In our society, violence has become an aesthetic. Movies sell based on their gore factor, or their body count. The human body loses its sacredness as we are titillated by the carnage on-screen.

Those who have witnessed real violence tell a different story. The following essay asks us to recognize the desensitizing impact of media violence, and to envision an alternative way of art and life.

Media Violence Affects Inner-City Youth

Caleb Mooney-McCoy

Early Sunday morning, November 27th, I witnessed an 18 year old male bleed to death on the concrete.  He was shot just after a quarrel outside of a party in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  Even though this situation concerned me, and the ongoing violence in Dorchester is an issue, it wasn’t the actual crime that really worried me.  While the police stood amongst a large crowd of people waiting for the ambulance, I began to hear a few conversations break out. Nearby a girl sat on the concrete talking to the officers, for she also was shot but not severely wounded.  Other people joked about how the shooter must have been very skilled because he hit five people with five shots.  Some people complained about the traffic because the crime scene was on a main street.  Out of all of these conversations, nobody really seemed to be in disbelief, shock or even have much sympathy for the victims.  I wondered:  how have the youth gotten to this point to where we can watch a young man die and joke about it? 

Even I went to sleep that night and didn’t think about it the next morning, yet this was an unbelievable thing we had all witnessed - and even though I had seen someone shot before, I had never seen anyone shot to death before. Why did this not bother me? Then it occurred to me - the image of that young man that I had saw that morning looked just like images I always see in the movies.  In fact, with it being so dark outside, it didn’t even look as graphic or even as “real” as some of the images from movies like “Saw” or “Hostel”.  These familiar images of death and violence were all too familiar to me and the bystanders that night. 

I have never really given much thought on the media’s role in desensitizing inner city kids to violence and promoting violent behavior. I usually think of the media’s effect as limited to suburban kids, but this situation definitely opened my eyes.  It is bad enough that young people are killing each other in cities across America, but we are now at the point where a 14 year old girl can be shot and next to her people complain about the traffic.  This situation reminded me of people talking during a movie.  Through television, movies, and music the media infects the minds of the youth until they are numb to violence - which makes destructive acts that much easier to commit. 

Such disturbing acts are not hard to find when watching television.  Anyone who has been watching television for more then 10 years can detect the obvious increase in violence on TV.   Maggie Cutler (2004) points out that the Right-Wing Television Council determined that the per-hour rate in the United States of sexual and violent material and coarse language combined almost tripled from 1989 to 1999.    Ed Donnerstein (2005), the dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona, explains that today approximately 61 percent of television programs include violence.  The greater concern about these programs is the way that violence is presented.  Most graphic or violent material is glorified.  Nearly half of violent interactions involve perpetrators who have some attractive qualities worthy of emulation, particularly for young people.  Furthermore, 75 percent of all violent scenes featured no immediate punishment or condemnation for the violence.  Donnerstein goes on to say “…Prolonged viewing of media violence can lead to emotional desensitization toward real-world violence and the victims of violence, which can result in callous attitudes toward aggression directed at others and a decreased likelihood to take action on behalf of the victim.” (p. 2)  This “callous attitude” is exactly what I saw at the murder scene early that morning.  I guarantee that almost all of the bystanders that night had been watching excessive amounts of violence on television long before that incident.

Many inner city children begin watching violent programs before their teens, and this is when they can be most vulnerable to violent images.  According to Neala Schartzberg (1988) “Children may understand that what they see is made-up, but that does not stop them from believing it anyway.  It now appears that even programs that are obviously fantasy can be judged by children as at least partly real.”(p.9)  This means that even if the show being watched is extremely violent, and young people might know that the television program is made up, they believe that the violent act most definitely could happen in real life.  So later when the young person thinks or sees such violent actions, it is not immediately dismissed as unrealistic, and it might take just the right TV show, movie or song to surface those feelings. Music can have the same impact and violent content is just as easy to find.

There is no doubt that hip hop is the primary music for today’s inner city kids.  From music videos to the radio that is pretty much all you hear inner city kids listen to.  Some of the most popular rappers that have recently come out with an album are: Birdman and Lil’ Wayne, Lloyd Banks, and The Game, and Fat Joe.  All four of these albums gave me no trouble in finding violent lyrics.  I did not have time to listen to the whole album of each, but I did not stop listening until I had heard a mention of a gun, a knife, or any type of references to violence mentioned more then 10 times.  On Birdman and Lil’ Wayne’s album, on the song “Like father like son” Lil’ Wayne says “Brand new pistol with a trigger like a hairpin!” He is glorifying his pistol by saying “brand new”, as if it were a toy. Lloyd Banks references on the first line to one of his songs: “G-Unit don’t play we rap but we’re strapped, Buck got the shotgun and 50 got the mack, Spider got the sweeper and you’re bound to hear it clap, you won’t have another birthday cake after that!” These are all references to types of guns and he says them in a sing-song kind of voice to make it catchy.  Since I also listen to these artists, I was not at all surprised about the violent references.  These two quotations were not from songs that I had to search for; these were both from “radio friendly” singles.  My little sister listens to stations that play these songs, so I can imagine how many young inner city children constantly listen to these songs with violence and gun references.  What could more fully desensitize a teen to violence then constantly hearing talk about gunplay and killing for years in and out of childhood?  It is already bad enough that violent acts often happen at parties where this music is played.

Lil’ John is a popular Southern rapper and has been out for a number of years.  His style of hip hop is referred to as “krunk music”.  This music does not as much focus on lyrics, but more focuses on the energy of the beats and the chants that are usually said over them.  When a Lil’ John song comes on in a party or a club it is a custom to start pushing everyone around you in the venue (I am not kidding).  I hardly even have to explain how this can promote violence.  Picture a bunch of young people, usually intoxicated, pushing each other to the rhythm of a high energy song; fights are bound to start.  Some of Lil’ John’s songs actually tell the listeners to provoke fights.  There are chants that are repeated such as “We’ll knock a hater out”, “When we step up to their face, what they gon do? Sh*t!”, and “Look at the other side of the room and say “F*ck yall niggaz!”  These are instructions that the listener is supposed to carry out on whoever they see.  Saying any one of these phrases can easily offend someone else and quickly start a fight.  In one of Lil’ John’s music videos, it shows a person entering a club, and literally starting a fight with every person they come in contact with.  The camera is in a first-person view so it looks like the video watcher is starting all of the fights, I do not think you can suggest violence more then that.   I have witnessed fights that have started because of these violent, high-energy songs. 

There are a few opposing viewpoints to media violence influencing teen violence.  The most common is the fact that the research is inconclusive and the subject of the media influencing violence is too complex to study entirely.  This is very true.  It is almost impossible to tell exactly how television images or song lyrics affect someone.  In one article written by Maggie Cutler, she notes that several studies show that more violent boys tend to watch more TV, choose more violent content and get more enjoyment out of it.  But the studies can’t admittedly show why it happens.  Regardless of the extent to which the media affects young people, there is no doubt that it does. I do not think we should wait to find out why before we whole heartedly admit that there is a problem. 

Elizabeth Thoman (1999) explains in the same article that some people watched violent programs and listened to violent music and still were not prone to commit violent acts.  This reminded me when research on tobacco was first being done.  The tobacco company argued that some people were heavy smokers and went on to live without any tobacco related health problems; today everyone knows the dangers of smoking even if there are a few exceptions.  The majority of kids are being affected by violence in the media, and that is what needs to be focused on.

Another interesting argument defending the media is that as the violence in television rose, the juvenile crime rate dropped.  This was true up until the earlier part of the decade.  On July 12, 2006, USA Today posted an article stating that in 2005, juvenile crime rates rose for the first time in 5 years.  The most common of these crimes were violent, such as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.  Most of these crimes involved inner-city youths.  In Boston, the number of arrests involving a juvenile carrying a weapon went up 103%.   We are in a time now where television and music is more violent then ever and I do not think that is a coincidence.

We live in a world now where our inner cities are plagued with teen violence and the media does nothing but support this.  Through television, movies, and music inner city teens our getting the right amount of violence to desensitize them to real life violence that goes on around them.  As that young man lie there that Sunday morning, all I could here was the insensitive complaining and joking and I kept thinking: this is not how young people should act at the scene of a homicide.  As time goes on, the media will reveal more violence, music lyrics will become more aggressive, and who knows what will happen to the inner-city youth. 

Works Consulted

Hamberg, David A. M.D.(1992) Today's Children New York: Random House Inc.

"Introduction to Teen Violence: Opposing Viewpoints Digests.”(1999). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Retrieved November 27th, 2006 from http://find.galegroup.com

"Media Literacy Education Can Address the Problem of Media Violence"(1999) Opposing Viewpoints Recource Center. Retrieved November 25th, 2006 from http://find.galegroup.com

"Media Violence Promotes Violent Behavior"(2005) Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center Retrieved November 28th, 2006 from http://find.gale group.com

"Police Tie Jump in Crime to Juveniles"(2006) USA Today Retrieved November 28th, 2006 from: http://www.USAtoday.com

“Research on the Effects of Media Violence on Children is Inconclusive.” (2002). Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center Retrieved November 30th, 2006 from http://find.galegroup.com

"The Role of Media Violence in Violent Crime Has Been Exaggerated"(2004) Opposing Viewpoints Recource Center Retrieved November 25th, 2006 from http://find.galegroup.com

Tuchscherer, Pamela.(1988) The New High Threat to Children. Bend, Oregon: Pinnaroo Publishing