Turn on the radio. You may hear Eminem rapping about murder and suicide in his recent hit, "Stan." Flip on the TV. If you have cable, you might see a cell-phone-toting teenage girl being stabbed to death in a re-run of the box office smash "Scream."
According to a 1998 study conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs on violence in popular culture, the average music video contains 62 violent scenes per hour. Syndicated television series can pack in as many as 52.
And according to a recent study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, much of this violent media is being marketed to kids. Of 44 teen-oriented movies that were rated "R" for violence, at least 80 percent were marketed to kids under 17, the legal age requirement for viewing such material.
But even if this type of media is aimed directly at young children, state and federal laws prevent them from obtaining it, right? Wrong.
The FTC also found that many "mature" materials are surprisingly easy to come by for today's generation of children and teens. Just over 50 percent of the nation's movie theaters admit children under 17 to R-rated films, even when they are not accompanied by an adult. And nearly 85 percent of the time underage children are easily able to purchase music and video games labeled with a parental advisory sticker.
So what effect, if any, does what President Clinton referred to as "the banalization of sex and violence in the popular culture" have on today's youth?
Some public health officials, pediatricians and psychologists insist that this inundation of gore takes its toll on children and adolescents in the form of an increased number of violent episodes, such as those witnessed at Columbine and Springfield.
Neither Media Director Mathew Felling of the Center for Media Relations and Public Affairs nor Professor of Education Andrew Garrod is so quick to place the blame for societal violence on the television, movie and music industries, however.
"The only line that we can draw scientifically is a line between exposure to violence in media and agressive behavior patrerns," Felling explained, emphasizing the fact that it would be nearly impossible to prove a causal relationship between the two.
"I think it's too facile to believe that because certain films are violent and certain lyrics allude [to violence] children or adolescents imitate them or accept the values alluded in them," Garrod agreed.
According to Felling, what we really need to worry about are those "unbalanced individuals" who may view violent material "not as fictitious but suggestive." Indeed, Garrod pointed out that mass shootings -- especially those orchestrated
by children and teens - seem to be far more prevalent in the United States than in European countries, which, according the education professor, could point to "a problem in American culture."
Indeed, in Garrod's opinion, it is not only the media that is to blame for the violence. The problem may be embedded in the culture itself, which, in some cases, promotes both the death penalty and the "wide distribution of guns."
So what can be done to combat the possibly detrimental influence of a violent media on contemporary youngsters?
Drop your v-chips, parents.
Garrod suggests that parents can help by assuming a "processing role" in their child's development rather than a more Orwellian stance.
"Certainly when the children are young, parents should play an active role in helping them choose films and in talking out those films with them," he explained.
Felling also stressed the idea that the monitoring of children's exposure to violent media starts at home and recommended that parents begin fostering an environment of "responsible" viewing patterns from the very beginning.
"We do have to be concerned with programming for childrem much more acutely than any other audience," he explained adding that children are
But can more that should be done?
Felling calls for a more stringent and visible rating system for TV shows so that parents may better utilize the intended monitoring aid.
"The [current] rating system for television is a joke and an abysmal failure," he said, adding that networks are simply "putting cookies in front of kids and saying not to touch them."
In the conclusion of his study, Robert Lichter of the CMPA suggests the more forceful approach of encouraging the media to decrease their production of what he refers to as "cookie-cutter shoot-em-ups."
"No sensible person wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater," he writes. "But the converse also holds true: The bathwater can become so polluted that it threatens the health of the baby."
