tv violence

THE CONTEXT OFTELEVISION VIOLENCEEllen A. WartellaEllen A. Wartella is Dean of the Col-lege of Communication and WalterCronkite Regents Chair in Communi-cation at University of Texas at Austin.Nick Lasorsa and Chuck Whitney; atUC-Santa Barbara: Ed Donnerstein JoelFederman, Dale Kunkel, Dan Linz’ JimPotter and Barbara Wilson; at W&on-sin-Madison: Joanne Cantor and atNorth Carolina: Jane Brown and FrankBiocca. In addition there are more thantwo dozen graduate students around thecountry with whom we have worked.This is truly a collaborative project andone which resides in a particular histori-cal context. Tonight I take as my themejust this notion of “context” for our un-derstanding of television violence.In these remarks the notion of “con-text” of violence has multiple meanings:I want to talk about the social and cul-tural context for the current round ofcriticism and inquiry into television vio-lence. Second, the National TelevisionViolence Study monitoring of televisionis premised on the notion that not alltelevision violence is the same-thatthe context of a violent act or portrayalis crucial to distinguishing amongportrayals-and so I will engage in adiscussion of how the context of violencevaries across the television landscape. Fi-nally, I will address the particular politicaland public policy context within whichthis project is situated and the upcomingpolicy decisions concerning potentialremedies for television violence.. Thatcontext matters and how it matters is theoverarching theme I want to talk about.Let me say at the outset that I con-sider myself to be a non-violent person.I am not particularly radical in that be-lief, but I prefer non-violence to vio-lence by the same token that I preferreasonableness to irrationality or peaceto war, or life to death. I concede thatthere are times at which violence may

be necessary but I do not find violencepreferable to non-violence. As a critic ofviolence on television, I am not abso-lutely opposed to showing violence inall instances. That is far too narrowingfor some televised depictions of viollence do have educational or socialvalue. The crux of my concerns is notso much with the fact of violence, al-ways, but with the quality of violenceas depicted on television today. How-ever, because I am also a firm believerin free speech and the First AmendmentI am apt to argue for more responsibilit;from industry, and for public and gov-ernment expression of concerninorderto hold the industry to account.Let me try to unfold an analysis of thestate of violence on television in Amer-ica, and its interplay with real violencein our world. In short, I want to set thestage on which television is projected. Iwill say this again and again: context isimportant. The context in which vio-lence takes place, or is viewed, mattersdearly.AS Americans, we live in a violentsociety. We have always lived in a vio-lent society. Indeed, America cele-brates the outcome of a democraticrevolution, which like all revolutionswas at least for a time inseparabldfrom a certain accepted violence. Tohave stood the ground at the bridge inConcord as a Minuteman and fired theshot heard round the world was to becast into history as a hero. That gemi-nal violence leading to the birth of ournation provides the benchmark againstwhich we may contrast other violencein American history and differentiatebetween degrees of violence and Ameri-can morality.“The debateabout mediaviolence hasfollowed thehistory of media. . .as well asthe history ofour field?

am delighted to be here this eve-ning and to be invited to make thesecond Carroll Arnold lecture. It isan honor to follow David Zarefskywho last year talked about the state ofpublic discourse. This year I want to ex-amine television violence.The debate about media violence hasfollowed the history of media in thiscentury as well as the history of ourfield. I wish to acknowledge my col-leagues on the National Television VIO-lence Study from whom I have learnedmuch and with whom I am privilegedto work: at Texas, Wayne Danielson,

I

From card c. Arnold ~~~~~~~~kk'd kt~~re, NOVCYII~P~ 23, 1996, pp. 1-11. 6 1996 by Allyn & Bacon. Reprint& by permissionAll violence is not the same. Anyviolent episode or era will reveal a com-plex set of causes, effects, means andends buried within it. My entire genera-tion, for example, was indelibly shapedby the violence of the 1960s. We wit-nessed JFK and RFK and MLK andMalcolm X all gunned down whileimages of violence in the streets ofNewark, Watts, Chicago, Detroit andelsewhere played into our view of theworld, never to recede from it. The Vi-etnam war was our living room war.“That germinalviolence leadingto the birth ofour nationprovides thebenchmarkagainst whichwe may contrastother violencein Americanhistory . . . .”In trying to sort out human behavior,the significance of surrounding, or con-textual, factors is unavoidable. Circum-stances surrounding acts of violencedeserve extra attention. Moral, legal, re-ligious and social issues, and sometimesmitigating facts, are bound within thespecific context in which human beingsact under life’s real terms. This is evi-dent across contemporary American ex-perience. Contextual concerns framedthe trial of Lt. Calley and his role in theMy Lai Massacre, the beating of Rod-ney King by officers of the LARD (andthe trial and riots which followed), orthe prosecution of a wife who kills herabusive husband. A framework, part re-ality and part ‘morality, surrounds eachpicture of violence extracted from thereal world. In any event, these framesare nearly always essential for the pic-tures themselves to be comprehensible.What startles us completely aboutsome violence is its entirely extraneousnature: the shooting spree of a CharlesWhitman atop the University of Texasbell tower, or the random mayhem in aScottish schoolroom. The utterly unrealnature of such extreme violence leavesus gasping and groping. It leaves us witha fear, for it is a violence that fits noframe, no intelligible explanation.In the past 15 or so years, a remark-ably cavalier, vicious, wanton and sense-less pattern of violence entered societyand the American psyche. Drive-byshootings and gangbanger crimes, fu-eled by a trade in handguns and crackcocaine, ushered in fears of an epidemicof violence we may not fully compre-hend. The violence panic of this time,unlike that of the 196Os, seems muchmore to surround children and youth, asboth the victims and the perpetrators ofviolence.When hip-hop artist Tupac Shakurwas shot to death in Las Vegas in Fall,1996, sadly enough, many peopleweren’t surprised. After all, he was asuccessful, pure product of a deadly cul-ture. Reverend Jesse Jackson made thiscomment: “Sometimes the lure of vio-lent culture is so magnetic that evenwhen one overcomes it with materialsuccess, it continues to call. He couldn’tbreak the cycle.” Shakur died as helived, walking the walk, talking the talk,of violence glamorized.become the most violent industrializedThat cycle of violence has helped usnation on the earth. A lot of numbersgird that conclusion. But the numbersthat tell the most tragic story concernchildren and adolescents:l

Among young people in the agegroup from 15-24 years old, homicideis the second leading cause of death andfor African American youth murder isnumber one.l Adolescents account for 24 percent ofall violent crimes leading to arrest. Therate has increased over time for those inthe 12-19 year old age group, while itis down in the 35 and older age group.l Every 5 minutes a child is arrested inAmerica for committing a violent crime;gun related violence takes the life of anAmerican child every three hours.2. Context of Television Violence9 A child growing up in WashingtonDC or Chicago is 15 times more likelyto be murdered than a child in NorthernIreland.“‘Sometimes thelure of violentculture is somagnetic thateven whenone overcomesit with materialsuccess, itcontinuesto call.’ ”What could account for this? Most ofus generally accept the notion that vio-lent behavior is a complex, multivariableproblem, formed of many influences.Racism, poverty, drug abuse, child abuse,alcoholism, illiteracy, gangs, guns, men-tal illness, a decline in family cohesion,a lack of deterrents, the failure of posi-tive role models. . .all interact to affectantisocial behavior. As Rowe11 Hues-mann has argued: aggression is a syn-drome, an enduring pattern of behaviorthat can persist through childhood intoadulthood.In simple terms, violence may be lessmysterious than some think. I only sug-gest this rhetorically, for of course, Ihave few doubts that violence is nothingif not insidious and intractable in manyways. But consider the context not ofone act of violence, but of the persistentfact of violence.Violence pays. Only violence pays.In those three words Fran& Fanon, psy-chiatrist, political theorist and revolu-tionary summarizes a lesson fromhistory all too familiar to oppressedclasses. The simple utterance, violencepays, is a lesson straight from life itself:we live in a world shaped by the exer-cise of power where violence itself is

151 +3 LIVING WITH MEDIAthe most extreme form of power. InFanon’s analysis, historical colonialisminforms the oppressed that the oppres-sor’s violence is, if not justifiable, thenat least lucrative, as a means to gain andhold power. earth” dream of the riches to be gottenFanon’s “wretched of theby revolution, a counter force to the ex-perience of colonial oppression.66. . .

violencehas helpedmake Americanentertainmentproducts thesecond largestexport ofthis nation.”Violence pays. It certainly does-atthe box office, for Hollywood and New- _York movies and television. Moreover,violence has helped make American en-tertainment products the second largestexport of this nation. Violence is a sta-ple, in particular, of movies that attractadolescent males. PG-13 and R-ratedmovies serve to attract such boys likeforbidden fruit, with their conflation ofaction-adventure-guns-sex and exces-sive, explicit graphic violence wieldedby powerful heroes. This violence re-sides in a context different from portray-als of violence as a last ditch effort toescape an impending harm.Violence in the media may not be themost important contributor to violencein the real world but it is surely one ofthe multiple, overlapping causes. Socialscientists first began studying mediaviolence in the 192Os, and evidence ofa causal relationship between mediaviolence and real violence has been ac-cumulating. for at least 40 years. TheCenters for Disease Control, the Nation-al Academy of Science, the AmericanPsychological Association, the AmericanMedical Association-all have exam-

ined violence in our society and tracedthese connections. Today, we find wideconsensus among the experts that, of allthe factors contributing to violence in oursociety, violence on television may be theeasiest to control, the most tractable.The National Television ViolenceStudy, with which I’m associated, is themost comprehensive scientific assess-ment yet conducted of the context oftelevised violence. As an indication ofthe scope of the study, in its first yearof monitoring television in the 1994-95season, we analyzed about 2500 hoursof television programming, includingmore than 2700 programs; we sampledchannels during the TV season. This istelevision programs across 23 cablethe largest, most representative sampleof television ever examined using scien-tific content analysis techniques.We began with two goals:tures associated with violent depictionsOne, to identify the contextual fea-on television.ronment in-depth in order to report onTWO, to analyze the television envi-the nature and extent of violent depic-tions. We focused, in particular, on therelative presence of the most problem-atic portrayals.‘Why contextualize TV violence?Because we understand that all violenceis complex. The problem isn’t round likean orb, it isn’t monolithic; an act of vio-lence is one tile in a mosaic.

many different forms and settings. InViolence on television is presented insome cases, heroes may be rewarded foracting violently as when the centralauthority-figure on a police show shootsa murderer, while in other cases, violentcharacters may go unpunished. Violencemay be depicted without much attentionto the pain and suffering (both immedi-ate and long-term) for victims and theirfamilies; a gunshot wound, for example,may be shown in close-up withoutelaborating on the agony, physical pain,or often debilitating effects of gunshotwounds when people survive them. Or,conversely they may show that violencecauses pain and suffering for the victim,the victim’s family, and the community.Anti-violence themes may be embeddedin the overall narrative of a program thatcontains violent acts as a part of themessage. Or, we may see multiple actsof violence depicted in such graphicways as to suggest that shooting to killis another of life’s mundane aspects, abanality, to be approached with indiffer-ence or even humor. In short, violenceon television is contextualized in somany different ways that we believedthe time had come for a thorough ex-amination of these contexts in which de-pictions of violence are presented.lence is defined in our study as any overtFirst, we had to define violence. Vio-depiction of the use of physical force-or credible threat of physical force-in-tended to physically harm an animatebeing or group. Violence also indudescertain depictions of physically harmfulconsequences suffered by an animatebeing or group as a result of unseen vio-lent force. It is important to note thatwith this definition we kept our focuson acute physical aggression directedagainst living beings. I believe this is aconservative definition of violence. I be-lieve we could have widened it to focuson psychological aggression or acts ofnature as some other studies have done.portrayals of television violence are de-The contextual factors we examine inrived from the previous effects researchliterature. These context variables in-clude pain/harm cues, the nature of re-wards and punishments, graphicness ofportrayals, the presence of guns andweapons, the attractiveness of the per-petrators and targets, the presence of hu-mor, and the degree to which violenceis fantasized or realistic. These charac-teristics of violent portrayals have allbeen found to differentially influencethe effects of such images on viewers,particularly children.When looking at the entire body ofexisting effects research, as we did, youfind three major effects of televised vio-lence 1) viewers learn the aggressive at-titudes and behaviors depicted in theprograms they see (known as the leam-ing effect); 2) prolonged viewing of me-dia violence can lead to emotionaldesensitization toward real violence andreal victims, which may result in callousattitudes and a decreased likelihood thatdesensitized individuals will take actionto help victims when real violence oc-curs (the desensitization effect); and 3)viewing violence may increase our fearof being victimized, leading toward self-protective behavior and an increasedmistrust of others (the fear effect).This past February we released ourreport of the 1994-95 television season.We found violence on TV does indeedvary by context.l

Violence is a predominant themeon television. However, some genres,police shows, tabloid news shows andmovies, for instance, are more violentthan others. Other reality-based showsand comedies are not so violent. Whilemore than half of all the programs westudied contained at least some violence,one-third contained more than nine vio-lent interactions and each violent inter-action individually violent acts.may itself consist of numerous44. . . we maysee multiple actsof violencedepicted in suchgraphic ways asto suggest thatshooting to killis another oflife’s mundaneaspects . . . ?l

In most cases the perpetrator en-gages in repeated violence. More thanhalf of the violence (58 percent), is com-mitted by characters who engage not inisolated acts of violence but in a patternof repeated aggression.l

Warnings about violence on TVare almost nonexistent. Among the pro-grams that contain violence in the 1994-95 season, only 15 percent are precededby any sort of advisory or content code.Most of these are placed on movies.Other genres, including children’s pro-grams with substantial amounts of prob-lematic violence, rarely include awarning label.l

Television violence often involvesthe use of a gun, In one quarter of vio-lent interactions a gun is used and pres-entation of visual cues such as the imageof a weapon tend to activate aggressivethought in viewers. These later serve tofacilitate aggression or act as cognitivefilters to influence the interpretation ofneutral events as possibly threatening oraggressive.l

On television, perpetrators go un-punished. In about three quarters of allviolent scenes, the perpetrators get awaywith what they’ve done. One of theclearest findings of this study is that theworld of television is not only violent-it also consistently sanctions its vio-lence. The message: violence pays. Avery high proportion of violent sceneslack any form of punishment for the per-petrators. This is troubling, and our con-cern is exacerbated by the finding thatthis pattern is consistent across all chan-nel types and all genres.l The consequences of violence areoften not realistically portrayed. Lessthan half of television’s violent interac-tions show the victims experiencing anysigns of pain. Only about one in six pro-grams depict any long-term negativeconsequences such as physical suffering(limping, the wearing of bandages, orother evidence of a prolonged effect), orfinancial or emotional harm.l Violence is often presented as hu-morous. More than a third of all violentscenes involve a humorous context,trivializing or undermining the serious-ness with which violence ought to beregarded.l

Violent programs rarely employ astrong anti-violence theme. With asmuch violence as there is on television,you might think that a reasonable por-tion of it would stress an anti-violencemessage. Only 4 percent of all violentprograms do so. This represents a hugemissed opportunity for television tocounter-balance the more common de-pictions that show violence as attractive,effective, and socially acceptable.1994-95 television season which we re-Those are our findings from theleased in February of this year. We arecurrently analyzing the 1995-96 seasonand will release new findings in winter1997.The February report-by coinci-dence-was released the day beforePresident Clinton signed into law the1996 Telecommunications Act. Indeedhe mentioned our findings at the billsigning to underscore the V-Chip clauseof the 1996 Act.That raises yet another set of contex-tual concerns. The entire monitoring

2. Context of Television Violenceproject we are conducting is situatedwithin a particular political and histori-cal context: monitors were urged on thebroadcast and cable television industriesin 1994 by Congress and the President.That was an extraordinary step in a se-ries of government policy initiatives re-garding television violence that began in1990 and will continue to unfold overthe next few months. Let me trace someof those steps:The 1990 Children’s Television Act(the first piece of federal legislation re-garding children’s television in our na-tion’s history) asked the major broadcastnetworks to find a way to voluntarilylimit the amount of violence on televi-sion, and to do so by 1993. Essentiallythe law put aside anti-trust rules to allowthe networks to deliberate.44. . .prolongedviewing ofmedia violencecan lead toemotionaldesensitizationtoward realviolence andreal victims . . . ?

By summer of 1993, it became clearthat ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox had notmet-even once to discuss the issue.Senator Paul Simon of Illinois then heldhearings in LA and in Washington laterthat fall during which he castigated theindustry for not voluntarily reducingviolence. Most remarkably, the hearingsgave voice to social science researcherswho had concluded that televisionviolence is a social problem, if not apublic health problem, and that the tele-vision industry has a responsibility to dosomething about it. The Clinton Ad-ministration supported our call for self-regulation by the industry.__ ..- -_---1 + LIVING WITH MEDIA

1cable television industry and the broad-During the summer of 1994, both thecast networks hired independent moni-tors to provide an annual assessment ofviolence on television for the Americanpeople. The National Cable TelevisionAssociation hired our group, the NTVS,and Jeff Cole of UCLA was hired bythe four major broadcast networks. BothCole’s report (which is released annu-ally in the fall) and our report (releasedlater in the winter) are thus the result ofgovernment pressure on the industry.However, public pressure did not letup after monitors were hired. Through-out 1994 and 1995, bipartisan criticismof media violence was picking up steam:President Clinton’s 1995 State of theUnion address deplored media violenceand then Senator Robert Dole criticizedmedia violence later that spring whenannouncing his candidacy for president.And the recurring public and govem-ment criticism of television violence,slasher films, rap music and violent vid-eos, turned up at least weekly, if notmore often, in the press and on CapitolHill. Clearly, the industry’s hiring of in-dependent monitors alone was notenough to quell public concern over me-dia violence, violence bashing has be-come a way for political liberals toinsert themselves into the family valuesargument that had been the province ofthe political and religious right.veloping the landmark Telecommunica-During that period, Congress was de-tions Act that would outline the natureof government regulation in the newlandscape of digital communications.By the time the Act passed and becamelaw, on February 7, 1996, it containedthe requirement that all television re-ceivers made after February 1998 mustcontain a V-chip or “violencechip’‘-ablocking device that parents can use tofilter out programs with objectionableviolence, language or sexuality. How-ever, in order to activate the blockingdevice, programs must be rated by somesystem that will help parents identifywhich programs contain objectionablefeatures.At the end of February, PresidentClinton held a summit with televisionindustry executives who agreed to de-velop this ratings system to be used inconjunction with the V-chip. Jack Va-lenti, head of the MPAA, along with Ed-die Fritts of the National Association ofBroadcasters and Decker Angstrom of the18National Cable Television Associationare heading the industry ratings group.This group should be reporting,

44. . . thehearings gavevoice to socialscienceresearchers whohad concludedthat televisionviolence is asocial problem,if not a publichealth problem,and that thetelevisionindustry has aresponsibility todo somethingabout it.”within the next month or so, their sug-gestion for a ratings system, a systemthat will then be reviewed by the FCCand most likely put into effect within thenext year, before the V-chip comes online.The V-chip and the ratings system itrequires, are coming under considerablescrutiny. No one is quite sure how thewhole system will work. What showswill and won’t be rated (the industry hassaid it will not rate news or sports)? Willthe ratings system be a prescriptive, agerelated system like the film industry’s G,PG, PG-13 and R ratings? Or will it bea more descriptive system that describesthe actual content on the air (e.g. no vio-lence, mild violence, graphic violence)?Public advocacy groups prefer the latter,but Mr. Valenti and the industry andtheir advertisers prefer the less-descrip-tive, letter-coded ratings. Who will ratethe shows? Each network, some industrywide group, or outside raters?Those are questions of implementa-tion, there are also many questionsabout the effects of this system. Will theV-chip actually be used by parents toblock objectionable programs for chil-dren? Or will it just sit there unused,like the flashing clocks no one sets onso many VCRs? Will the existence ofsuch a rating system affect advertisersupport for the production of more dar-ing, adult television programs that riskreceiving negative ratings? Or will theratings system have a boomerang effectand lead to even more graphic and ex-just because the individual broadcasterplicit violence on some television showsno longer has to exercise social respon-sibility? And will the presence of a V-chip and ratings system excuse theindustry from providing more advisoriesand anti-violent messages on violentprograms?I have no doubt that the next fewmonths and even years will see more notless public discussion of television vio-lence and how our society can andshould deal with it. It is within this con-text that the television monitoring pro-ject was initiated and will continue. Ascommunication researchers, we willhave great opportunity to provide evi-dence regarding the ways in which pro-gramming will be affected and how theV-chip and ratings system will be usedby families. Indeed, there is consider-able research to be done as a conse-quence of the enactment of publicpolicies regarding television violence.But, will this technological fix, theV-chip, put to rest the public’s concernabout television violence? Will it affect,at all, the nature of violence in Americanlife? These are important questionsabout which I can only speculate, butwhich are the real and important busi-ness of moments like this. So let mespeculate:First, I predict that the V-chip won’tsettle the debate, and may only margin-ally alter the television landscape. Why?Because the chip offers a technologicalfix-a limited fix-to a large and com-plicated human, moral, and social prob-lem. Hollywood movies didn’t becomeless violent after a ratings system wasinstalled. It’s clear that parents want amore helpful and descriptive warning la-be1 on violent television than a simpleage-based code.At the same time, parents and chil-dren will need more than a televisionblocking device and a code to navigatethe television landscape. I predict thateducators and parents will increase thedemand for more information and edu-cation about media, so that we’ll be ableto use the chip intelligently and knowwhat we’re filtering out or in. We havean appalling lack of media education inthis country; indeed the United States isthe only English-speaking nation in theworld without media education in itspublic schools. Media education is des-perately needed in order to developmore literate audiences. And a literateviewership, I suggest, is necessary forany technological fixes to be effective.Second, I believe that violence in themedia won’t abate until the industryproducing these portrayals A) under-stands the effects of media violence, B)admits that what it produces does contrib-ute to real violence, and C) demonstratesgreater responsibility by moderating theviolent nature of its programming. Oncea ratings system is in place, the televi-sion industry cannot walk away from thedebate. They will have to constantly ex-plain the sort of violence beingamine, question and be willing to ex-portrayed. If not all violence is thesame, as we’ve shown, and some por-trayals are more harmful than others,then producers, writers, directors andprogrammers have a responsibility, I be-lieve, to try to show violence in the leastharmful manner. But this will requirethe industry to move beyond the posi-tion that violence on TV does no realharm, that it does not contribute to realworld violence. We know it does.Third, I predict there will be increas-ing opportunities for communicationsresearchers to work with the industry, toshare our knowledge and help createless harmful programming. We can’t ex-punge violence altogether from dramaticand reality-based TV, since violence is,after all, a very true dimension of humanexistence. But we can suggest ways inwhich television can be socially respon-sible in portraying the realities of vio-lence. I predict-I hope-we will havemany chances to do that.In conclusion, let me return to thetheme of my remarks tonight and see ifI can’t extract at least a few hard-gainedkernels of optimism from this wholetroubling business. This lecture is but awindow in the context of ongoing work.The point of our research isn’t to con-demn; but to discover and learn, andideally to teach. Television has value.Television proves its value by the manygood programs produced every year.66. . .

the chipoffers atechnologicalfix-a limitedfix-to a largeand complicatedhuman, moral,and socialproblem.”Television shows need not be sani-tized or insipid, they need not be allsmiley-faced or falsely optimistic aboutthe worlds they depict. All we shouldhope for is that they be more honest,truthful, realistic, and sensitive to thevery impressionable young minds uponwhom television has such a great effect.Which is to say, I do hope they will be-come less sensational and stop glamor-izing violence, stop making it seem asif violence is an ordinary and acceptablehuman response to a difficult world.At the very least, we need televisionwhich elevates and celebrates a more re-fined sense of justice-justice based onreason instead of revenge, on laws in-stead of guns, on deliberation instead ofimpulse, and finally, which holds perpe-trators of violence accountable for theiractions. Let me add my voice to thosecalling upon the television industry to

2. Context of Television Violence

be accountable for its actions--to own-up to the role it has played in loweringthe threshold for real violence in our so-ciety.Let us imagine a television industryso responsible that its dramatic depic-tions of violence serve to repel viewersfrom ever committing Violence, -ratherthan seducing them into acting on dan-gerous fantasies, br leaving them withover-heightened anxieties and fears. Letus imagine television working harder toportray violence, suffering or inhuman-ity accurately in context, to put it inproper historical or social perspective.Some portrayals of violence can be sopowerful, so hideous, but so moving,that they stop us and make us thinkdeeply about ourselves as a people. Themovie “Schindler’s List” comes to mind.I would rather that movie actors spillstage blood than leave any new genera-.tion ignorant of the devastation of trueviolent epochs and run the risk of reliv-ing history.I return to Fanon’s lesson: .violencepays. We must devalue violence andteach our children that no, indeed, itdoes not pay. We must devalue it andteach them that violence is not a validcurrency for ordinary exchange; itdoesn’t get us where we need to go; itis a last resort, only a means of meresurvival, and even then, it has grave con-sequences.The power of television in modemlife is clear. To quote Edward R. Mur-row: “This instrument can teach. It canilluminate. Yes, and it can even inspire.But it can do so only to the extent thathumans are determined to use it to thoseends. Otherwise, it is merely wires andlights in a box.”I disagree -television also holds thepower to harm, to instill fear, and to ren-ugliness into the world.der us callous to suffering. It can bringtelevision industry and the future mem-We are at a moment in which thebers of that industry we educate can in-fluence the moral climate of televisionproduction. This is the context of to-day’s debate and context matters.What an honor this has been, I thankyou very much.