Essay Plan

My critical investigation will be to explore how and why institutions use media violence? And whether this actually causes real life violence? Within Broadcast and Emedia platform. I’m linking it with Romeo and Juliet; the fervent attraction that brings conflict on the relationship. I will produce a brief discussion on the power of media, before I look into effects of violence. 'Since the media are more or less omnipresent in all of our lives, this means we are all influenced to some extent by what we view, listen to, browse, play and read. This direct-effects approach requires a stimulus and a response- an external stimulus exerts itself on an object an causes an internal response, like fire on wood or a tap on the kneecap.’ Dan Laughey
The textual examples of which I will be using are ‘Rambo’ and Eminem and Rihanna ‘love the way you lie’ music video, also Call Of Duty – Black Ops video game.
(Audience, Institution. Genre)

Agree with media violence being an influence:
‘The media have effects which in turn have the power to influence the thoughts of individual audience members to such an extent that they might ‘act out’ the ideas and activities the media have exposed them to.’ Lisa Taylor and Andrew Willis.

>Audience theory.
The use of violence can relate to the effects theory. It can be argued that the violence being depicted is causing a moral panic amongst the public. Constant exposure to violence in the media may lead people to believe that violence is everywhere and that they should be afraid. ‘More and Trojanwicz (1988) argue that reasonable fears concerning crime can be harnessed to fight the threat of crime, but when these fears become unreasonable they amount to a counterproductive response and become a social problem’ Paul William and Julie Dickinson. I will link this with Rambo and the way it depicts men, almost forming a dominant ideology and values of male behaviour. Media violence may teach young people that violence is a normal way of solving problems otherwise you could be the odd one out 'It is almost always easier to sing along with the crowd' Richard Hoggart. I will then briefly explore how media is to blame 'crime in the media has been a focus of concern because of the assumption that the salience given to certain types of crime, notably those involving sex or violence, creates a distorted picture of reality.' Paul Williams and Julie Dickinson

'The very act of studying a videogame is a postmodern one.' Lisa Fortescue-Poole

'The concensus among the psychologist, media theorists, sociologist and educators presented is that there is a direct, casual link between the excessive viewing of violence, or the playing of video games, to becoming stimulated to acting violently or to becoming desensitised to violence.'
Martin Barker

'And whenever the phrase 'media violence ' is used it conjures up one image above all else: an image of motiveless mayhem.' Martin Baker
(Audience, Ideologies and values, Representation)

Against media violence being an influence:
Hall argues that there are three decodings or possible positions that readers might produce: dominant, negotiated and oppositional’ uses and gratification theory.

>Media violence as entertainment
Violence has always played a role in entertainment from history. Talk about the extreme violence in the film ‘Rambo’.

'Brown 'violent action films', we are told, are designed 'to excite and stimulate the viewer rather than concentrate on the story being told.' The examples given are Rambo (1987) The film, in fact, have a clear story and contain some scenes of violence, scenes in which the audience is clearly called upon to support one or more of the characters who are trying to stop another character from committing cruel acts of violence.'

Other research indicates that media violence has not just increased in quantity; it has also become much more graphic, much more sexual, and much more sadistic. In 2001, only a quarter of the most violent television shows, and two-fifths of the most violent movies, were rated R. The majority were rated PG or PG-13.(Source: Center for Media and Public Affairs, 2001)
(Narraive and Historical)

Music and music videos
Eminem and Rihanna Love The Way You Lie:
While this is a narrative broadly about "domestic violence," it looks less like a classic domestic violence narrative in which there is one clear abuser and one clear victim of abuse, and more like an abuser's fantasy that reimagines the relationship as a mutually abusive relationship with passion that burns so hot there's a thin line between love/hate "Can't live with you; can't live without you." Which is not to say those relationships don't exist in the world, but I'm not sure they're as common as our media suggests they are. Marjorie Gilberg, executive director of Break the Cycle, which works to end teen violence. "The danger is that pop culture defines our social norms," Gilberg says.

'lyrics encourage, reinforce and legitimise' Page 2 of 7 - violence, homophobic violence etc’
(Audience, Ideologies and Values, Representation, Narrative)

Video games
'less able to empathise with the suffering of others, and therefore more likely to act violently towards them'- players take the 'role of a an agressor' in video games page 2 of 7

Is media violence responsible?
Parental/adult responsibility for managing media in the lives of children is fundamental.

Research indicates that the effects of viewing media violence can be mitigated in all age groups by learning and applying critical viewing and media literacy skills. Media literacy curricula provide a variety of teaching tools to deconstruct the techniques used to stage violent scenes and decode the various depictions of violence in different media genres — news, cartoons, drama, sports and music.