Moral Responsibility
o Notice: Accountability is not blame!
o Blame is typically emotional. It involves shaming and/ or finding fault with someone.
o Accountability is more detached. It involves holding people responsible for themselves and their actions
Violent Content
• A brief history of film industry regulation
o 1985: first motion picture
o 1915: supreme court denies First Amendment protection to motion pictures
o 1927: First talking picture
o 1930: the Hays Code is first drafted
o 1934: the Hays Code is implemented
o 1952: supreme court overturns 1915 decision, extending First Amendment protection.
o 1959: First independent movie to have market success without honoring the Code (“Some Like it Hot”)
o 1967: First major studio release in defiance of the Code
o 1968: Hays Code is rescinded In favor of the MPAA rating system
o 1972: First mainstream pornographic film
• Statistical data on the prevalence of violent content
o 1970: Average American child views 11,000 violent crimes by age 14
o 1995: Average American child views 10,000 violent crimes per year.
o 73% show the violence going unpunished
o 58% show no sign of pain or suffering
o 39% include the use of humor
• Media Effects
o What we know:
? 1. Viewing violent content does not directly cause violence, BUT it does have cumulative effects which lead to greater aggressive and antisocial behavior
? 2. These cumulative effects appear to increase as the graphic realism of the content increase.
? The long-standing Catharsis Theory isn’t true.
• The Catharsis Theory
o According to the theory, violent entertainment acts as a catharsis, which allows the audience to release otherwise violent emotions.
o Catharsis: A purification or purgation. Eliminating a feeling by giving it expression.
o Problem:
? Research says “not true” in the case of violent content. If anything, violent entertainment has the opposite effect.
? Viewing violent content makes people more disposed to actual violence, not less.
• The three cumulative effects
•
o 1. Cultivation (or “Mean World Syndrome”)
? Portrayals of violence in entertainment lead to heightened perception of violence in realty (world is perceived as more violent than it is)
? Behavior adjusts accordingly, resulting in greater mistrust and self-protective behavior
? Self- protectiveness and mistrust lead to increases in actual violence.
o 2. Desensitization
? With repeated exposure, normal emotional reactions to violence (revulsion, empathy, and fear) become muted or displaced.
? As a result, portrayals of violence come to be experienced as normal and troubling (e.g. normatively ok)
o 3. Education
? Violent content serves to educated and instruction the audience in the “how to” of violence, and violent behavior
? This does not mean that EM providers are morally responsible for what people do
? It does mean they are causally responsible for showing them how to do it.
• Notice
o We know that human beings are vulnerable to cumulative media effects in other areas.
o For example: this one of the main reasons why advertising works.
o So, we know that human beings are vulnerable to cumulative effects of this general kind. (That violent content can have such effects should come as no surprise!)
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