The Ideology of Media Blame

The Ideology of Media Blame

For generations the media has been unfairly seen as the catalyst of

violence and crime with in society. The Media, particularly television

and film have been blamed for many atrocities over the years; some of

these can be indirectly related to the media's involvement on people's

lives. But some cannot. As a Media and Psychology student I have

different views on the debate of media blame. As a psychologist I can

understand the connection with the media and violence, i.e. violence

is a behaviour, which in theory, is learnt and repeated on another.

Therefore this behaviour must derive from a source. Which it can be

argued, could be a media text. But as a media student I can

deconstruct a text and assign different theories to it. Such as the

encoding/decoding model. Stuart Hall and David Morley centred on the

idea that audiences vary in their response to media messages. This is

because they are influenced by their social position, gender, age,

ethnicity, and occupation and also life experience. Therefore an

individual will decode a media text in a different way to another.

Creating various interpretations of the same text (i.e. preferred

reading).

The American senate office has concluded that the media, in particular

television "…influences children perception of the values and

behaviour that are common and acceptable in society". A study carried

out by the U.S. Senate office and the F.C.C. (Federal Communication

Commission) on television and the effect it has on children noted, "…

Children exposed to violent programmes at a young age have a higher

tendency for violent and aggressive behaviour".

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...d to comprehend. But

in doing so we come one-step closer to understanding contemporary

sociological living.

Bibliography.

Film.

· 'Bowling For Columbine' directed by Michael Moore.

Books.

· 'Stupid white Men' author Michael Moore (2002

· 'The Lucifer Principle' author Howard Bloom (1995)

· 'The Freud Reader' edited by Peter Gay (1953)

· 'The Government and Politics of the United States' author Nigel

Bowles (1997

· 'Advanced Level Media' authors Angela Bell, Mark Joyce and Danny

Rivers (2000)

· 'Studying The Media' author Edward Arnold (1999)

· 'Mythologies' author Roland Barthes (1973)

· 'Pierre Bourdieu' author Richard Jenkins (1996)

· ' The Dictionary of Psychology' author Arthur S. Reber (1994)

· ' Psychology and Everyday life' author Karon Oliver (2001)