Media Violence

A Level Media Studies

Constructionist Approach…

Media representations help to construct our understanding of the world.

Representation of violence causes controversy.

**Media violence is evident in a text when there is violation that causes actual physical or emotional harm and there is intentionality behind this violation**

Any harm caused is momentary

Killing of Kenny is ritualistic – audience know no long term damage is done

http://www.saatchikevin.com/sisomo/UK_NSPCC_Cartoon/

NSPCC triggers an emotive response using cartoon violence

The acceptability of violence is linked to…

REALISM SERIOUSNESS Whether violence is UNPUNISHED or

not Whether violence is FUN or HEROIC

Potter (1999)

Who is the perpetrator of the violence? Who is the victim of violence? Is the violence presented as justified? Are there consequences of violence

portrayed? Is the violence represented as normative

or as abhorrent?

Natural Born Killers Bourne Ultimatum

Cameron and Fraser (1987)

Representations of sexual violence are endemic in our country.

Media often portrays women and elderly as victims of crime.

In Britain, statistically, the group most at risk from violence is young men.

Media representations are constructed to give a negative perception of the world.

Gitlin (2003)

Fictional violence is an easy target for criticism.

What is absent from media is as significant as what is conveyed.

Saddam Hussein – images of his execution were available on internet, edited version shown on TV.

Does news sanitise violence?

Why play violent computer games?

A response to feelings of lack of control in life

Tied into sense of masculinity in Western society

Not being squeamish about violence is part of asserting manhood.

Should this violence be regulated?

Melanie Moore

"Fear, greed, power-hunger, rage: these are aspects of our selves that we try not to experience in our lives but often want, even need, to experience vicariously through stories of others. Children need violent entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they've been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood."

Thierry Jobin

"Moore denounces the way in which the government and the media foster a feeling of insecurity, pushing Americans to barricade themselves in their homes, a loaded 44 Magnum under their pillows."