violence and media

[Formless]

Oh, wow, this argument has already brought up video game violence? Are we really going to go off onto that tangent? Because I've yet to see a thread where even a correlation between violent video games and crime was established. Lets just stick to talking about guns please, that topic deserves its own consideration.

[Thanas]

Oh, wow, this argument has already brought up video game violence? Are we really going to go off onto that tangent? Because I've yet to see a thread where even a correlation between violent video games and crime was established. Lets just stick to talking about guns please, that topic deserves its own consideration.

Get lost, we are talking about violence in general. If you want to strawman, then do it somewhere else.

[Formless]

How is that a strawman? You implicated that its part and parcel to why we have so much gun crime in the US by your suggestion of what should be done, and I'm calling that out as bullshit. Also, I wasn't just talking to you, was I? Seraphina was talking only about Video Game violence, and we both know where that discussion is headed.

[Formless]

Still not a strawman: while you aren't suggesting that media violence causes violence in the real world directly (as most people try to claim) suggesting that it effects culture which effects violence means that yes, you are claiming that it is an indirect cause of violence. Which is why the lack of a correlation between media violence and violent crime would seem to me to weaken your argument.

I'm not even dismissing that we've got screwed up priorites in this culture (a game with lots of swearing gets an M rating but not a game with lots of shooting) but I would like to point out that going after the media when there are more pressing social factors like poverty and prejudice would be wasteful of the law's time and effort.

Edit: it also brings up first amendment and censorship issues. If you must tackle it, rather than using the law to ban stuff howabout try to get the publishers to promote genres that aren't so violent? People don't play games to have a chance to kill something or watch movies just so that they can see stuff blow up. Well, most people.

[Serafina]

Still not a strawman: while you aren't suggesting that media violence causes violence in the real world directly (as most people try to claim) suggesting that it effects culture which effects violence means that yes, you are claiming that it is an indirect cause of violence. Which is why the lack of a correlation between media violence and violent crime would seem to me to weaken your argument.

I'm not even dismissing that we've got screwed up priorites in this culture (a game with lots of swearing gets an M rating but not a game with lots of shooting) but I would like to point out that going after the media when there are more pressing social factors like poverty and prejudice would be wasteful of the law's time and effort.

Just WHERE did anyone make ANY argument about media violence causing gun violence?

The argument (as i understood and made it) was:
The attitude a society has towards violence can be (partially) observed in how it treats violence in it's media - a society more adverse towards violence will be more adverse towards it in it's media.
That causal flow goes "violent society->violent media"; "less violent society->less violent media", NOT the other way round. Showing how a society acts towards violent media can be a means of showing the attitudes towards violence in that society - but no one said anything about causation.

NO ONE (except the strawpuppeteer) made ANY argument about banning or censoring violent video games here. Yes, a lot of people in general make that argument in general - but since no one made it here, it's a strawman - a point that has no relation to what the others actually said.

[Formless]

Have public leaders continue to speak out against gun possession, fund massive ad campaigns against gun ownership, tax guns heavily, restrict ammunition production, tax ammunition, enforce (stricter) license laws, enforce standards in video games, TV and movies (the idea that killing people left and right is great but a naked breast is automatically an R rating is one of the most stupidly offensive rules ever).

If violence in the media reflects social attitudes rather than influencing them, then such measures would be unnecessary. In fact, it would mean that a reduction of violence in the media is a sign that your efforts to influence society are working.

Between those three kinds of media, only in the case of television have I seen a positive correlation linking it to violent crime.

[Thanas]

Oh for crying out loud. If you attempt to reform society, you cannot have mass media promote a different lifestyle. The only correlation I am trying to argue here is that you have to have message control. I am not making any claims on what came first - the violent media or the violent society. Both cannot exist without each other.

[Formless]

Thak you for splitting this, I actually was going to start a thread but this works too.

[Thanas]

So what is your hypotheosis?

[Simon_Jester]

Speaking for myself, I find the idea of censorship directed against violence in the media troublesome. It's true that the rule "murder is PG but breasts are R-rated" is insane, but the response should be to relax censorship of nudity, not to tighten censorship of violence.

[Broomstick]

Why not tighten censorship of violence, either instead of relaxing nuditiy taboos or along with them?

I'm far from a shrinking violet, I've grown up with a level of violence far in excess of what I think most Europeans my age or younger have experienced, but really, the level of violence in some forms of media is extreme. I don't really like to outright ban anything, but why is it considered acceptable to have a movie trailer for torture-porn movies like Saw and Hostel on broadcast TV but not for equivalent levels of sexual porn? Why can a 16 year old downland highly realistic images of death and murder off the internet but need to be 21 to download full frontal nudity?

You don't see anything amiss with that?

[Serafina]

Even if higher age ratings don't actually prevent any access (tough they certainly make it harder), they still send a message: This is not something we endorse.
High ratings for nudity clearly say "nudity is bad", and high ratings for violence do the same thing.

I think that, as an overall effort to change a societies views on these things, changing your age ratings will certainly have an impact. And while i don't see a negative impact from a relaxed attitude on nudity or sex, i do see such a negative impact from a relaxed attitude on violence.

[Thanas]

Why not tighten censorship of violence, either instead of relaxing nuditiy taboos or along with them?

I'm far from a shrinking violet, I've grown up with a level of violence far in excess of what I think most Europeans my age or younger have experienced, but really, the level of violence in some forms of media is extreme. I don't really like to outright ban anything, but why is it considered acceptable to have a movie trailer for torture-porn movies like Saw and Hostel on broadcast TV but not for equivalent levels of sexual porn? Why can a 16 year old downland highly realistic images of death and murder off the internet but need to be 21 to download full frontal nudity?

Or when you have cop shows openly glorifying cops torturing people (Hawaii Five-O remake).

[Simon_Jester]

Why not tighten censorship of violence, either instead of relaxing nuditiy taboos or along with them?

I'm far from a shrinking violet, I've grown up with a level of violence far in excess of what I think most Europeans my age or younger have experienced, but really, the level of violence in some forms of media is extreme. I don't really like to outright ban anything, but why is it considered acceptable to have a movie trailer for torture-porn movies like Saw and Hostel on broadcast TV but not for equivalent levels of sexual porn? Why can a 16 year old downland highly realistic images of death and murder off the internet but need to be 21 to download full frontal nudity?

You don't see anything amiss with that?

OK, granted, I wasn't thinking in terms of Saw.

My belief is that the censorship of nudity should be relaxed. But the censorship of violence should not be drastically tightened: restricting trailers for Saw is not the same as, say, restricting all trailers in which some Rambo clone fires a machine gun and something blows up. Basically, I dislike strong censorship of the media past the point where you can say "this is harmful in a concrete sense, this causes some kind of trauma."

I don't think it's enough to say "society does not have an interest in promoting this kind of garbage," because there's always another Mrs. Grundy who defines everything as "this kind of garbage."

But ultimately, I suspect the Rambo clones firing machine guns and stuff blowing up in movies probably contributes more to public acceptance of violence than Saw does, because a lot more people watch the relatively tamer ones.

[His Divine Shadow]

Have public leaders continue to speak out against gun possession, fund massive ad campaigns against gun ownership, tax guns heavily, restrict ammunition production, tax ammunition, enforce (stricter) license laws, enforce standards in video games, TV and movies (the idea that killing people left and right is great but a naked breast is automatically an R rating is one of the most stupidly offensive rules ever).

If violence in the media reflects social attitudes rather than influencing them, then such measures would be unnecessary. In fact, it would mean that a reduction of violence in the media is a sign that your efforts to influence society are working.

Between those three kinds of media, only in the case of television have I seen a positive correlation linking it to violent crime.

Why is it not possible for it both reflect and reinforce social attitudes?

[Eleas]

Why is it not possible for it both reflect and reinforce social attitudes?

It is definitely doable. Care has to be taken not to project a message so at odds with the current attitudes that it rings false, because if that happens, people will actively fight it. Witness the aggressive pettiness of climate deniers who purposefully went out to burn carbohydrates because they resented the implication that their lifestyle could pose an environmental problem.

The problem with sexuality is deeper and arguably more insidious. If you restrict sexuality and make of it something shameful (functionally, on-screen nudity and sex in the US is treated as lower than torture porn), this will sexualise violence. That, in turn, will change (has already changed) the sexual mores and behaviours of real-life relationships. We've already see that around the time of the conflation of eastern European porn and trafficking, the mores of non-consensual relationships have crept into mainstream porn. This is not the fault of porn itself (though the porn industry is a natural fit for prostitution), but a reflection of the times.

I'd argue that when a lot of porn starts looking awfully like the boiled-over frustrations of impotent white males taking their revenge, then that fetish is also going to linger in the public conscious. It's going to exert its own influence on public attitudes toward sex and violence and the treatment of other people.

Functionally, it's part and parcel of the danger presented by other tone-setting entities such as Fox News.

[Formless]

So what is your hypotheosis?

I was more interested in simply getting the conversation started... but ultimately, I think you have to take this one medium at a time. They aren't all the same, after all.

Think about it: violence depicted in a book isn't the same as violence depicted in a comic or movie. There are things depicted in classic literature that would instantly get any movie adaptation rated R or worse, and comic books are pretty similar in that regard (I couldn't tell you why-- maybe it has something to do with their demographic?). Even visual mediums aren't made equal-- think about the number of hours of TV you watch compared to the number of hours you spend watching Film on the big screen. TV is more accessable than film, in part because you only have to pay for the TV once and you can get everything that's on the air in your area; or monthly you can see everything from around the country and are in fact somewhat encouraged to use it or you're wasting your investment. So it gets more (repeat) exposure amongst the public and has more chance to effect cultural values of its audience.