Chapter 5: Violence and Innocence
The chapter Violence and Innocence argues that the common notion that media violence is harmful to children is wrong. Newkirk even suggests that media violence might play an important and beneficial role for children, that children imitating violence is not some new phenomena, but a natural part of human nature.
Those that argue against media violence often base their argument on contentious assumptions: media violence desensitizes people to real violence, childhood is a time of innocence, and child games that involve violence are unquestionably bad. This argument becomes further complicated when you try to discern between acceptable violence and unacceptable violence. Those against media violence do not include renowned paintings, or classic literature in their list of unhealthy violent material. Newkirk asserts that this is because of a class difference. It is believed that those who watch Hamlet are less susceptible to the harmful effects of the violence than those who watch Lethal Weapon, although Hamlet is more graphic. The main difference between the two forms of entertainment is not the amount of violence that is depicted in them but the class of which views them. Because Hamlet has long been considered an art form by the upper class it is not viewed as a danger to society.
The lack of concrete data and the difficulty in proving the causal relationship between media violence and actual violence leads to researchers using questionable proxies for determining the effects of media violence on children. Experiments often test to see if children react to media violence in a violent way, but if a child does act violently, is it necessarily bad? Is it possible to discern between innocent imitation and actual violent behavior? Although they are two distinct categories they seem to be lumped together by those who oppose violent material. Furthermore, treating children as robots who are incapable of resisting the violence or having their own view of whether or not they should be allowed to view such material deprives the researchers from a vital piece of the picture.
The arguments against media violence are at best inconclusive. Class prejudice, and personal bias taint the “objective� conclusion that violence in the media inevitably leads to a violent reaction from children and other susceptible victims.
Question: The issue of class is brought up in the case of Comstock and it is mentioned elsewhere but could it be said that class is one of the main reasons behind the fear of violent media? As mentioned in the chapter Taste and Distaste (pg. 84) “The average black child spends almost two hours per day more than the average white child in TV watching: the average Hispanic child spends almost an hour more.� Does race play a role in the debate over violence in the media?