Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies, 8th edition

Violence on TV: the defence

A B C D E F G H I

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L M N O P R S T U V

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▶Barrie Gunter and Jackie Harrison, Violence on

Television. An Analysis of Amount, Nature, Location

and Origin of Violence in British Programmes (Rout-

ledge, 1998); Karen Boyle, Media and Violence (Sage,

2005).

Violence on TV: the defence The portrayal

of violence on screen, whether in the cinema

or on TV, has long attracted controversy and

is an ongoing issue of our time. Th e dominant

tendency among commentators is to deplore it,

its nature, its extent and its amount. Simulated

violence is seen to prompt some members of the

audience to re-enact that violence in real life;

and violence is judged to desensitize viewers to

the real thing.

Taking issue with these perspectives is Jib

Fowles. In The Case for Television Violence

(Sage, 1999), Fowles argues that contrary to the

notion that screen violence breeds real violence,

it is more likely to inhibit or reduce it: ‘Televi-

sion violence is good for people.’ Recognizing

in human beings an in-built violent impulse,

Fowles says that society requires ‘outlets’ for this

impulse. Violence is ever-present and has to be

managed: ‘In isolation, television violence may

seem reproachable and occupy the foreground

with a menacing intensity, but with a longer

perspective it can seem comparatively like an

improvement – a purer distillation of the age-

old processes for containing and redirecting

violence.’

We have to remember, says Fowles, ‘that

television violence is symbolic only ... Nobody

actually suff ers for our pleasure’. For the author,

‘the assault on television violence is absolutely

unwarranted’. It is ‘simply the most recent and

least damaging venue for the routinized working

out of innate aggressiveness and fear’. Th e fuss

over TV violence Fowles describes as a variant

on the moral panic (see moral panics and

the media), which is usually accompanied

by the fervour and ‘extreme righteousness of

the condemners as they lash out at conjured

or magnifi ed transgressions’; and the response

‘is always out of proportion to whatever insti-

gates it’ (see third-person effect). Fowles

concludes: ‘Perhaps, to give television violence

its due, we need fi rst to respect ourselves more

fully, to have greater regard for the complex,

semiviolent creatures that we are.’

As in addressing all theories, a cautionary note

is perhaps required here, for cases occur from

time to time in which the enactment of real

violence echoes and sometimes directly simu-

lates screen violence. Th e UK Observer (9 June

2002) reported under a headline, ‘Murder linked

to images of cruelty in the context of entertain-
ment. See moral panics and the media.
Video Recordings Acts (UK), 1984, 2010
Passed through Parliament in the UK with all-
Party support, MP Graham Bright’s measure,
the fi rst VRA (1984), was designed to restrict
the access of young persons to video nasties,
many of which eluded the usual vetting process
of the british board of film censors.
Th e Act established by statute an Authority
(initially the BBFC) whose purpose was to clas-
sify video cassettes as suitable for home viewing
and to censor those deemed unsuitable. Fines
of up to 20,000 were liable for dealers and
distributors breaking the law. All video works
were to be submitted for scrutiny, classifi cation
and certifi cation unless they were educational or
concerned with sport, religion or music.
However, if such videos ‘to any extent’ were
deemed to portray ‘human sexual activity’
or ‘mutilation, torture or other acts of gross
violence’ or to show ‘human genital organs’, they
too had to be submitted to the censors.
It came to light in 2009 that the Act was
invalid, being in breach of European Union
law. By this time over seventy fi lms were on the
Director of Prosecution’s list of banned videos.
Dozens of prosecutions had to be dropped: good
news for free expression? Not exactly. Without
delay, the UK government revoked VRA 1984
and re-enacted it in identical form as VRA 2010.
Th e Department of Culture, Media and Sport
announced that previous prosecutions would
stand. See censorship; moral panics and
the media; youtube.
Viewers: light, medium and heavy Research
into the amount and nature of TV viewing
discriminates between the light viewer, generally
classifi ed as watching TV for two hours or fewer
a day; the medium viewer, watching for between
two and three hours a day; and the heavy viewer,
watching for four hours or more a day. In the
analysis of viewer response, special attention has
been paid to the diff erences of attitude to issues
and controversies that can be detected between
light and heavy viewers, and thus the infl uence
TV programmes may have on attitude forma-
tion and attitude change. See cultivation;
mainstreaming; mean world syndrome;
resonance.
Violence and the media See violence on tv:
the defence. See also topic guides under
audiences/consumption & reception of
media; media: freedom, censorship; media
issues & debates; media: power, effects,
influence; representation.