FCC Regulation of Violent TV: A 360 Degree Dialogue

When Steven Spielberg “raged against the machine” last fall about kids’ exposure to TV violence, I pinned the article on my bulletin board to remind myself that creating a media consortium like Shaping Youth that calls for our own industry producers to “get a conscience and a clue” is not entirely insane!

After all, if the director of Saving Private Ryan can “put his parent hat on” to absorb the ever-edgier shock and violence proliferating on shows like CSI, The Shield, The Sopranos and 24, asking TV media folks to be circumspect and responsible about the impact on kids’ exposure to blood, gore, torture, and slasher scenarios, I’m thinking, “yay!…I’m not so far off the mark.”

Now, the Washington Post reports on the 22-page FCC study urging Congress to take regulatory action on both TV and cable to limit “excessively violent content” much like it limits “indecency,” curbing airtime between 6am-10pm. (here’s a 3-minute npr podcast discussing the key conundrums)

Applauded by nonpartisan Media/Family groups like Children Now, and Common Sense Media, (and cautiously, by Shaping Youth) scientific and public health evidence continues to link viewing violence on TV with aggression and anxiety outcomes in children. Sheesh…Entire books have been written about it, and even the Surgeon General is onboard this media train, BUT:

Personally, I feel we need to tread VERY carefully here…FCC implementation beyond theory is dicey, and regulatory action is often quite lame. There are daunting dilemmas on all sides of this debate…not to mention the fiery blog commentary from adults (and kids themselves!) weighing in on this issue.

Studies, treatises, and APA articles up the gump-stump validate the harm to kids seeing copious quantities of violence, but strong accusations of “nanny state” thinking, pragmatic loopholes, conflicting media violence research and industry reaction from legal beagles that claim regulatory action will never fly have considerable validity as well.

Parents like myself are anti-censorship, but vehemently ticked that violence is seeping into kids’ psyches with reckless abandon.

Seems no matter what we do, it’s like we’re plugging the dike in a bulging dam, with ineffective band-aid solutions to the vapid values hurled at kids 24/7…

So what’s a rational centrist to do?

Analyze all aspects of course, and man, is it ever messy…

The V-chip bombed.

Ratings are a subjectively nonsensical Tower of Babel.

The broadcast industry is already jockeying for the regulatory action to tank on legal grounds.

And the thought of creating a new and improved “family hour” is a big guffaw…Especially since crass humiliation, sexual objectification, shoot ‘em ups and blood and gore are received in daily doses of ambient advertising and media that reaches FAR BEYOND TV.

Sadly, the whole ‘family hour’ concept goes in the antiquated pleasantry bin…I’m not sure the FCC idea of resurrecting civility in a newly cordoned off zone is effective, but maybe it’s worth a shot…

FCC Chair Kevin Martin echoed parent’s plea, “Something needs to be done.”

Ok. But WHAT?

Leaving it up to Congress to qualify and quantify parameters in an election year when politicians are salivating to line-up on the side of parent polls is unsettling.

Is Congress really the bellwether we want for discerning context for kids? (after all, let’s think about politicians’ interpretations: “it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is” hmn?)

If ‘indecency’ is the FCC benchmark, they’ve already done a lousy job with kids, as the FCC has been absolutely impotent upholding even their OWN standards. (TV, radio, various payola practices, hip-hop lyrics, SuperBowl events, name your foible)

C’mon, when’s the last time you flipped through prime time channels with confidence knowing your kid would NOT get a nightmarish movie trailer or T&A jigglefest? I’d say years, easily.

The Supreme Court will end up weighing in on the ‘indecency’ debate, and probably the violence one too, for the feds are often napping, even when bonked on the noggin with factual data from industry leaders and watchdogs.

The FCC might mumble an ‘oops,’ dole out a wrist slap or a fine…but the only thing you can really count on is they’ll cluck and strut about it in the press for awhile and settle back in for a snooze.

On the flip side, the nanny-state minions work overtime on painfully obvious draconian measures…When networks aired Saving Private Ryan on TV for example, there was pre-publicity build-up and disclaimers out the wazoo warning of the violent and disturbing content for children every few seconds. Sheesh, folks, we get it.

Sure, it was violent, but far from gratuitous and in fact, it was wrenching in its poignancy. Some experts claim violence like this is ‘good’ for kids to ‘get it’ that war is a far cry from a videogame.

So when is spill-n-splash blood-letting a plot point of realism, and when is it shock value, propaganda, or just plain drama?

Some noted pediatricians maintain that virtual world violence and videogame fantasy mayhem adds to the problem, other scholars negate real world harm, and imply it contributes to a solution, with a distinct correlation to the “venting of anger” via electronics.

This psychiatrist’s op-ed speaks of computers as a “release” mode for disturbed individuals, revisiting the Columbine tragedy with the eery thought that the minute kids are prohibited from ‘acting out’ in their fantasy world they could end up taking their pathologies into the real world, calling for more research asap.

Some note that violence in virtual worlds spilling into Second Life mirror the mayhem of First Life. Socioeconomic assaults. Political uprisings, even racial genocide in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft…

SL’s voluntary “kill and be killed” options offer elements of danger and realism sans consequences that some find to be healthy fantasy and others find to be disturbing desensitization…Then there are the conflicting violence studies saying games have no impact on kids’ real world aggression at all.

So you see this violence bit is not ‘just a TV’ thang.

We need to delve deep into media’s role in messaging overall…Is the FCC the one to do it?

Is Congress the watchdog to assess and pass regulatory judgment? If not who is?

Parents, obviously…Yet we’re robbed of ANY neutral media zone, since prime time is now crime time, and like I said before, violence is ‘in your face’ far beyond TV.

I still maintain media needs to USE its power to shift toward the positive, otherwise, we’re creating behavioral cues that seep out sideways into the cultural zeitgeist unintentionally.

For instance, what’s with the ‘Geneva convention bedamned’ approach creating normative standards of violent torture tactics in hit shows like 24?

See any correlation between Abu Ghraib prison behavior and 24’s Jack Bauer cast as a hero figure ‘above reproach?’ Hmn. (save your e-mail slams, I’m not saying 24 is responsible, that’s minutiae; I’m talking big picture media scope here)

In this npr podcast about TV violence/torture, Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan of Westpoint sets the record straight, arguing that violent torture on shows like 24 is not only misleading but grossly inaccurate.

The General basically said media is perpetuating hooey.

It’s illogical, and “not at all the way it actually works”…For starters, failed suicide bombers would EXPECT heavy interrogation and therefore NEVER give anything up in the name of martyrdom. Innocent people being tortured carry no credibility whatsoever, since they often create a story to keep themselves alive and find a way out…

Yet media perpetuates the violence, fallacies and myths in the name of ‘drama.’ Quelle surprise.

As a military brat with a counter-terrorist spook of a father and plenty of years exposed to POW returnees, I have to tell you, Finnegan’s plea to stop showing violence and torture as an effective tool in combating terrorism was profound.

The man’s got serious street cred as far as I’m concerned.

In the same podcast, a producer comments that violence is an “honest way to depict the world, grounded in reality because it feels more violent and feels more real.” Okay. Again, as a writer/producer, I get that.

But ‘feelings vs. facts’ means we need to take extra care to ensure we’re not depicting ‘documentary’ when it’s really fictitious drama…media and marketing pros need to be responsible for the messages being put out there.

I’m not sure I want the FCC determining an arbitrary assessment of what violence is or isn’t…In our ‘kid-centric’ society, so much hinges on buffering the babes from atrocities that seem to come at them 24/7…yet we’re failing miserably.

I’m a huge fan of parental responsibility, but media has to give us a fighting chance and quit flinging sex and violence in full blown surround sound in every possible crevice and corner of happenings in daily life.

Or maybe that’s just the coarse, harsh, cruel world now, eh?

I don’t think so.

I think we’re creating that world.

We, the media. We, the consumers. We, the people.

I’m counter-marketing my socks off to give kids media literacy and critical thinking skills that put the ‘media filters’ between their ears as their own internal ‘regulator,’ far beyond the FCC.

But that’s only a small portion of the equation to make media “m-powerment” work.

I echo Spielberg’s views on TV and media screens universally:

“We certainly need to be responsible and careful about what we put into that box, because what comes out the other end truly has changed the world and will continue to change the world, for better or worse.”

Colleagues…consider yourself warned.

As Gandhi reminds, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

You in? Ping me.