The Impact of the Media on Violence
Who is really to blame?
In the United States, as well as throughout the majority of the world, people are bombarded with information on a daily basis. The majority of the information that it seen or heard is a direct result of someone aiming the information at the masses. Whether it is a company that would like us to buy it's product, or a newspaper that would have us believe a certain "fact" that they are reporting, someone has decided how the information will be presented. This notion brings me to the issue of how our society perpetuates violence against women through the use of the media and television shows. I would argue that, because we are socialized on a daily basis to believe certain ideas, this same process contributes to the violence aimed toward women. This encompasses the concept that impressionable young men may remain unaware of the impact of this violence by the omission of certain facts from news articles. It is also important to see how the media contributes to the way in which the abused women see their role in the "creation" of this violence. Furthermore, I would reason that these media outlets create a certain type of apathy in our society that has caused many people to either blame the victim, or just turn their heads and consider domestic violence a "family" problem, thus ignoring the legal ramifications altogether. This area must be understood in order to determine how the distortion of the ideas that are being expressed, through the use of television and magazines, are directly related to the societal values being represented.
The first issue that I would like to analyze is how we as a society encourage violence against women. Images flow into our homes everyday that promote violence. In many ways, this violence is very general and not aimed at a particular group of people. Yet,
often it is aimed toward a particular group of people, mainly women. It is primarily how these images are presented that leads me to believe that they are contributing to a larger problem
One example of this problem is the recent broadcasting of crimes within schools. In her article, Collective Silence for Collective Violence in Feminista.com, Dorothy Lemmey questions the gender neutral terminology that is used when news agencies report these incidences. "In Kentucky, a 14 year old drew a gun and killed 3 'students'...all the dead are female, killed by boys." She examines the idea that we are much more apt to blame the "obvious" problems such as " 'the breakdown of family values', gun control, pervasive violence, adolescent hormones....and even a lack of
bonding at infancy." However, when this story was reported there was no mention of the sex of any of the victims or how the victims knew their killers. She goes on to point out that it is more likely that violence toward women will not change while we are still in a mind frame of denial. This article made a very good point. How can we possibly address a problem when, for whatever reason, the media refuses to give all of the facts. It is, in essence, hiding the true motives of a particularly heinous crime, and not calling it what it is....Violence against women.
It would also appear that the media plays a significant role in how women view the violence that is aimed toward them. Many magazines and news programs would have a woman believe that she is solely responsible for the treatment that she is receiving at the hands of her domestic partner. One article in Good Housekeeping Magazine states that “Women often stay in an abusive situation because they feel helpless, cut off from family and friends, financially dependent , or told that they are worthless or partly to blame for the abuse. A woman may also stay out of real fear that the batterer will make good on his threats and kill her or the children, if she leaves.” This article expresses the true feelings of the women who are in abusive relationship, but only on the surface. By making such a general statement we are in essence telling the people of the world that abused women are hopeless. This is certainly not true by any means. Most of these women are willing participants in leaving the abusive situation, provided there are agencies in their cities to help them. There are several ways in which women can receive help. In the city of Tucson, Arizona, there are shelters available to provide temporary safe housing. Although these shelters are limited to a certain number of women and children, it is still a way to empower the women to leave an abusive relationship. Programs are also in place that allow women to seek housing and jobs that would allow them to break out of the cycle of dependency that is so often the reason that they stay in an abusive relationship. Yet, often the women lack the self worth that is necessary to break away from an abusive situation. It is unfortunate that the media tends to dwell on the negative areas of abuse without presenting a more hopeful side to the story. It is plausible to think that, if a more hopeful picture of women leaving abusive relationships were presented, the amount of women leaving these situations would increase.
The second issue relates directly to the aforementioned problem and looks at the creation of the apathy of our society through the use of laws and the media. The very formation of the legal system in our society creates a certain respect for the privacy of familial home life. The Constitution of the United States under the Fourth Amendment states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” This being the very foundation of the society in which we live leaves no reason to doubt the feelings associated with the idea that every man's home is his castle. Nancy Berns states in her article My problem and how I solved it: Domestic Violence in Women's Magazines, “For tens of millions of women today, home is a locus of terror. It is not the assault of strangers that women need fear most, but everyday brutality at the hands of their husbands and lovers.”
Unfortunately, the reality of domestic violence becomes even more clouded when we see the so-called “reality crime” programs that often portray a wholly different story. These programs, such as “Cops” depict police officers in “real life situations”. Although it is apparent that these episodes are anything but real. The shows that include the dramatizing of domestic violence scenes, often show the police officers being very frustrated with relation to punishing someone for something that is considered socially as a “family” problem. In the book, Entertaining Crime, Dianne Cyr Carmody examines this issue in more depth. “On several occasions, police officers, as they were narrating and/or explaining the situation to the camera, emphasized that ‘domestics’ tend to involve repeat offenders. Many stated that they were frustrated with the apparent lack of impact on offenders, and their perceived inability to deter future assaults. Clearly, this depiction of domestic violence calls support the masochism thesis, as well as the image of the uncooperative victim.” The masochism theory that she discusses in this example, puts forth the idea that women who are victims of domestic violence receive some type of gratification from their abuse.
It is clear that these shows contribute to the idea that women in these situations are to some extent responsible for the situation that they are in and are therefore blameworthy. It is difficult to reach out to women who are being blamed for their own abuse. These women, who may already lack self worth, are now told that they have somehow asked for this type of behavior from the man who is supposed to love them. This being the case, it is imperative to continue to educate the people in law enforcement to the sensitive nature of the victim of domestic violence. It would be helpful as well, if these shows depicted these scenes in a more realistic light.
What we see on television and in magazines is often what others would have us believe about the lives of other people. It is our responsibility as an advanced culture to read between the lines and to not take the stories that we either see, read or listen to as the absolute truth. The media will continue to offer us a glimpse of “reality” through the lens of a camera, or the mind of the author that has written a story. Yet, we must constantly analyze the information that is feed to us and temper it with the knowledge that we have received from our own lives. Only then can we decided whether these portrayals are in fact the truth, or just more rhetoric being feed to us from the patriarchal view point of modern media outlets.
Created for Women's Studies 200 by Michelle Brandt Works Cited
Berns, Nancy. "My Problem and -How I Solved it: Domestic Violence in Women's Magazines". Sociology
Quarterly. 40 (Winter 1999) : 85-109Carmody, Dianne Cyr. Entertaining Violence. New York 1998. "Mixed Messages: Images of Domestic Violence
on "Reality " Television. Ed. Mark Fishman and Gray Cavander. Aldine De GruyterLemmey, Dorothy. "Collective Silence for Collective Violence". <1999 http//www.Feminista.com/
v1n12/lemmey.html : 1-6>Roland, John. "Additional Amendments to the Constitution". <http://www.constitution.org/cons/afterten.htm>
