Professor Michael Morgan Interview Highlights on Media Violence

bjbj Announcer: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show. David: OK, so a couple of days ago we got the chance to sit down with Professor Michael Morgan from UMass. The full interview is on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/midweekpolitics. Let's take a look at the first half of the interview now. [CLIP] David: UMass professor Michael Morgan is in-studio with us today. He may be responsible, Louis, for this show even existing, and it's... Michael Morgan: It's my fault? David: We can say in a way, because I heard about the original radio station where the show started doing an intership that you sponsored me for. So we're here to talk about "Mean World Syndrome", a documentary by Media Education Foundation. And the film is available at mediaed.org for institutions, you can also contact MEF through the website for personal copies, to set up a screening in your community. There's been a lot of debate over the years about whether watching violent movies or playing violent video games, something Louis knows a lot about... Louis: Oh, yeah. David: Actually makes people more violent. And at face value, I used to kind of think that was logical, but more research says that's not really the result. Is that right? Morgan: Well, yes and no. That has been the question that has dominated the field since the 1950s and before. Actually, it started in the 20s with movies, and then with comic books, and then with television from the 50s onward. And it's the wrong question. It's the simple question, it's the obvious question. And the way the whole thing works is if the networks can get people to focus on that question, then they're going to continually find that no, for the most part it doesn't. Maybe some people once in a while, but that's not the most common effect of all this. But the public is obsessed with it, Congress is obsessed with it, the whole world is obsessed with it. And then George Gerbner came along in the 60s and started thinking about things a little differently, and he said he noticed from the content analyses that he was doing of television violence that there are a lot more people on television that are victims of violence than perpetrate it. A lot more people suffer violence than initiate it. And he started to think, well, gee, if everybody's so concerned about people imitating what they see, maybe they're more likely to identify with the victims. And think about it, I mean, there are five or six acts of violence on television every single hour. David: And what does that mean? On one channel or in one show, or... Morgan: In network television, on the average, per hour. David: So ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox. Yeah. Morgan: Fox, and other major, similar cable channels. David: Right. Morgan: You've got five or six acts of violence per hour, you've got 70% of all characters each week involved in violence. If imitation was going to be the most likely consequence, we wouldn't need to do research, we'd all be dead. Everybody doesn't respond to what they see by going and shooting and killing their neighbors. David: Right. Morgan: But what Gerbner reasoned, and what the data then showed, was that people who spend more time watching television are not going to be more violent, they're going to be more afraid, they're going to be more mistrustful, they're going to be more apprehensive of other people. They're more concerned about violence being done to them. So it turns the whole debate on its head. It's a much more pervasive effect. David: So then the argument could be made, well, so people will just be more cautious, right, when they're out and about, because they've seen these things that happen on TV, they'll just look around a little bit more. Is it that bad? Morgan: Well, it's an exaggeration. It's an overstimulation of fear. It's beyond being a little more cautious, it's being very mistrustful, it's buying a lot more guns, it's locking your doors beyond the level that's needed, and it leads to a sense of insecurity and apprehension that justifies the suspension of civil liberties if it's going to give people security. David: Overall, we may be more accepting of the way that we have to be searched or what's legal in terms of surveillance or whatever... Morgan: Exactly. David: Because we believe the world to be a more dangerous place in part because of what we're seeing on TV. Morgan: It contributes to that sense of a mean and dangerous world. David: What are other factors? Because I'm sure some of our audience will say, well, fine, I watched a couple movies and they make me think that crazy rapes are committed more regularly than they are, but that's not really why I think it's OK for us to be... have the nude body scanners or whatever at the airports. Morgan: Well, the media do not act in isolation of the rest of the culture. Media takes certain cultural tendencies, certain values, certain positions, and they amplify them, they share them, they strengthen them, they cultivate them. David: Well, why is the decision being made by these networks, for example, which we're looking at to put six instances of violence an hour? Is it because they believe that is what people are entertained by? Is it because it's profitable? Morgan: No, in fact... It's highly profitable, especially on the international market. Most of the money from television programs comes from syndication, and a lot of that is international. If you have comedy, that doesn't travel well to other countries. Jokes are culture-specific. But violence is very cheap, it's very formulaic, and it's understood across the world very, very easily, so because it's easy, then, to syndicate and sell to other countries, that's why there's so much of it. David: So for the individual successes of shows like "The Simpsons" or "Seinfeld" overseas, we can probably find, what, five or 10 series, the different "Law and Orders", so on and so forth, which translate in a much more straightforward way to other audiences? Morgan: Right. It's much cheaper to export violence. David: We thought some of the increased gun sales were because Barack Obama's going to take away your guns, and if a Democratic president is elected, all of the rules will change, assault weapons, let's get them now. Morgan: Well, these are not... it's not either or. They're not exclusive. They can both be happening. David: So we may have another factor here, which is that people are more likely to believe they need to have guns separate from whatever political forces might or might not let them have them, is that what you're saying? Morgan: Yeah. It all feeds into all kinds of other aspects of representation, because they're not just afraid in the abstract, they're afraid of specific types of people that are shown as violent over and over. There is no group on television that is more violent than Latinos, and the Hispanic Americans are shown as consistently violent, and that's why you have all this discourse about the drug dealers, about the illegal immigrants. This ranting non-stop mantra about illegal immigration, illegal immigration, it's also fear of specific types of people. David: Is the effect of these video games and movies more significant on children than it is on adults? Morgan: We haven't found that. We've found that it's pretty stable across the board. We don't study young children, other research does that, because they don't quite have the skills needed to participate in our research, but from our... we've studied young adolescents and over and haven't found any particular differences. David: We're speaking with University of Massachusetts professor Michael Morgan, the documentary is called "Mean World Syndrome", and you can find out more at HYPERLINK "http://www.mediaed.org" www.mediaed.org . You know, I was thinking, during high school and elementary school, Louis was very, very into the violent video games and the gory movies. And I mean, at one point, if you asked Louis... Louis: I still am. David: But at one point, Louis was really seen by many of our classmates as kind of a dark guy. He might list "death" as a hobby, for example. So Louis, in a sense here, has never really tended to be a violent guy, and something has kind of changed over the last few years with Louis where I don't know if maybe he's gotten more into politics and his progressive side is making him have a little more empathy. Morgan: There's plenty of people that will commit violence that will never watch violence through media. David: Sure. Morgan: Plenty of people like Louis that will watch the worst stuff, and he looks like a pretty gentle guy most of the time. David: He's relatively well-adjusted, yeah. Morgan: But it's not that kind of "monkey see, monkey do", it's not that kind of direct stimulus-response relationship we're talking about. [END CLIP] David: All right. So the entire interview, of course, is on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/midweekpolitics. hXOT hXOT Announcer: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show Guerreiro Chavier Marisel Normal Guerreiro Chavier Marisel Microsoft Office Word Windows uE Announcer: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show tulo _PID_HLINKS Documento Microsoft Office Word MSWordDoc Word.Document.8