CMN 140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Master Sergeant, Red Riding
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Lecture 15 - 3/14: Violence - Chapter 18
1. Key Idea: the public has been complaining about violence in the media as long
as we have had mass media, but the media continue to present a great deal of
violence in their stories
2. Media Violence
1. Ppl complaining ever since storytellers used the media
2. Criticism increase and decreases in cycles
3. Currently quiet, but could heat up quickly again
2. The public and producers of media messages hold many faulty beliefs about
media violence
3. What is Violence?
4. Public’s Faulty Beliefs (THREE)
1. Too much violence in the media
1.1. Most prevalent in criticism
1.2. Many portrayals in mainstream media (like TV and films)
1.3. Public actually underestimates amount of violence being
present
1.3.1. Public actually has narrow conception of what
constitutes violence
1.3.2. Conception is limited to Physical violence = serious
manner with severe physical harm to victims that’s
presented graphically
1.3.3. The memory of an offensive act or two is what
motivates public criticism, not an accumulation of acts
reaching a certain number that surpasses ppl’s value for
tolerance
1.4. Judgment of violence related more to degree of
graphicness than number of acts
1.4.1. Ex: car chase with multiple walltowall hits & etc VS.
a single film shot of someone getting shot & blood and
bones seen
1.4.2. Public’s conception of violence is keyeted to
wehther the depiction is offensive or not
1.1.1.1. If depiction dwells on graphic elements like
blood & gore, then the depiction is likely to offend
viewers & trigger comaplins
1.1.1.2. So Producers sanitize violence to avoid
offending audience/interrupting flow
1.2. Humor appears to remove threat of violence when humor
is a camouflage
1.2.1. In order to consider something violent, they need to
feel a degree of personal threat
1.3. Not concerned with fantastical settings → if it looks fake,
its not as violent or distrubinrg
1.3.1. Viewer’s rating of the seriousness of violent acts
were higher as the fictional settings were closer to
everyday reality in terms of time and location
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