Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA18052 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:17:20 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [194.117.133.84] User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/9.0.2509 Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 20:08:27 +0100 Subject: RE: media violence report in Science From: Steve Drew <srdrew_1@hotmail.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B8E221D4.C6%srdrew_1@hotmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200204152201.XAA16254@alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Apr 2002 19:11:16.0030 (UTC) FILETIME=[7B49F5E0:01C1E57A] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Vincent
> Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:59:55 +0100
> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: media violence report in Science
>
> Sorry to butt in. Still playing catch-up.
>
> <Up until quite recently societies have been quite violent on a day
> to day
>> basis. In the late 19C and 20C the advent of law and order has generally
>> made living a lot safer, and people are not exposed to violence. With the
>> advent of the visual image you could be introducing children to a
>> predisposed propensity to violence that ocurs in the presence of certain
>> stimuli.>
>>
> You could, but since one can't even predict whether exposure to
> real/actualy violence will lead individuals to commit violence, how could
> mediated violence do so? Besides the point about pre-media societies being
> violent, indeed more violent than contemporary society is an argument
> against media causing violence- indeed, it's an argument for the
> diametrically opposite view, the catharsis view that media violence sates
> human's desire for violence and thus stops us doing it. (I don't really buy
> that either, as it still suffers from a simple behavioural effects model,
> but there you go).
No I don't either. Also society before the advent of the late C19th, society
was a very different place compared with now.
>
> <Remember that in films, shoot 'em up games etc the victims and
> protagonists
>> turn up again. Either the game gets replayed or the actors make another
>> film.>
>>
> But studies of children show that kids, even quite young kids are
> able to recognise this (e.g. the work of David Buckingham).
>
> <Also, the military is quite good at conditioning people to do
> amazingly
>> dangerous things. If soldiers can be conditioned why are children immune?>
>>
> Because soldiers (and kids in classrooms, say) have their
> environments physically manipulated by other human beings. A recruit can't
> turn the drill instructor off, but a kid (or adult) can turn the TV off, or
> walk away. Also teachers and drill instructors are persistently and
> deliberately trying to impart particular ideas and behaviour into their
> respective audiences, audience who are at least supposed to be motivated (by
> other social pressures, like family etc.) to pay attention and do what
> they're told. None of that is true for the media- advertising is
> increasingly a competition for attention the teacher should have the child's
> undivided attention. Conditioning via the TV, or other media source, just
> doesn't wash.
>
> Vincent
Ok so not the best choices I could have made. :-)
I think that there is some influence by the media, but that it is subtle
(and I don't necessarily mean deliberate!) and that it is just a part of the
influences on us, rather than a simple, "kid watches film and then goes off
a copies it" even if the kid later claims it as some have tried to do.
Regards
Steve
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