478 ChaPTer 21 | DisContinuities | period eight 19 45 –198 0... Over a period of several months the subcommittee has received a vast amount
of mail from parents expressing concern regarding the possible deleterious ef-
fect upon their children of certain of the media of mass communication. This
led to an inquiry into the possible relationship to juvenile delinquency of these
media.
Members of the subcommittee have emphatically stated at public hearings that
freedom of speech and freedom of the press are not at issue. They are fully aware
of the long, hard, bitter fight that has been waged through the ages to achieve and
maintain those freedoms. They agree that these freedoms, as well as other free-
doms in the Bill of Rights, must not be abrogated.
The subcommittee has no proposal for censorship. It moved into the mass
media phase of its investigations with no preconceived opinions in regard to the
possible need for new legislation.
Consistent with this position, it is firmly believed that the public is enti-
tled to be fully informed on all aspects of this matter and to know all the
facts. It was the consensus that the need existed for a thorough, objective
investigation to determine whether, as has been alleged, certain types of mass
communication media are to be reckoned with as contributing to the country’s
alarming rise in juvenile delinquency. These include: “crime and horror” comic
books and other types of printed matter; the radio, television, and motion
pictures.
In its investigations of mass media, as in its investigation of other phases of the
total problem, the subcommittee has not been searching for “one cause.” Delin-
quency is the product of many related causal factors. But it can scarcely be ques-
tioned that the impact of these media does constitute a significant factor in the
total problem.
Juvenile delinquency in America today must be viewed in the framework of
the total community-climate in which children live. Certainly, none of the chil-
dren who get into trouble live in a social vacuum. One of the most significant
changes of the past quarter century has been the wide diffusion of the printed
word, particularly in certain periodicals, plus the phenomenal growth of radio
and television audiences.
The child today in the process of growing up is constantly exposed to sights
and sounds of a kind and quality undreamed of in previous generations. As these
sights and sounds can be a powerful force for good, so too can they be a pow-
erful counterpoise working evil. Their very quantity makes them a factor to be
reckoned with in determining the total climate encountered by today’s children
during their formative years....
United States Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Juvenile Delinquency: Comic
Books, Motion Pictures, Obscene and Pornographic Materials, Television Programs (West-
port, CT: Greenwood, 1955), 1–2.ToPIC I | Conflicting postwar Visions 47922_STA_2012_ch21_473-488.indd 478 16/04/15 6:48 PM