Field experiments examine behaviour patterns in natural surroundings. A study carried out by Feshbach and Suger in 1971 looked at the affects of violent television on adolescent boys. A sample of boys aged between 8-18 were given set television programmes to watch over a six week period. They were randomly selected into two groups, with some watching ‘aggressive’ programmes and the others not. The results concluded that the boys that had watched the aggressive programmes showed signs of reduced or limited aggressive tendencies. Many methodological criticisms have been levelled at this work, including the fact that only those observing or recording the experiment knew which programmes the boys had watched.
There have been many large scale social surveys including one by McLoed, which surveyed 624 thirteen to sixteen year olds, looking at the connections between the frequency of viewing violent television programmes and their aggressive behaviour. Although the results confirmed that those that watched more violent programmes were more aggressive the survey did not take into account variables such as gender, age, and ethnic origin and when these were inserted into the survey the correlation disappeared.
Although there have been thousands of research studies on the effect that violence in films and television has on people, these studies are unable to prove that those that watch and enjoy violent films and television programmes will be more likely to carry out violent offences. F. S. Anderson collected the findings of sixty-seven studies that investigated the influence of television on aggressive tendencies in children, which had been carried out between 1956 and 1976. The methods used and the definition of ‘aggressive behaviour’ varied considerably. Three-quarters of the studies claimed to find some association with violence tendencies, twenty percent gave no clear-cut-result, and three percent found that it decreased aggression. As we have already seen the validity of much of this research has been questioned. He also looked at the underlying theme of justice and found that in dramas there was a much higher proportion of crime solved than in real life, and that in cartoons harmful characters usually got their ‘just deserts’. So perhaps some viewers are more influenced by the moral themes than the violent acts.
Most research does not take into account the complexity and mental capacity that viewers have, which enable them to recognise that the violence portrayed in film and on television is not real. Hodge and Tripp emphasised that it was the interpreting or ‘reading’ of what had been watched, not just the content that caused violent tendencies. They concluded that it is not the violence that affects behaviour but the framework of attitudes, within which, it is presented and ‘read’.
The ideology in media refers to the way in which mass media can influence people’s beliefs, ideas, and actions. The media reaches mass audiences who are unable to answer back in a direct way. However the receiver does have the right to choose what he watches and to refuse to view anything that he does not agree with.
It is very difficult to prove psychologically or in a definitive way what the impact of violence in mass media has on the receiver. Those that believe that we desensitise and are no longer upset by the horrors depicted on our screen accept the argument for censorship, but others believe that we catharses and release negative emotions in a controlled environment would disagree. Arguments can be put forward both for and against especially as millions of people watch violence on television and yet it does not affect the vast majority of them. Children do appear to be more willing to imitate violence that they have seen, and this is particularly evident in the case where a child was killed by a playmate imitating a karate kick performed in the television programme Power Rangers. The murder of Jamie Bulger has also been connected with violence from the film Child Play 3. This film had been rented by the stepfather of one of boys who was found guilty of the murder, even though there is no evidence to prove that the boys had watched the film. This potential danger to society does once again raise the issue of the impact of unacceptable violence levels on television and in film.
Q2 The concentration of media ownership into a few hands might give great power over our ideas to a few men like Rupert Murdoch. Discuss.
The power of the media is not absolute and does not exist in isolation however it does have the influence to affect our way of thinking and consequently our actions. When we look at the concentration of the dominant few media companies, including Rupert Murdoch’s News International Group, it becomes slightly worrying that these huge companies may have greater control on our beliefs and culture than we are aware of. These transnational companies are more powerful in economic and ideological terms than any other institutions.
Most of the media, including television, the press, the Internet and satellite coverage is concentrated into the hands of just six companies’ operating across the world. These are; The Walt Disney Corporation; Bertelsmann; Viacom; Vivendi Universal; AOL Time Warner; and News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation group owns the Times, Sunday Times, Sun, and News of the World newspapers, which are Britain’s most popular newspapers. It owns over 100 national and regional newspapers in Australia, and Independent Newspapers of New Zealand. It also controls the satellite network Sky in the UK, Fox News and seven other news networks in the USA, Foxtel in Australia, Star TV in Asia, Phoenix and four other channels in China and News Corp broadcasts into India, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, Latin America and Europe.
The huge cost involved in launching and sustaining a media company or national newspaper is one of the reasons why they are highly concentrated. For example when Eddy Shah introduced the Today newspaper, he spent £22.5 million in the first ten weeks before he run out of funds and was forced to sell it to Rupert Murdoch’s company. The transnational companies are also able to protect their own interests by forcing other competitors out of business by undercutting their prices. They can if necessary take a temporary loss in one area of business and finance it from another, in effect giving them an almost monopolistic position.
The media is said to entertain, educate, and inform in a neutral way. This is impossible because at any stage of publication or production judgements have to be made about what is included. It is therefore necessary for the media to adopt a policy of ‘due impartiality’, meaning that ‘objectivity’ and ‘impartiality’ is used within the accepted boundaries of a particular society. Mass media particularly in terms of news reporting must present a range of views and opinions, because one consistent view may restrict information, distort knowledge, and constrain freedom of choice. Proprietors like Murdoch are not just in the business to sell goods but to influence opinions, and he makes no secret of his rightist political views. His power to censor journalists was reported by Paul Kelso in the Guardian newspaper on September 6, 2001. He reported that journalists were ‘censored by executives frightened of offending their proprietor’. This is a major concern when the media is concentrated in the hands of just a few powerful and influential people.
When studying the media there are many different views that need to be considered. Pluralists believe that because the media is open to competition, the receiver or audience has the power to choose what they read or watch and also the ability to influence companies into responding to their wants. They also claim that increased choice leads to the reduction of ideological power in the media, in other words the media is democratic and supplies us with what we want. The power elite approach concentrates on the position of power that is held in the hands of the elite. Through this exclusive power the elite can use the media to enforce behaviour and beliefs upon the audience. Marxists have concerns about the power and influence of the media and the case of Silvio Berlusconi confirms that these concerns are justified. Berlusconi owned a number of major Italian television channels and he used his position of power to publicise his bid to become the Prime Minister of Italy in 1994, which failed due to corruption charges.
The media owners have control of what they publish or screen and are therefore able to consciously manipulate their audiences. However the receiver is able to make conscious decisions on what they read and watch and so to a certain extent can control media input. It must remain the government’s responsibility to ensure that safeguards are put in place to prevent suppression of legitimate opinion and criticisms. Ownership of media must favour the public interests in a democratic society.
Q3 In the latter part of the 20th century, young people created subcultures of their own. Some saw this as an attempt to resist the dominant ideology. Youth subculture has now given way to postmodern culture. Discuss.
In Victorian times when a child reached the age of eleven or twelve they were expected to work. By the end of the Second World War changes were made to the education act, which enabled children to remain in school until they reached fifteen years of age. This change created a group of adolescents that were neither a child nor an adult; people in this transitional stage are known as youths. The British Youth Council (1992) defined youth as the 16-25 age group, this had been extended to take into account the necessity for additional education and training before starting work, and amounted to 8.7 million, 15.2 percent of the United Kingdom population. The term youth is not only used to classify a biological age but also the social role, responsibilities and expectations of that particular group.
Sociologists began to take an interest in youths when subcultures emerged after the Second World War. As these young people became more affluent they began to develop their own distinctive ideas on dress, music and behaviour. They gathered in similar places, for example bikers usually meet at race meetings, where as ravers meet at dance clubs, and have shared values. These exclusive groups created a huge generation gap between the ideas and beliefs of young and old, Leach (1976) called it a ‘youthquake’. Although each group was radically different and unique in their style and ideas, they were all symbolic of their time and showed their contempt for authority and capitalist ideology. These lifestyles posed a radical challenge to conventional values. But for many youth culture was just about having a good time while they were young, free, and single.
Resistance to authority was created through the desire to dress differently, display aggressive behaviour, and play loud music with often controversial and radical lyrics. Youth subculture groups came mainly from working class families, and were often in conflict with each other. The mods and rockers were renowned for their confrontations in the seaside resort of Brighton. Stanley Cohen’s seminal work ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’, published in 1972 looked at the way the media exaggerated and coloured their reporting, implying that rival gangs of teenage boys were tearing apart seaside towns. Cohen’s analysis suggests that because the media are under pressure to sell their products they tend to simplify and exaggerate stories, producing strong and easy story lines. This media reporting acted as an advertisement for other youths with aggressive tendencies, encouraging them to participate at the next meeting.
Paul Willis carried out ethnographic research on a group of bikers during the 1970s. In his findings he described the group as being almost all male and from typical working class backgrounds, including scaffolders, foundry workers, students and a number of unemployed. They had a tight sense of belonging to their subculture, a typical evening for them consisted of permutations of the same activities: a drink and a game of darts at the local pub, or a coffee and a game of pinball at the coffee bar.
One approach by sociologists to subcultures is functionalism. This concentrates on the functions performed by youth culture for its members and the wider community. Eisenstadt (1956) argues that youth require a transitional period in order to socialise into the values of a complex modern society. During this period young people may feel segregated and confused, and may experience problems with their identity. He argues that youth culture gives them a community that gives support and friendship and allows them to mature and develop. Criticism of this approach argue that it is too general and the problems associated with growing up are complex and vary according to class, race and gender.
British sociologists have also looked at the deeper meanings of youth subcultures. These include Teddy Boys (1950s), mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads (1960s) and punks and rastas (1970s). These studies concentrated on the collective values, lifestyles, and symbols of each of these groups. The Centre for Contemporary Studies concluded that subculture groups allowed youths to create their own cultural space and were used to generate subversive messages, for example skinhead culture was seen to represent an attempt to return to working class values. Criticisms of these studies argue that too much emphasis was placed on the exotic groups and the majority of ‘conformists’ were ignored. They also point out that most of the rebellions quickly settled down to conventional lifestyles.
Marxist theory has also influenced the analysis of youth subculture. Marx believed that cultures are produced by ‘social conditions’, which includes social class and age. The improvement in social conditions in Britain must therefore be a contributory factor in the demise of youth subculture. Most of the youths involved in subculture came from working class families and as Tony Blair has claimed that we are ‘all middle class’ now, this would be another reason why there has been no substantial youth culture in a decade.
Youth subculture appears to be a thing of the past as we move into the twenty-first century. The diversity of style, taste, and cultures make it difficult for any single subculture to emerge as dominant in today’s society. Youth culture is now so complicated, due to the changes in class structure, occupational structure, neighbourhoods, family life and leisure activities. It appears that identities are in a constant state of change, the ability of individuals to mix with several subculture groups is a normal behaviour pattern in today’s society. Emphasis in postmodern society appears to be on style, enjoyment, excitement, travel, and self- confidence, self-belief and the ability to succeed.
Postmodernism is the most recent social issue and is concerned with our consumption patterns rather than our beliefs and moral stances. Today we appear to be more concerned with consumer culture, our clothes, cars, homes, leisure activities, and holidays than the sharing of values with our neighbours and communities. This global culture has reduced us to selfish, shallow, consumerist and individualist behaviour. We are now united across the world, but not by a meaningful purpose such as world peace or removing third world poverty, it is by our spending desires and our collective failure to share any deep moral or social purpose.