often been portrayed in the media as agnostic. Activities would encourage participation and teamwork within non-hierarchic, non-exclusive framework. The media would participate in either sponsorship or providing extensive media coverage.

     

    What You Can Do: Encourage PTAs or community groups to organize a program. Host a "salon" to discuss with neighbors a particular media issue.

     

  20. Cabinet Secretary Post
    This presidential appointee would be responsible for coodinating the solutions to violence in the U.S. Working with media industry professionals, health organizations, law enforcement agencies, educational groups as well as parents and concerned citizens, the appointee would help organize the vast resources and programs dedicated to nonviolence.

     

    What You Can Do: Appoint a family member as the minister of NonViolence.


 
Author Bio: 

Jay Dover was Assistant Editor of Media&Values magazine.

20 Ways to Create a Caring Culture - Part I

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 63
Body: 

Stories of violence are familiar to anyone with a television in America today. Whether flashed on the nightly news, dramatized in a sensational movie of the week or packed into "action" blockbuster films (a guy, a gun and an attitude!), not a day goes by that we don't get a dose of aggression from the media. And it's getting worse.

 

Recent cover articles in Time and Newsweek have detailed the rising wave of violence holding society hostage in a culture of conflict and fear. Especially alarming is the news of the increase in crime committed by children -- often with guns. Watching these seemingly endless reports of real-life brutality in tandem with the barrage of fictional violence euphemised as "action" in films and on television, we have to ask: why in the world are we killing each other?

Indeed, this is a crossroad in our cultural and social history. Do we remain victimized by a violent media culture, or do we work to create a peaceful society where we feel safe in our homes, on our streets and in our communities?

What kind of culture do we want our children to grow up in?

It's Up to Us
Without a doubt, decades of media violence have made art of deadly aggression and helped erode our sense of peace and security. But it no longer has to be that way. Most of us prefer a "people safe" world -- a society that nurtures individual growth, fosters healthy relationships and respects the diversity of cultures worldwide. It's what we're constantly striving for. We're continually pursuing solutions to difficult problems that will improve our quality of life. Take, for instance, the environmental movement.

Reports of a depleting ozone layer, diminishing rain forest, devastating oil spills and other environmental disasters set off an alarm: We are destroying our planet. Faced with a future of living in a toxic world, we realized we had to save the earth to save ourselves.

Today, we recycle our cans, bottles and newspapers. We conserve water. Chlorofluorocarbons are banned. Industries must adhere to strict pollution controls. We celebrate an annual "Earth Day" to re-affirm our global commitment to preserving our planet's natural resources.

This same vision and energy is needed to transform our culture of violence into a culture of caring. We must make the commitment to ourselves and to our children to make our world less violent than the day before. We have to. For, like our still-endangered blue planet, no less than the future of our children is at stake.

A Positive Approach
On July 15, 1993 the Center for Media and Values [now Center for Media Literacy], with funding and participation from Mediascope, a Los Angeles-based non-profit advocacy organization working to improve the depiction of health and social issues in entertainment, held a small, informal consultation on Challenging our Culture of Violence. The idea of the consultation was to brainstorm new directions for framing solutions to the media violence crisis.

In addition to CMV and Mediascope staff, a number of local Los Angeles educators and community leaders were invited to share their expertise. Participants included Ann Desmond, vice president for communications of the California PTA; Keiko Hentell, principal of Burbank High School; Rev. Alvin Hawkins, board chair, United Methodist Jr. Basketball League & Youth Development Project; Casandra Hawkings, Teacher Training Magnet, Los Angeles Unified School District and "Teacher of the Year;" Frederica Burrows, retired elementary educator, Glendale public schools; Barbara Wilson, associate professor of communications at the University of California/Santa Barbara; and Phyllis Steinberg, School Mediation Services, Los Angeles County Bar Association. The event was facilitated by Professor Ian Mitroff, director of the Center for Crisis Management at the University of Southern California .

The participants concentrated on generating ideas and tried to avoid being discouraged by the complexity of the issue. The result of the open forum was an impressive list of media-based proposals for reducing media violence.

Granted, some of these are broad-stroke solutions to a problem that has far-reaching causes and effects. But that's the point. Collectively, they symbolize a movement toward nonviolence. A step in a positive and healthy direction. A profound commitment toward creating a "people safe" world.

More importantly, many of the group's proposals are family-oriented and community-based. Too often, finding solutions to media violence is dumped on members of Congress, network TV executives or engineers working on V-Chips and lock boxes. But we all must share in this national task.

Consultation participants discovered that there's a lot each of us can do right now to lessen the impact of media violence in our personal and family lives. It's far easier to work with your local television station and newspaper, for example, than a national network or publication. Local efforts avoid debilitating bureauracracy and encourage immediate action where it's needed most: in our homes and our neighborhoods. And eventually, those small actions add up to influence national policies and change national priorities.

The following 20 proposals expanded from the best of the consultation's list of ideas represent an unrestricted, solution-minded, community-based approach to the problem of media violence. At their core is the quest for a non-violent society. They're also an invitation to you to join communities everywhere in transforming our culture of violence into a culture of caring.

Finding a solution to the violence epidemic will take time and effort. However, doing nothing will guarantee the status quo of mayhem on the street and on the screen. With so much at stake, we can no longer afford to sit in our LazyBoys and watch a murderous world go by.


 
Author Bio: 

Jay Dover was Assistant Editor of Media&Values magazine.

YOUTH: Training Creates Media Wise Voters

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 44
Body: 

After eight years in office, Ronald Reagan is the only president preteens can remember. And even older teenagers have shaped their idea of the presidency around his telegenic image and relaxed media style.

Thus the post-Reagan era that will begin after the fall elections presents a particular challenge to youth. For most, it will be the first opportunity they've had to define this national office in a new way. And as prospective voters, with the crucial 18-year-old eligibility date around the corner, their ability to distinguish between image and substance and make intelligent decisions based on media portrayals is particularly important.

Youthful perspectives on leadership go beyond the ballot box, however. Their views of community, church and school leadership - even the leadership qualities they see in themselves — all are affected.

That's why young people need help in untangling political fact from media fiction. More influenced by image than any other age group, youthful TV viewers have less experience with politics. Evaluating political ads, debates and speeches is a skill they have yet to acquire, but it can be learned.

It's helpful to begin a discussion of image vs. substance with the images themselves. Replay of a variety of video-recorded political images can start the discussion.

The tape used should be balanced, with statements and messages for and against competing candidates. Invite your group to view it as an impartial jury interested in a true picture of the political process.

After viewing, ask your group to describe positive and negative images about each candidate. Include often-repeated slogans and ads and explore their meanings. What audiences or interests are these messages attempting to reach?

On a second sheet ask participants to note documentation or other supporting data for facts and statements made in ads or speeches. Group members can complete their pictures by marking the images that include no documentation. Use a third sheet to list national issues that all candidates failed to address.

Comparing images, facts and unaddressed issues can lead to a more illuminating discussion than any featured in the campaign. Of course, this view of the political/media connections is only the beginning of learning about politics. But such a discussion and other programs like it can be a crucial step in helping young people match candidates with the ideals they want to affirm.

 
Author Bio: 

Bill Wolfe, longtime director of senior-high educational ministries for the United Methodist Church, is now a producer for United Methodist Communications, Nashville, TN.

One Journalist's View: Informed Voters Must Reach Beyond Images

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 44
Body: 

A major complaint often heard about the coverage of any campaign is, "Why don't they cover the issues? As a reporter, I would argue that we do, but our audience doesn't focus on them. Journalists covering any campaign will hear and report the same speech endlessly. The good ones will run issues pieces as well. But people tend to pay the most attention to personality stories, character confrontations and the final horse race. The process results in a constant search by reporters for the different and unusual-and often that proves to be not significant.

As a radio reporter and thus in a competing medium, I'm often asked whether I feel TV's political reporting is too visual. The answer is yes - but there's no way around it. A colleague told me about an event she covered during the l980 Reagan campaign that featured fireworks in the middle of the day. She wondered what was going on until she saw that the fireworks turned into millions of tiny American flags. It was just a gorgeous picture.

Pictures form such a strong image in voters' minds that they've become a requirement for every candidate. No one will be able to say "Well, I just wasn't good on TV." They'll have to get good.

At times people do not really hear what is said on television - they see it. But no candidate can ignore television's role as the major source of news for most people. In one way this makes sense. The president has to use television to ask people to do the hard things - to pay higher taxes, to send their children to war. They will respond to a president who gives them a sense of confidence and inspires them. In the latter part of the 20th Century the medium for doing that is television.

I don't agree with analysts who complain that politics is becoming a spectator sport, with people staying at home to watch the result of other citizens' votes. People will turn out when they have something they want to vote for. Turnout on Super Tuesday this year, for example, was way up.

Our highest voter turnout was in the presidential balloting in 1960, a very close election. Voters cast their ballots at a lower rate both before and after. In my view the low voter turnout of the last 20 years is related to the baby boom's coming of age. Its members became voters just as the voting age was lowered to I8. We thus had this huge group of newly eligible youthful voters who weren't voting because they were younger than the age at which most people tend to vote.

In general, people who don't feel they have a stake in the process don't see the point of voting. Often nonvoters are from lower income, and less educated groups. In the past, they were also apt to be female. But today, women, who for a long time thought they couldn't make a difference, are turning out in huge numbers. In 1980, for the first time, there were as many women voting as men. The trend continued, and in 1986, nine million more women voted than men. If people are given the incentive and are really being organized to get to the polls, they will vote.

The key to making the public politically active is to make sure it's well-informed. Major newspapers and magazines, as well as radio and television, all provide a wealth of resources.

Put another way, we've had an explosion in information. No one can complain, "Oh, I wanted to know and there was no way of finding out," It's just that you might not be able to inform yourself completely by sitting in your living room and turning on the television set.


"When George Washington wrote his famous farewell address, he included a paragraph complaining about treatment from the media. It was edited out upon advice from George Hamilton."
— James David Barber
 
Author Bio: 

Cokie Roberts is a reporter for ABC Television and National Public Radio. Media&Values editorial research intern Brian Levine assisted in the editing of this story.

Trauma on the News: Should Children Watch?

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This article originally appeared in Issue# 52-53
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News and melodrama interlock. I noticed that Emily displayed a gory, sensationalist glee when she talked of, repeatedly, the story of a girl who was kidnapped and murdered, her throat cut and her body found in a sack. She heard it from a friend. Then it was on the news.

Once reassured by me that she was not in danger, she enjoyed playing with the fear, exploring its parameters. I want her to be aware of dangers, to act — if necessary — on her own initiative; not to go with a stranger, etc.

But it is also very important to me that she does not grow up to be fearful. She has heard the word "rape" on television news, but she does not know what it means. I have, sometimes, turned the television off, discreetly — in fact, censored the news. I am nervous of alarmism. Not paradoxically. Part of the zeitgeist of contemporary times is fear. And, surely, alarmism leads to self-victimization?

There is this shifting borderline which I, as a parent, have to negotiate. When to protect? When not to protect?

It is also my responsibiity that she is not endangered.

(Excerpted from "Mama Don't Preach" by Marsha Rowe in Parents Talking Television: Television in the Home, 1987, Comedia Publishing Group, London.)

 

Addicted to Violence: Has the American Dream Become a Nightmare?

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 62
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At a psychological level, the drama and titillation of violent scenarios serve to create a sense of excitement, potency and significance that is missing from most people's daily lives.

When we consider media violence, we think first of television's increasingly violent content. We fear that a populace incessantly bombarded with the images, sounds and emotions of shootings, bombings and rapes will become desensitized to such violent acts; or worse, learn to think of them as valid responses to life's growing stresses. The evidence suggests these fears are valid.

But media violence also affects us at a deeper and ultimately more problematic level. To make these connections, we must look beyond the literal content on the screen to the subliminal dynamics that animate them, as well as the social context that gives them their power.

Violence as a Drug

An analogy can help. As a futurist, I am frequently asked to address the background and expected developments of various problems plaguing today's world. In talking about the drug crisis, for example, I might comment that while it is most frequently framed as a moral crisis — a problem created by the bad actions of people who should be doing good — I see it more as a crisis of cultural purpose. We find ourselves in times when significant opinions of the population are ingesting substances that mimic real meaning — real excitement, real power, real passion, real spirituality — rather than taking the life risks required to provide meaning as authentic experience.

The dynamics of media violence work in a similar way. At a psychological level, the drama and titillation of these violent scenarios and our identification with their heroes and heroines serve to create a sense of excitement, potency and significance that is missing from most people's daily lives.

Beneath these secondary influences lie effects more directly neurological in nature.

Here, it is less violence per se — behavior driven by anger or aggression — that hooks us to violent programming than the generalized rush of adrenalin we feel in response to violent situations presented to us. As good action/adventure directors know, a car chase or a plane crash, or even just an explosion, can be as effective as a premeditated shooting in keeping our attention glued to the screen.

The addictive power of this generalized stimulation is illustrated all too vividly by a classic experiment with rats. Wires are inserted directly into excitement centers in the rat's brain, then attached to a depressible pedal in its cage. After discovering the connection between the pedal and the pleasure it brings, the rat depresses the pedal with growing frequency. Gradually the animal neglects other activities. In time it even forgets to eat — and starves to death.

Jolts per Minute

Programmers learned long ago that, as with the rat, regular jolts of empty stimulation are the easiest and cheapest means of keeping viewers glued to the screen. Thus, "jolts per minute" (#423) programming has come to pervade not only the action/adventure genre, but nearly every aspect of media. Soap operas and afternoon talk shows prosper through their ability to whip up polarized emotions. And the evening news, sold as television's time for serious analysis, has increasingly become an ever more predictable litany of each day's killings and disasters. Serious information is secondary at best.

While media violence can thus be directly addictive, we must go beyond this awareness to fully understand its deeper dynamics. Addiction on a broad scale requires more than an addictive substance; it requires as well social circumstances that support the addictive response. As we watch our children — and often ourselves — hypnotized by violence on the screen, we have to ask: "Why don't we all cry out in protest? Why don't we just say no?" The question returns us to the notion of a cultural crisis of purpose.

Addiction in individuals occurs when a person stops seeing a reason to risk the vulnerability required for real fulfillment. A drug may be so powerful that it simply replaces the struggle to build a satisfying life. Or sometimes a person's life circumstances make fulfillment of normal dreams and desires unlikely. But usually there is something more fundamental, more at the level of meaning. The person's life story has become inadequate to inspire him or her to live life fully.

Statistics such as the doubling of teen suicide over the last 10 years suggest all too graphically that, for many, our cultural story has become inadequate to inspire full participation in life. We find ourselves in the awkward position of telling youth to 'just say no" while we ourselves are often unable to articulate a vision of the future that deeply and compellingly says 'yes.'

An Empty Dream

The role of cultural purpose in the dynamics of violence — and particularly in the increasingly disturbing phenomena of random violence — came home strongly for me when I prepared for a number of speeches I made following the April 1992 civil disturbances in south Central Los Angeles. While reviewing the events of those days, I realized that the driving force behind the rioting changed over time. In its early hours, it seemed to be driven mostly by anger and frustration — ultimately the anger and frustration of people who felt they had little chance of winning at the American Dream. But as the violence became more and more chaotic and random in its targets, it seemed driven less by doubts about participants' chances for success in gaining the American Dream than by knowing at some level that even winning would mean little, that the dream itself had become empty. This ultimate despair became a force for destruction.

We find ourselves in the awkward position of telling youth to 'just say no" while we ourselves are often unable to articulate a vision of the future that deeply and compellingly says 'yes.'

The addicting power of violence — both real and in the media — increases exponentially during times of transition, those times when a familiar story has ceased to provide inspiration and a new one has yet to take its place. At these times, people are particularly vulnerable to using both violence itself and the witnessing of violent actions to inject themselves with excitement, engagement, and influence — feelings lacking in their own lives. And random violence — violence as undifferentiated stimulation — becomes particularly addictive in a new way. Its power to give voice to the feelings of fear and chaos so central to these times while hiding them from us through its empty intensity has a peculiar attraction.

A Two-Part Cure

The cure for our addiction to media violence lies in two related tasks. We must first teach the basics of media literacy to help people distinguish between genuine feelings of excitement born from true fulfillment and the seductive pseudo-excitement of empty consumable stimulation. Successful media literacy education counters people's susceptibility to manipulation by violence's hypnotic effects. It provides both insight into how these effects work and an emotional climate that supports people's natural desire to be in charge of their lives, to escape harm and to avoid manipulation.

The second part of the solution defines the fundamental challenge of our time — to work together to write the much-needed next chapter in our cultural story. Like the drug epidemic, most of the critical crises of our time are really crises of purpose demanding not just revised policies, but new defining metaphors, new ways of talking about what matters. They challenge us to a unique and critical kind of conversation at all levels — in our schools, in community meetings, in government at all levels, in boardrooms, between friends and family members.

Ultimately, those at risk will be able to say no to the seductions of violent pseudo-excitement and pseudo-meaning only to the degree they experience real excitement and real meaning as possible and worth the risk. The deadening attraction of media violence will diminish to the exact degree its potency is countered by a newly mature and compelling collective cultural vision.

 
Author Bio: 

Charles M. Johnston, M.D. is a psychiatrist, futurist and director of the Institute for Creative Development, a think tank and center for leadership training in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of The Creative Imperative (1986) and Necessary Wisdom: Meeting the Challenge of a New Cultural Maturity (1991).

PASTORING: Stereotypes Back? It's No Joke

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 43
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"Have you heard the one about...?" Successful jokes depend on the irony and inconsistency that underlie humor. Recently, far too many of those introductions seem to lead directly to a punch line based on racial or sexual stereotyping.

Some observers contend that 20 years of unresolved ethnic tensions are bubbling through the veneer we laid over them to create an environment in which it is permissible to talk of others in deprecatory ways. I wonder if TV shows like The Jeffersons and Chico and the Man and movies like Beverly Hills Cop I and II haven't both given permission and content for these destructive attitudes.

More germane to the issue may be the news coverage of recent headline stories. When the network's choice from volumes of file tape is a picture of Panama's Gen. Noriega, standing at military review in a designer fatigue outfit, we tend to see the bandito caricature and believe its truth. When news documentaries show us the success of hard-working Vietnamese fishers in the Gulf of Mexico and give voice to those who hate and torment them, we remember our own economic insecurities and side with the threatened Anglos. When radio news carries the voices of Howard Beach, Queens, New York, residents denouncing the victims of that community's racial violence with the most base slurs, we learn that it's again all right to be angry and use that language.

Lest we in the religious community become too smug, our own media have done little to communicate the diversity of creation, the positive attributes of other groups of people and the sin of bigotry and racial hatred. Many of our young people, using our religious education curricula, picture the people in the Bible stories as Northern Europeans. The literature we have given them fails to teach them that the people of the Middle East are dark-skinned and speak a language other than English.

As evidence of bias accumulates, the religious leader is called to live a life that embraces the pluralism of our land and world. Illustrations in writing and speaking should be drawn from diverse peoples; religious education media should be chosen for their faithfulness to the pluralism of creation and the introduction to destructive humor should be followed with a joke-stopping NO!

In a way unique in this generation, the pastor, priest or rabbi is called to make words and deeds reflective of the fact that all people are loved and created equal. The destructive excesses of this permissive age must find their match in leaders who take personally the responsibility of modeling tolerance and are willing to call others — and the media — to task when they do not.

 
Author Bio: 

Peter M. Paulsen is director of communications at First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA. A minister in the Reformed Church in America, he served as communication specialist in congregational, denomenational, and institutional settings. He taught communications theory and practice at the college and seminary levels, led ecumenical broadcast agencies, and writes for Christian and secular publications.

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