Media has long been identified by the public health community as a risk factor involved in violence, alcohol, and tobacco use, and media literacy is recognized as a resiliency factor a life skill to strengthen and individual's ability to resist negative messages that are powerfully packaged and promoted in the media.
Media literacy is often a missing ingredient in approaches to violence prevention that only emphasize interpersonal skills or individual/group counseling yet it is imperative that students acquire the critical inquiry skills necessary to deal with the information and media they encounter every day.
That is not to say that teaching conflict resolution is unimportant. Or that counseling for students is not necessary. Quite the contrary. They are also critical support necessary for successfully addressing the prevention of violence.
But it is impossible to separate individual behavior from the environment in which individuals function and today, that environment is defined by media. "The media have redefined how we are supposed to treat one another. We've gone from 'Have a nice day' to 'Make my day.' Too many of our kids have learned this lesson. When the norm becomes threat and intimidation, then the extremes shift as well. They take the form of kids torturing and killing their peers," said Dr. David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family in the Summer 1999 issue of Media Wise.
CML believes there is a need for three major approaches media literacy, conflict resolution/interpersonal skills, and counseling that can work together to make communities and their schools a place where children can be safe, healthy and whole.
Background on CML's Approach to Violence and Media
The Circle of Blame
For the last 50 years, there has been a "circle of blame" about media violence: viewers blame media producers and advertisers, and producers and advertisers blame the media consumers. It's time to stop the circle of blame and recognize we all share the responsibility for the culture we are creating and passing on to our children. We at CML applaud those communities and schools that engage in a program that has these possibilities.
For those same 50 years, the circle of blame has been fueled by one unanswerable question: "Does watching violence cause someone to become violent?" The reason we've made such poor progress on this issue for 50 years is because this is the wrong question to ask about violence in the media. This question trivializes a complex issue.
The real question should be:
"What is the long-term impact on our national psyche when millions of children, in their formative years, grow up decade after decade bombarded with very powerful visual and verbal messages demonstrating violence as the preferred way to solve problems, and normalizing fear and violence as 'the way things are?'"
According to the American Psychological Association's 1993 report, "Violence and Youth: Psychology's Response," we know that there are not just one but four long-term effects of viewing violence:
- Increased aggressiveness and anti-social behavior
- Increased fear of being or becoming a victim
- Increased desensitization to violence and victims of violence
- Increased appetite for more and more violence in entertainment and real life
These four effects alone are enough to show that we need to enroll millions of Americans in a locally-based "national conversation" to resolve the issue of media violence in their own lives, and ultimately in our common society. It is critical that this conversation take place in schools, in communities, in homes. But talking is not enough.
It is also imperative that individuals acquire the critical inquiry skills necessary to deal with the information and media they are immersed in . Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in all its forms. There is a definite pedagogy associated with it. Children and adults need to learn these concepts and have continued practice applying this process of understanding in may subject areas and in many media forms.
And it is important to note that true media literacy is not about media bashing or about censorship. Media literacy is about empowerment through education it is the fundamental skill that citizens in an information society need to be enlightened and informed, and that can give them their own voice, as digital technology increasingly permits.
Acquiring this media literacy skills is particularly important for young children who see violence on television every day (and tv isn't the only culprit there are videogames and songs and websites and films...). A Canadian research survey, "Television Violence: A Review of the Effects on Children of Different Ages," by Wendy Josephson, shows that "Children differ in the content they watch, the context in which they watch it, the way in which they watch it, and the meaning they find in it." Responsible guidance requires understanding these differences as well as differences and vulnerabilities related to age. Josephson also summarizes research identifying special vulnerability of groups of children: minority and immigrant; emotionally disturbed; learning disabled; abused and those whose families are in distress. Perhaps the most horrific implication in her assessment of harmful effects is the strategy employed by some children who try to escape the fears created by media violence by identifying with loathsome villains.
How Media Literacy Education Can Lessen the Impact of Violence
"While the reasons for youth violence are complex, it is undeniable that the media play a powerful role in framing issues of violence, substance abuse and prejudice often using them to entertain, rather than to educate.
"Eliminating the negative cultural effect of the media in our society lies not in censorship, but in providing young people with essential critical thinking and life skills. These skills allow young people to be discerning consumers of media and, more importantly, to become powerful forces for positive change in their lives and the lives of others." Kevin M. Burke, District Attorney, Eastern District, Massachusetts
According to CML's Elizabeth Thoman, a recognized national expert on the subject of violence prevention and media education, there are five ways that effective media literacy education can contribute to lessening the impact of violence in our lives:
- Reduce exposure, by educating parents and caregivers. For example, how many times have you been to a movie rated "R" for violence and seen children there?
- Change the impact of violent images that are seen. This can be done by deconstructing the techniques used to stage violent scenes and decoding the various depictions of violence in news, animation, drama, sports and music. It is important for children to learn early-on the difference between reality and fantasy and to learn the "language" of media production so that they can make healthy choices about their media consumption.
- Explore alternatives to stories that focus on violence as the solution to interpersonal conflict. Collections of books and videos that provide positive role models can counterbalance the actions and attitudes of today's "superheroes."
- Uncover and challenge the cultural, economic and political supports for media violence as well as the personal ways we may each be contributing to it. Media violence is not isolated from other social issues. Freedom of speech is rooted in the ability to challenge the political and economic status quo.
- Promote informed and rational public debate in schools, community and civic gatherings, religious groups and in the media. We must ask ourselves what kind of culture we want our children to grow up in, and the role of media in contributing to public safety.
The critical inquiry skills learned through media literacy also contribute to address public health issues such as dieting and body image, sex, early sexual activity, pregnancy, obesity, substance abuse and poor nutrition. Again, media has been identified by the public health community as a risk factor involved in violence, alcohol and tobacco abuse. Media literacy is recognized as a resiliency factor by the public health community, a life skill to strengthen an individual's ability to resist negative messages that are powerfully packaged and promoted.
Furthermore, media literacy education is a natural way to address different learning styles and abilities. Understanding diverse learning styles is at the core of Harvard Professor How Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, defined in his 1983 book, Frames of Mind. These types of intelligences include: verbal/linguistic; logical/mathematical; visual/spatial; body/kinesthetic; musical/rhythmic; interpersonal; intrapersonal; naturalist. Traditional education which fosters primarily linguistic and logical learning styles risks failing to engage minds blessed with other types of intelligence. Media literacy, because of the wide range of media and content used, embraces all.
CML's Approach in Beyond Blame: Challenging Violence in the Media
CML can say with confidence that Beyond Blame is the most comprehensive multi-media program to address both media literacy and violence. In fact, the curricula stands alone: it is the only in-depth curricula now available, since other violence prevention programs typically address specific behavior skills and only tough lightly on media education. Through exploring media, the curricula sets the framework for exploring other societal and behavior topics.
But curricula alone is not enough. It takes professional development, training and community outreach to affect the depths of cultural change. CML's Beyond Blame: Challenging Violence in the Media provides an umbrella approach through a community-based program that features existing curricula and a "train the trainers" approach that meet the criteria for the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program.
The learning methodology in the Beyond Blame curricula is based on the work of the renowned Brazilian educator Paolo Freire. It can be summarized as a four step learning process: Awareness, Analysis, Reflection and Action, and is embodied in the Empowerment Spiral as part of the CML MediaLit Kit"!.
Analysis, reasoning, critical thinking and evaluating are the essential skills of media literacy not memorizing facts. These higher-order skills are best developed through group discussion, cooperative activities and team problem solving. Because Behond Blame employes these skills as its fundamental learning strategy, the value of its program is dramatically leveraged by the pedagogy used to stimulatie understanding and learning about media violence.
Furthermore, this approach to media education is in keeping with the skills required ina n information economy, where people must be able to access, analyze and evaluate information, work on project-oriented teams and communicate extensively, using sophisticated media tools.
The Beyond Blame curricula, owned 100% by the Center for Media Literacy, represents a $300,000 multi-year research and development investment by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and over 20 foundations and concerned philanthropists.
Knowing what credible research was revealing about the effect of media violence on children and society and fearing the social consequences CML developed and launched its comprehensive community and school program, Beyond Blame: Challenging Violence in the Media, in 1994. The overall goal of Beyond Blame is to break the cycle of blame about violence in the media by engaging millions of people in a learning process that leads from awareness to action on key issues in the media violence debate.
From the very beginning, Beyond Blame was designed as a comprehensive program to reach communities and parents, local organizations, churches and schools. Although providing educational training and curricula is a key component of the program, the concept behind Beyond Blame goes further: to engage citizens and spur individual action. It is a concept that only now is being recognized as an urgent priority for the American people, as our society realizes that media are not "passive or objective" relayers of information, and that technology is now providing a voice for all Americans a voice that, through the internet and other channels, can be heard globally.
And through the changes in cultural attitudes toward tobacco use in the U.S., American have seen that change is possible, and that the public does not have to passively accept behaviors that are ultimately harmful to individuals and society as a whole.
The goals of the Beyond Blame initiative are to mitigate the impact of violence on our lives through media education by the five points detailed: reduce exposure; change the impact of violent images that are seen; explore alternatives to stories that focus on violence as the solution to interpersonal conflict; uncover and challenge the cultural, economic and political supports for media violence as well as the personal ways each citizen may be contributing to it; and promote informed and rational public debate.
And though schools are often a target of violence among children, it is important to remember that violence in schools does not happen in a vacuum it happens in the context of the community and the home and the schools, the total environment. One of the keys to violence is parent education and community outreach.
Beyond Blame reaches children because it enters their "mediated" world. This world is a fantasy world, but as technology improves, the fantasy feels more and more like reality. To get a sense of what is going on behind children's swirling eyeballs, and what faces children in the future, it's important to play their video and computer games, where adults seldom tread. The electronic games industry has now surpassed annual movie box office revenues. Children are the primary consumers of electronic games.
The overwhelming need for a program such as Beyond Blame is beyond question. Children need the skills associated with consuming media wisely, and producing media for themselves, using the exciting new technology tools available.