"Viewer discretion is advised": a structural approach to the issue of television violence.

• Author: Kim, Stephen J.

Violence on T.V. is a problem, clearly, and a major contributor to the aura

of dread and menace that permeates our culture. It's also the kind of

problem Congress has every right to make a stink about and no business

trying to remedy through legislation.(1)

INTRODUCTION

The issue of television violence presents a most unsettling dilemma--a conflict between the desire to protect the public from potentially harmful mass-communicated influences and the desire to preserve the electronic media's First Amendment rights. For forty years, television activists, legislators, social scientists, and members of the television industry have debated all sides of this issue.(2) At one extreme, the television industry's most vehement detractors argue that the effects of televised violence on society, especially on children, demand state intervention in the form of program content censorship.(3) At the other extreme, industry advocates hoist the sacred banner of First Amendment rights while denying any correlation between violent programming and negative social effects.(4) Between these poles, concerned observers who believe television violence has at least some negative impact on viewers, and yet would rather not risk the chilling effect of government content regulation, are left searching for more acceptable alternatives.(5)

This Comment addresses the issue of television violence from a structural perspective which recognizes program content as the product of a complex web of market, organizational, legal, and occupational constraints that restrict creativity and innovation in the industry. Viewed from this perspective, the problem of television violence emerges as a symptom of a larger dilemma: the industry's reliance on the convention of violence is an example of how networks, advertisers, and producers have fallen into a cycle of dependence on formulae and routines to deal with uncertainty in the television market. Solutions to this problem require the removal of structural constraints rather than the imposition of additional content-based restrictions which, unfortunately, have recently gained public momentum.

Though the debate over television violence has raged almost since the first set flickered to life,(6) 1993 witnessed a remarkable shift in the balance of power in favor of would-be regulators.(7) Perhaps because of increased public concern with the rising levels of violence in American society,(8) legislators who were previously willing to rely on industry-initiated measures to deal with the violence problem were now poised to control the nation's video diet with government regulation.(9) In 1993, legislators introduced seven different proposals designed to attack the problem of television violence.(10) If ever there was a time for alternatives that address both the public interest and constitutional concerns, it is now.

This Comment argues that the current legislative approach of content-based labeling regulation fails to address the structural roots of television violence. Above all else, television is a business, and any attempt to influence television content must treat it as such. Effective regulation of television violence cannot focus on isolated post hoc measures punishing the transmission of violent material, but must instead influence the structural incentives motivating television producers to rely on formula violence. Instead of targeting violence as a specific category of objectionable material, policymakers should develop broad-based strategies: to promote diversity in television content by increasing the incentives to produce innovative nonviolent programming.(11) This strategy skirts the dangers of content-based regulation and avoids the especially sticky problem of defining violence.(12)

In pursuing this strategy, policymakers should target not only broadcast television, but all forms of video media, including cable and satellite television, as well as emerging technologies (such as interactive video).(13) The promise of new communications technologies provides an excellent opportunity for policymakers to reexamine the nation's basic information goals and the best means to attain them.(14)

Similarly, a comprehensive structural strategy for encouraging nonviolent program diversity should encompass all types of programming, not just fictional programming, which is the usual target of attacks on television violence. The contribution of tabloid news shows, reality crime programs, the evening news, and even televised sporting events(15) to the violent face of television should be considered as well.(16)

Part I will briefly summarize the scope of the violence debate by outlining the various positions advocates have taken on the issue. There are many conflicting theories on why violent television is bad and each perspective produces its own notion of how violence should be reduced. This Comment will try to find the common ground between these perspectives and suggest strategies that accommodate as many different approaches as possible.(17)

Part II will provide an overview of the remarkable rise of television violence as a publicly debated issue in 1993. This Part of the Comment will pay special attention to the legislative assault on violent content.

Part III will present legal and policy arguments against the content-based labeling approach currently embraced by legislators working to reduce violence. This Part will argue that the labeling measures proposed in Congress during 1993 will (1) face serious First Amendment challenges in the courts; and (2) fail to address the root structural causes of television violence.

The basis for the second argument in Part III is set forth in detail in Part IV, which presents a view of television violence from a structural approach, examining the technological, legal, organizational, market, and occupational influences in the television industry that collectively shape the violent nature of the medium. Any attempt to reduce television violence must recognize and confront these structural influences that encourage the production of violent materials.

Finally, Part V will build upon the analysis and framework of Parts III and IV to recommend areas where policymakers should aim to break the cycle of the television industry's reliance on violence and other program conventions.

1. OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUE OF TELEVISION VIOLENCE

   1. The Frequency of Violence and Its Effects

      The popular impression that violence is widespread in the television landscape is supported by empirical evidence investigating the subject. According to data collected through the annual Violence Index project at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, although the total number of violent incidents on television has declined slightly in recent years, violence continues to pervade prime-time broadcast network television.(18) During an average week of the 1992-1993 season, slightly more than half (fifty-two percent) of all major characters appearing in prime-time network shows were involved in acts of violence.(19) Sixty-five percent of all prime-time fictional dramatic programs included violent material.(20) Saturday morning children's animated shows continued to out pace other programming with ninety percent of such cartoons and eighty percent of cartoon characters involved in violence.(21) The 1993 Violence Index also studied cable-originated programming, finding cable children's programming "substantially less" violent than broadcast fare.(22) General cable-originated programming, however, rated more violent than comparable broadcast programming.(23)

      Another study, released in late 1993 by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, counted an average of ten violent acts per hour during a one-week period of prime-time network television(24) and seventy-six incidents of violence per hour during a single Saturday morning of children's cartoons.(25) A comparison between a dozen cable channels and the broadcast networks revealed that the network broadcasts averaged more violent acts per hour (11.3) than their cable counterparts (8.4).(26)

      However, while the numbers suggest a common ground for critics of violence, the empirical evidence alone fails to reflect the diversity of opinion regarding the effect of so much violent material on viewers. The degree and nature of people's concerns over the amount of television violence vary widely. Generally, opponents of television violence fall into the following categories, which, although neither comprehensive nor exclusive, are intended to illustrate the diversity of theories motivating the criticism of television violence:(27)

      (1) Direct Correlation. At one extreme, many believe that exposure to television violence can lead to violent acts in real life. A recent report of the American Psychological Association's Commission on Violence and Youth reviewed the scientific literature on the subject of television violence and concluded that "there is absolutely no doubt that higher levels of viewing violence on television are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior."(28) Some advocates of a variation of this view rely less on scientific studies and more on anecdotal evidence that video violence can inspire impressionable viewers to imitate acts of violence.(29)

      (2) Cultivation. Proponents of this perspective argue that television's influence on viewers is more pervasive than possible links to discrete individual acts of violence. Instead, they argue that television's effects operate on a much larger scale, shaping people's social constructions of reality.(30) In modern society:

      [T]elevision is the central cultural arm of American society. It is

      an agency of the established order and as such serves primarily to

      extend and maintain rather than to alter, threaten, or weaken

      conventional conceptions, beliefs, and behaviors. Its chief cultural

      function is to spread and stabilize social...