In Henry Jenkins article, he writes about how he was invited to testify to the Senate about how the Media Effects Paradigm is flawed. The Paradigm explains that children are influenced by violence shown in movies, television shows, and video games. According to the paradigm, these influences cause children to engage in acts of violence and sometimes even murder. Jenkins, however, believes that these acts of violence are caused by social factors between youth and not by the effects of what they see on television. He also points out how many of the proofs for the Media Effects Paradigm have been taken out of context.
I, however, don't understand why these two theories can not both contribute to the violence we see in our youth.
One of the issues that we discussed in class, in response to both Paradise Lost and Bowling for Columbine was that many of the mass killings that have come up in the news were found to be in response to the killers having been bullied or targeted in the past. What the Media Effects Paradigm were to be applied to the bullies and not the killers and the killers had snapped because of their social issues.
Think about it, although there are acts of violence and murder shown on television and in films, it is not incredibly often that you see a mass murder depicted on screen. Bullying, however, is seen in television and in movies on a regular basis. Characters curse each other out, tease each other, play nasty tricks on each other, and sometimes even hurt each other. Many times the bullies are depicted as the "cool" characters. If this is the case, does the media give off the impression that this way of treating your fellow human being is acceptable? If it does, then i believe that the bullies are influenced by media much more then killers and murderers.
A person who is targeted by these bullies may not know the proper way socially react to their attackers. Every so often, someone who is targeted too much with poor on how to handle the situation may commit acts of dire consequences.
The media can play a factor into why bullying exist but bullying and fighting for social hierarchy pre-exist the television. Another factor into bullying is people have always found malicious ways when they see someone different. We saw in "Freaks and Geeks" they were differentiated into different species.
ReplyDeleteSo, where does Henry Jenkins say that he thinks media do not influence behavior and thought? Are he, Ellen Seiter, and Stuart Hall (from the SlideShare lecture) suggesting that media have no effect? If they are not saying this, then what are they saying about the relationship between media and us? If you think they are saying that media have no effect or are not influential, go to the place in their texts where you see them saying as much. What alternative way of understanding media and young people are they offering you?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that they believe that the media has NO effect. I believe that the paradigm is being applied to the wrong group of people. Take Jenkins for instance. Jenkins was showing how film scenes, such as the violent dream sequence from "The Basketball Diaries", were taken out of context in order to prove that such scenes were not promoting violence. But none of the articles, nor the SlideShare lecture addressed the issues of bullying. Hence my point is that I can not show you where Jenkins, Seiter or Hall wrote about the effects of bullying because they did not address this important issue in their writings. I do however believe that it is an important issue that should have been addressed because it fits into the paradigm much more easily then the murder and violence that Jenkin's was trying to defend in the first place.
ReplyDelete