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My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.

--Jesus' farewell discourse to His disciples (John    17:15)

As the dominant mythmaker of our time, television has come a long way from what Newton Minow called the "vast wasteland" of the 1960's. Public broadcasting, especially in Canada, has created educational programs for children that have great appeal. For adults there are lessons in cooking, French, gardening, home repair, and even dog training. Nature programs expand our understanding of the earth and its wonders. Some of the world's most insightful thinkers come into our living rooms on a regular basis. Great music and plays are available almost every evening.

At the same time, commercial television is a disgrace. Especially in the U.S., both local and network news is simplistic and presented with a "happy face" geared more to entertainment than enlightenment. The torrent of commercial appeals never ends. Children's programs are often full-length commercials. Nighttime network programming manages each year to reach new lows in common-denominator fare. As the amount of violence increases, the quality and amount of news and issue analysis diminishes. And commercial cable brings language and actions into our homes that we would not condone for adults visiting in our homes, much less for our children.

Here we have the problem in a nutshell. The mass media could be a positive humanizing force in our lives, but it is not, because the culture to which we belong has the wrong values and worldview. The culture, through the mass media, is cultivating the wrong myths. The media promote luxuries, encourage waste, and praise the life of things, while the gap between the rich and poor increases both within and between nations. Technology -- "what works" -- has become our god, expressed in all the most powerful myths of the most powerful media, while the God of justice and love is relegated to the sidelines of life, expressed in antiquated language and obscure stories lacking both clarity and relevance.

However, the current state of the media and its myths does not have to be our future fate. Just because technology is possible does not mean that it is inevitable. Consider a recent speech by the chairman of Eastman Kodak to that corporation's shareholders, which unwittingly reveals that people, not technology, finally can have the upper hand:

About ten years ago, the continuous wave dye laser was invented during research at Kodak. ... But Kodak has never produced such a laser for market, and so far we have no plans to do so. That market has never had the earnings potential to justify the cost of developing it.

I think the point is clear. Just because Kodak knows how to make a product doesn't mean that we should make it.¹

Just because the media are dehumanizing in so many ways does not mean that they must continue that way. The media can be reformed. Its myths can be changed. People can learn how to protect themselves from media myths that are distortions and falsehoods. And nations can establish laws that protect their citizens from media monopoly and hence media domination.

While it is true that we are shaped by the technology we purport to control, the solution is not to withdraw from all technology. Rather, the solution is to work through the problem, to insist on shaping the technology which threatens to control us. We are back to the famous debate between Alice and Humpty Dumpty:

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

We must think of the media less as acting upon us, and more as being acted upon by us. It is the structure of the culture that acts upon the media and, in a sense tells it what to say. And that culture is our creation. True, we inherit a great deal of our culture. But we also can change it.

The task of Christians regarding the gospel, culture and media is to work toward changing culture so that it serves the needs of people in the light of the gospel's myths -- in particular, the need of people for love and justice. The mass media must cease being the willing slave of the capitalist spirit and instead become subservient to human needs.

In 1,400 A.D., more than a thousand years after Ptolemy developed the model that put the Earth squarely in the middle of the universe, astronomers were still bending and stretching that old "explanation" to fit their own observations which told them it just was not so. A painful struggle was required to change a culture's perspective to see that the Earth merely revolves around the sun. Today, more than three hundred years after John Locke spelled out his theory that the greatest good is served by each person following his or her own best interests, some economists and politicians are still trying to bend and stretch this outmoded "explanation" of life to fit social realities that say it just doesn't meet human needs today.

The legacy of John Locke's philosophy is the capitalist spirit and the dependency upon technology -- theories that place efficiency and profits above human fulfillment. That worldview solves problems with marvelous efficiency, but it also brutalizes the weak and robs the poor. The gospel we have been examining challenges that worldview. Instead, the gospel proposes a worldview in which men and women are the children of God, and where human growth and development is a far more important goal than the possession of any power or thing. The gospel insists that human beings are the greatest good, and that everyone's needs are best met when we live in community, caring for each other rather than looking out for Number One.

This worldview requires a completely different set of myths from the worldview of efficiency and self interest: myths that talk about community, connectedness, giving, sharing, helping, and nurturing -- rather than self, things, getting, keeping, forcing, using and conquering.

We have suggested some of the ways men and women of faith in the United States and Canada can work toward that alternate worldview. Fortunately, they have a mighty resource to aid them: the local church. The community of believers in each town, city and metropolis is the continuing presence of God in society, and as weak and faltering as that may be, it is a sign of hope in a world filled with power and greed. The church cannot avoid what happens in the world. Rather it must embrace the world -- including the media -- and attempt to reconcile it with God.

Creating a new worldview and a different set of myths is not easy. It means remaining open to new understandings of what the gospel is today. It demands that we tell our story to others, and to tell it in ways that are meaningful in a world filled with opposing stories of great power and appeal. It requires discovering and inventing new myths for our time. It insists that we respond to today's world in today's languages -- including the powerful visual language of the new media. But it also insists that we maintain a way of standing outside the current media system and its powerful mythology, simply because the media are so strong and entrenched that we are powerless if we allow ourselves to remain totally under their influence.

As we continue our search, it is good to remember that, according to the gospel, the medium is not the message. Life is.

REFERENCES

1. Frank Webster and Kevin Robins, Information Technology: A Luddite Analysis (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1986), p. 21.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

-- "A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England," 1644.

What can we do? How can we interpret the gospel today? How can we use the mass media responsibly? How can we deal with cultural values and worldviews that are so at odds with Christian values and the Christian worldview? What can we do about the news distortions, the media imperialism, the false TV religions, the video violence?

The answers fall roughly into three categories: using the media, reforming the media, and understanding the media. In the section on Christian response to the "false church of the air" we already have discussed some ways Christians can use the media for authentic mission and witness. Now let us look more closely at media reform and intentional media education.

Reforming the Media

Media reform is a task for Christians, but it certainly is not their task alone. The idea that communication in our lives must be open, diverse, and free-flowing if we expect to participate fully in the human race and all its potential that must capture the imagination of every person who wants TV to fulfill its possibilities for enjoyment and enlightenment, every mother and father who are concerned about the way her or his children will grow up, and every citizen who wants her or his nation to be a place of freedom and hope. Without reform in the present way the media are functioning, these things cannot be. Holding and communicating ideas is essential to our being free citizens. As Christians, with our commitment to helping set humans free from every kind of bondage, we join other citizens in this fundamental issue. And it is only by acting together, as Christians and non-Christians, that we can do anything significant about maintaining this freedom.

As we have described, various economic and political powers have conspired to control people's ideas by dominating the media that inform them. And, especially during the last fifty years or so, the media have become so massive and at the same time so susceptible to control by a few, that the danger of dominance has increased many fold. It is increasing even today. That danger can be summed up in one word: monopoly.

Media monopoly is most visible when the control is exercised by government. We can thank God that in our countries controls of this nature are limited to a few situations, such as the abuse of "Top Secret" designations by some government officials to protect their own power. But media monopoly is not nearly so visible when exercised through economic means, through power wielded by large corporations. It is this second kind of monopoly which those of us in the United States and Canada should fear the most, and against which we must protect ourselves -- through media reform.

During the last quarter of a century the large mass media corporations themselves have been taken over by even larger corporate powers. Today the top 500 corporations in America own most of the 50 largest media companies, including 7 of the 20 largest newspaper chains and all 3 major TV networks. ¹ Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly, says that when he wrote his book in 1983 he was concerned that "the majority of all major American media -- newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books and movies -- were controlled by 50 giant corporations. But in his introduction to the second edition, in 1987, he notes that the number of corporations controlling the media had dropped from fifty to twenty-nine. ²

Bagdikian explains why this centralization is so dangerous:

In the past, each medium used to act like a watchdog over the behavior of its competing media. The newspaper industry watched magazines, and both kept a public eye on the broadcasting industry. ... But now the watchdogs have been cross-bred into an amiable hybrid, with seldom an embarrassing bark." ³

Close ties between the corporate world and the media can affect content in rather subtle ways: "The most powerful influence, possessed by all [media corporations], is the power to appoint media leaders. It is a rare corporation that appoints a leader considered unsympathetic to the desires of the corporation. . . Real independence for a media subsidiary is, at best, a disposable luxury." ⁴

Consider, for example, what can happen when Time, Inc., a huge media empire which owns not only TIME, People, and Sports Illustrated, but also several book publishers, a cable and television group which includes 767 cable franchises, and much more, merges with Warner Communications which owns TV stations, cable systems, book publishers, and a major Hollywood film studio. Theoretically a book could be published in hard-cover by Little, Brown (a division of Time, Inc.), then be "selected" by the Book-of-the-Month Club (owned by Time, Inc.), be given a rave review in TIME magazine, then issued in paperback by Warner Books, made into a motion picture by Warner Bros., turned into a TV series by Warner Television, and have a guaranteed run on hundreds of cable TV channels. Bagdikian predicts that "it is quite possible that by the 1990s a half-dozen large corporations will own all the most powerful media outlets in the United States." ⁵

Clearly, the treatment of media independence as a "disposable luxury" can affect the creation and marketing of entertainment, and the same process can happen in the treatment of news and all kinds of information. But how can that affect the public welfare? If the system is more efficient, what is the harm in having fewer sources of communication? Thomas Jefferson, in a famous letter written in 1787 declared that, if he were able to decide whether a people should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, he would not hesitate to prefer the latter:

I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. ... The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right. ⁶

Today our concern to maintain freedom of the press and free speech must take into account new ways that the right of people to form their opinions can be limited. If a "book" can be created and merchandised from rough draft to a major motion picture and TV series by a single monopoly interest, surely "ideas" can be created and merchandised the same way. Monopoly control of the mass media, exerted not by government, but by business, can have a devastating effect on our culture.

What can we do about it? How can we keep the media open, free, and expressive of the ideals that truly represent the people who make up the North American culture? In Chapter Nine we discussed video violence. Dealing with violence provides one good example of what people can -- and cannot -- expect to achieve in reforming the media. The NCC Study Committee gave considerable thought to "what should be done" about violence in TV, in motion pictures, in cable and videocassettes. And the first point is: there are many different media, and they require many different tactics.

Television

Television, one of the worst offenders, is a medium that can be regulated. As we have said, broadcasters have a special obligation in return for their special privileges. They are allowed into every home, and they have exclusive use of a valuable limited frequency. In return they are required by law to broadcast "in the public interest."

In Canada this requirement still is taken seriously by the government's regulatory commission. But in the U.S. the requirement is a well-kept secret. So effectively has the U.S. broadcast industry hidden behind the First Amendment that they have persuaded the public to think that the Constitution intended to protect the broadcasters rather than the public. But the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that in broadcasting, it is the public who has rights and broadcasters who have responsibilities. In its famous Red Lion decision, the Supreme Court said, "It is the right of viewers and listeners, not the right of broadcasters that is paramount." ⁷ This means that when freedoms conflict, the right of the public to news, information or entertainment is more important than the right of the broadcaster to make money or even to speak out on issues.

This bring us to the second major point: in the U.S. broadcasting must once again be regulated in the public interest; in Canada it must continue to be regulated. Deregulation of broadcasting is offensive because it removes the broadcaster's accountability to the public. The deregulation in the United States over the past decade has not worked well in other areas, either: in the stock market it brought on a rash of scandals; in the airlines it resulted in poorer service, higher prices and the end of service to many smaller cities. And the recent decision in Canada to deregulate many aspects of the marketplace and increase U.S. trade has made that nation much more vulnerable to American economic exploitation. Deregulation of heavy industry's air pollution has resulted in acid rain and dying lakes in both nations. But in some ways broadcasting deregulation is the most serious, because it places information -- the minds of people -- into the hands of those whose first interest is profit. When that happens, we may never again be able even to know about things like acid rain and dying lakes, unless we see them for ourselves, first-hand.

One principle of broadcast licensing is that the public should be able to challenge a station that is not broadcasting an adequate amount of news, public affairs, minority or children's programs. But how can the public challenge stations if there are no minimum requirements? And how can people even know what stations are doing if the stations no longer have to keep records or make them available to the public?

We know, roughly, the results of media deregulation in the U.S. We know that from 1982 to 1987 ads-per-hour on nationwide TV increased 14 percent. ⁸ We know that shortly after deregulation, all three major networks fired everyone in their religious TV departments and almost completely eliminated all public service religious programming. We know that in 1984 in Chicago, for example, the ABC affiliate moved all its public affairs programs to the 6:00 - 8:00 a.m. time slot -- and scheduled Rock Video on Sunday mornings from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. We know that because cross-ownership of media restrictions were removed, a single huge conglomerate may now own TV, radio, cable, and newspapers -- all in the same community, which gives it unprecedented political power. As Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said at the time deregulation began: "Whoever controls television controls public opinion. Nobody, not even Saint Francis of Assisi, should be given that power." ⁹

Until deregulation is rolled back, the reforms suggested in these chapters simply have no real chance of succeeding. So long as deregulation is in effect, local public interest groups who have difficulty getting stations to meet their demands for reasonable reform should consider petitioning the FCC to deny the license of the station. This approach was used with considerable success during the sixties and seventies. It requires considerable time, money and expertise, but a station takes nothing more seriously than a carefully crafted petition to the FCC, and sometimes the mere threat by those in positions of moral authority are sufficient to get stations to meet their public service obligation more effectively. A word of caution, however: citizen groups must never abuse their privilege by attempting to dictate what is said on the air. Maximum exchange of ideas and views and an increase of service in various categories such as news, information and children's programming, not censorship, must be the objective.

Motion Pictures

Motion pictures are a different medium with different legal restraints. People go out to the movies. They pay to see a film. Therefore, it requires different strategies, with an emphasis upon industry self-regulation rather than government licensing. Since almost all films seen in Canada are made in the United States, the approaches here will deal with the U.S. motion picture industry:

1. The present Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating system should be improved by the addition of simple, short phrases which explain why a particular rating is given. Words such as "brief frontal nudity," "strong sexual language," "mild comic violence," "Western violence," or "strong graphic violence" would accompany PG, PG-13, R and X ratings, and would help parents decide which films are suitable for their children.

2. Local churches should participate with other community groups in establishing panels for review and evaluation of movies playing at local theatres, and in helping communicate any resulting viewpoints to church members and others in the community. For example, brief reviews and recommendations can appear in church newsletters and local newspapers.

3. Local churches should initiate processes for analyzing movies appearing in their communities through viewing and discussing them from the perspective of the Christian community. Adult film education is an important part of the responsibility of local churches.

Cable

Cable TV, on the other hand, presents different problems with different solutions. Cable comes into the home only if it is purchased. For the movie channels, the most likely source of violence, fees beyond the basic service rates are required. Again, most of these "second tier" services consist of U.S.-made films.

Ultimately, cable operators should be required to act as common carriers. That is, they should be given a monopoly to use the city streets to wire the homes of a community, but in return should be required to carry all kinds of services -- news (Cable News Network), information (The Weather Channel, Financial News Network), entertainment (Home Box Office, Cinemax), sports (ESPN), children programming (Disney), ethnic (Spanish Information Network, Black Entertainment Television), and religion (VISION TV in Canada, VISN in the U.S.). All cable companies would charge a fair price, established by the state public service commission (like gas and electric rates). All would be required to increase the number of channels as the demand increased, so the more services offered, the more profit the cable operator would make. But the cable operator would not also be a programmer or be able to choose which channels can get on a cable system, as is sometimes the case now.

If this arrangement had been established twenty years ago, as some public interest and church groups urged, today we would have much more diverse programming on cable. Cable companies would not be able to freeze out some program suppliers in favor of others in which they have a financial interest. Common carrier status for cable still can be achieved, especially if existing telephone companies are allowed to compete by bringing their own fiber optic "cable" into the homes they already serve. A proposal similar to "common carrier" status for cable operators was made in 1986 by the Canadian Task Force on Broadcasting Policy, but it has not been implemented.

Videocassettes

Finally, videocassettes present a major problem, not only because the number of cassette players has increased so dramatically but also because videos are bought or rented, and are therefore legally treated more like books. The NCC Study Committee made the following recommendations regarding videos:

1. Videos intended for adults -- R, X rated and unrated -- should not be displayed prominently in store-fronts. They should not be sold or rented to persons under 17 years of age. To take more restrictive action, the Committee believes, would unduly restrict the First Amendment rights of adults. (Citizens in a local community could use various levels of persuasion with the video store owner: consultation, letters to the local newspapers, appeals to the city council to make zoning changes, or stage actual public protests or a boycott.)

Other Strategies for Media Reform

Two important strategies are open to citizen groups. One is corporate stockholder action. Often the most effective approach to economic power is countervailing economic power. Businesses listen when their profits are threatened. For example, a few years ago in the U.S. several denominations and the National Council of Churches organized a protest in the stockholder meetings of several corporations that advertise on high-violence TV programs. As a result, a dozen major advertisers agreed to avoid sponsoring ads on high-violence programs.

The difficulty was that in response to the pressure to reduce violence, Hollywood began to increase the amount of sexual titillation. What is needed is continuous, well thought-out-pressure maintained over several years. If the churches could agree on such a strategy, the amount of violence and sexual violence might be reduced considerably.

The other strategy is the boycott. This tool is powerful, but dangerous, and to be used only after all persuasive and legal alternatives have failed. Even then, a boycott requires extreme caution, because it is a blunt tool that may hurt innocent people and have many unforeseen consequences. For example, when an organization led by the Rev. Donald Wildmon waged a boycott campaign against 7-Eleven Stores in an attempt to get the chain to stop selling Playboy and Penthouse magazines, many local franchise holders were hurt. Meanwhile, other nearby stores reported that their sales of these two magazines soared. Thus, while the local 7-Eleven franchise holder may have suffered, the real objective -- to get people to not read Playboy and Penthouse -- was not achieved. (In fact, some suggest that both magazines may have benefited from the publicity.) Stockholder action is far more sensible and effective. However, neither stockholder action nor boycotts should be used to censor specific speech, but to encourage the development of more diverse speech.

Beginning with the Moral Majority in the early 1980s, a number of groups have sprung up that appeal to Christians to join in boycotts of "offensive" words, pictures, stories and so on appearing on TV and in other media. On the whole, the focus of those groups tends to narrow into a demand for censorship. A good rebuttal to these attempts to get good people to join in these narrow censorship-type movements is the statement by ACTS, Action for Children's Television, which circulated a petition in 1981 that said, in part:

Because we feel that the methods used by the Moral Majority and the Coalition for Better TV threaten the free exchange of ideas in a free society...

Because we are offended by the narrow views of Moral Majority leaders who judge those who disagree with them as un-Christian and immoral...

We ... express our deep concern and protest over the ... crusade now being conducted by the Moral Majority and the Coalition for Better TV to purge television of program content they deem offensive. We support citizen action to expand television viewing options for the American public, particularly for children.

We believe, however, that the censorship tactics of the Coalition for Better TV limit options and threaten the free exchange of ideas in a free society." ¹⁰

There are positive, rather than negative strategies, that can bring about reform of the media. Here are a few that merit consideration by concerned Christians:

1. Support public broadcasting. Local public TV and radio are a great untapped resource in many communities. They can be encouraged to produce more local programming, and local church leaders can provide ideas, resources and programming, so long as the programs deal with "public service" rather than proselytizing.

For example, WTVS-TV, the public TV station in Detroit, has a community center in the station to encourage local productions, provides a 24-hour-a-day job listing on local cable TV, provides an "electronic town meeting" on many local community issues, and has several local storefronts with TV cameras for local input. More than 700,000 households watch WTVS every week. Churches could encourage any public station to provide the same services to help develop community in their city or town, regardless of size.

2. Give awards for service of merit: annual awards to the best public service programs on local TV; special "Service Citations" to media leaders in the community; a prize for the best local TV or cable program in the community.

3. Provide a review service for the local newspaper. Reviews by a well-known local figure who can be even-handed and reliable. The reviews need not be "Christian" to be a valuable information service to the community.

Education for Media Consumption

Professor Hidetoshi Kato of Gakushuin University in Tokyo says that in Japanese folklore the mammal called a tapir, is the "animal who eats dreams." But, says, Dr. Kato, "I am inclined to think that human beings are now transforming themselves into tapirs."

As we have seen, people "consume" news and information because they need it, daily, almost hourly, as a source of how people behave, should behave, can behave. People consume news because it informs our daily moral routine, recharges our faith in an ordered world, and so helps us to get through another day. Indeed, as Dr. Kato says, "information is a kind of food, indispensable for many of our contemporaries. Many of us simply cannot survive without information." ¹¹

But we are not yet sophisticated enough to consume information and images in ways that are of maximum benefit to our health. Most of us do not have the visual literacy to understand visual statements. Our image-eating habits are still very primitive and indiscriminate. We eat everything -- and then wonder why we suffer from indigestion.

Media education has only just begun to be taken seriously in the United States and Canada. Canadians have maintained a slight lead over efforts in the United States, partly because several of the early gurus of mass media, including Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan, taught in Canada, and partly because Canada has a long tradition of media responsiveness to public interest, including the Canadian Film Board and the Canadian Broadcasting System. But in both nations the predominant educational systems have pretty much ignored media education, except for a few "honors" classes in high school. And the churches have continued to function as though the communication revolution had not occurred, except that sermons have mysteriously shortened as the attention span of most people, re-shaped by TV, has continued to decrease.

However, if we are going to learn to come to grips with the most powerful influence in their lives, we will have to take our heads out of the sand. Children should be taught to "read" TV, starting in Kindergarten. By the time they reach mid-elementary levels, they should be discussing many of the topics considered in this book, including the hidden meanings behind symbols and signs, and they should be learning the "language" of visuals, such as close-ups, fade-outs and editing -- and producing their own statements using cameras and editing equipment. When they are in high school they should learn more sophisticated aspects of the media: who's in control, how the power is exercised, how advertising and profits affects what is covered in the news and what is said in all programs, how our violence affects us and how our media imperialism affects other people.

But this is not all. Values don't just exist; they are learned. Schools should also help our children understand the values carried in the media. Our culture includes Shakespeare and Longfellow, but today it also includes such classics as Silent Spring and Catcher in the Rye. Our educators know this. But somehow they do not know -- or admit -- that our culture includes "Star Trek" and "MASH" -- and that these are classics as well. Such media programs carry values, they yield insights, they have tremendous resonance among both thoughtful and popular elements of the audience. And even the "negative" programs on TV -- the game shows and "Miami Vice" and Music TV -- should be included in the curriculum, so that students will begin to understand their culture and become capable of separating the good from the bad from the indifferent.

The churches in Canada and the United States have two responsibilities in media education. First, they should pioneer in general media education, pointing the way for public education. The church has always moved into areas of need where the rest of society was not yet ready to move. In the 19th century the churches created dozens of colleges and universities to meet the pressing need for higher education. Today understanding our culture is just as pressing a need. Churches could provide the courses -- for children, young people, and adults -- that would help millions of people begin to work their way out of frustration and bafflement at being confronted with something they do not understand: today's mass media.

Second, churches have always been in the forefront of values education. Ethics is a central task of religious education: to help people separate good from bad, right from wrong, the positive from the negative. Never has this task been more crucial than it is today, and few subjects are more in need of ethical reflection. Therefore, values education, dealing primarily with the visual media such as television, holds tremendous potential for Christian education. And the media itself offers the way: videocassettes. Imaginative and exciting education, with specific courses targeted to children, youth and adults, dealing with Christian values and how they relate to current TV, film and video, is tailor-made for videocassette distribution to churches, schools and families.

Finally, here are a few suggestions about what people in local churches can do. Since each community and church has different needs and different capabilities, these are suggestions only. You will have to fill in the details.

1. Produce low-cost videocassettes of the worship service that can be taken to shut-ins. Or take a worship video to your local cable system for distribution on Sunday morning.

2. Develop a curriculum in your church school classes that deals with Television Awareness Training. ¹²

3. Hold film discussion groups for adults, based on films at the local movie theatres. Or have "intergenerational" discussion -- adults and teen agers.

4. Base a Bible study course on the gospel and the media.

5. Generate a write-in campaign regarding a particularly bad -- or good -- example of television. Write the local station, network, producer, sponsor.

6. Invite a local TV or radio station manager or programmer to an adult class or a Television Awareness Training session.

7. Refer to television programs as illustrations for sermons and talks.

8. Develop an affordable local church day care program for children -- instead of encouraging parents to use TV as their "baby sitter."

9. Make the church available after school for children who otherwise would be spending their time with TV; provide tutoring, play activities, reading.

10. Involve kids in making their own videos and discussing them, as a way of becoming literate with television. Set up a "lab" for shooting, editing, producing news, educational or arts program.

11. Include a discussion of media and values in membership training.

12. Use local radio, television or cable to help build community: encourage coverage of local issues.

13. Make a video to interpret the work of the church to its members: a stewardship video.

14. Raise the "media issue" in meetings with church school teachers, education committee, missions and stewardship groups.

15. Develop a program in the church on human relations and sexuality, using examples of the cultural problem from videos.

16. Publish reviews in the parish bulletin: reviews of TV, movies, books, music albums. Or use the church bulletin board.

17. Produce a telephone call-in meditation for the day; talk with your local telephone company for details.

18. Develop a "TV Diet" that helps parents plan with their children how to restrict television viewing to certain programs and times.

19. Discuss the culture-media issue in the local area pastors' meeting.

20. Establish a "resource center" as part of the church library. Create a library of videos for check-out and use in member's homes: on parenting, marriage enrichment, Bible study, and so on.

21. Teach a course in myth (for adults, teens, or children): help them tell their own stories, then understand myths of Bible versus present culture.

22. Using current examples from TV, teach a course on one of the following: news, children's programming, how to view TV, sexuality, or violence.

23. Encourage the development of a course in media literacy in your public school system: at elementary, junior high, and high school levels.

Whatever you do, be careful not to make media education simply the newest fad. Thoroughly integrate your actions into the ongoing work in the church. The idea is to help us as congregations carry what we experience on Sundays out into our Monday-through-Saturday lives -- to help all of us understand our story as Christians in the context of the stories we encounter in the media every day.

REFERENCES

1. Bagdikian, p. 20.

2. Bagdikian, p. xv.

3. Ben Bagdikian, "The Empire Strikes: What Happens When Fewer and Fewer Owners Take Over More and More Media Channels," Media and Values, No. 47, Summer 1989, p. 5.

4. Bagdikian, p. 21.

5. Bagdikian, p. 4.

6. Thomas Jefferson, "Letter to E. Carrington, 16 January 1787," in Solomon K. Padover (ed.) Thomas Jefferson on Democracy (New York: New American Library) 1954, p. 83.

7. Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc., et al., v. Federal Communication Commission et al., Supreme Court of the United States, No. 2 and 717. October Term, 1968, p. 22.

8. "TIO Quick Takes," Television Information Office, 745 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10151., March 1988.

9. "How Will Market React to New Limits?", Broadcasting magazine, July 30, 1984, p. 31.

10. Mailing by Action for Children's Television, 1981. 46 Austin Street, Newtonville, MA 02160.

11. Kato, Hidetoshi, "The Image of 'The Man of Image'," in Vision and Hindsight: The Future of Communications. International Institute of Communications, Tavistock House East, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9LG, 1976, p. 16.

12. Ben Logan, (ed.) Television Awareness Training: The Viewer's Guide for Family and Community (Nashville: Abingdon) 1979; other materials are available from United Methodist Communications, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10015. Also contact Media and Values, 1962 Shenandoah St., Los Angeles CA 90034 for media awareness education materials.

Mother #1: "Don't let your kids see Friday the 13th; it's full of steamy sex."

Mother #2: "What? That's terrible! I thought it just had violence."

--exchange overheard in Ridgewood, New Jersey

When Benjamin Spock, M.D., was starting out in pediatrics, he didn't believe that on-screen violence was harmful to children. Then, about thirty years ago, he changed his mind.

It was soon after The Three Stooges became popular on television. A nursery school teacher told Spock that suddenly children were beginning to bop each other on the head without warning. When she would tell a child who had just hit another that hitting wasn't acceptable, the child wouldn't show any regret but instead would say, "That's what the Three Stooges do."

Suddenly, Dr. Spock realized that children--especially young children--will pattern themselves after violent behavior just as readily as they will imitate good behavior. He realized that TV violence can cause harm to children.¹

Sometimes it happens with adults, too. In 1984, after Farrah Fawcett played in The Burning Bed, a TV drama that told the true story of a battered wife who ended thirteen years of marital torment by setting fire to the gasoline-soaked bed of her sleeping husband, a number of copy-cat assaults occurred across the nation. In Milwaukee, thirty-nine-year-old Joseph Brandt viewed the TV show and shortly thereafter poured gasoline over his estranged wife and set her afire. In Quincy, Massachusetts, a husband became angered by the movie and beat his wife senseless. In Chicago, a battered wife watched the show, and then shot her husband.²

It is a fact that people in the U.S. are more prone to violence than are people of any other industrialized nation. Between 1963 and 1973, while the war in Vietnam was taking 46,212 lives, firearms in the U.S. killed 84,644 civilians. If the United States had the same homicide rate as Japan, our 1966 death toll from guns would have been 32 instead of 6,855. In the last fifty years the rate of rapes in the United States has increased 700 percent, on a per capita basis. In 1980 there were eight handgun murders in England and 10,012 in the United States.³ During the last thirty years the U.S. homicide rate per capita has increased almost 100 per cent. Between 1974 and 1983, the number per capita of aggravated assaults increased 6 percent, forcible rape 26 percent, robbery 2 percent, and child abuse 48 percent. ⁴ And although reliable Canadian statistics were not available before 1980, one authority states that "violent crimes have constantly increased" there during the last half-century.⁵

For years people have asked whether the amount of violence portrayed on movie and TV screens has anything to do with the growing violence in real life. As early as the 1950s, the U.S. Congress held hearings on the possible negative effects of television. Industry representatives immediately promised to reduce violence while simultaneously denying any evidence of harmful effects. Yet television violence increased steadily.

In 1967, following a two-week period when whole sections of Detroit and Newark were bombed, burned, and vandalized, President Lyndon B. Johnson established a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. In March 1968, the Commission issued a 608-page report that laid much of the blame for the crisis on the mass media. The Commission charged that although the media tried to give a balanced and factual account of the events of the summer of 1967, they tended overall to exaggerate "both good and bad events." Television, in particular, was found to have presented violence in simplistic terms--depicting "a visual three-way alignment of Negroes, white bystanders, and public officials or enforcement agents," which tended to create the impression that the riots were predominantly racial confrontations between blacks and whites, while factors such as economic and political frustration were pushed into the background.

The national unrest persisted. In early 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed in Memphis, then Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. A new U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, headed by Milton S. Eisenhower, stated: "Violence on television encourages violent forms of behavior, and fosters moral and social values about violence in daily life which are unacceptable in a civilized society." It concluded: "Television entertainment based on violence may be effective merchandising, but it is an appalling way to serve the 'public interest, convenience and necessity.'''⁶

Once again, the broadcasting industry resisted the conclusions of the Commission and attacked its findings as based on insufficient evidence. At the same time, network presidents solemnly proclaimed that violence was being reduced and that children's programming was being improved.

Yet one more time, in 1969, John O. Pastore, chairman of the U.S. Senate Communications Subcommittee, requested the surgeon general, Dr. Jesse Steinfeld, to appoint a committee to conduct a study "which will establish scientifically insofar as possible what harmful effects, if any, these [televised crime and violence] programs have on children." Steinfeld testified in 1972 at a Senate hearing that the study had unearthed "sufficient data" to establish a causal relationship between watching television violence and behaving aggressively. Said Dr. Steinfeld: "My professional response ... is that the broadcasters should be put on notice. The overwhelming consensus and the unanimous Scientific Advisory Committee's report indicate that television violence, indeed, does have an adverse effect on certain members of our society."⁷

But according to the "Violence Profile" conducted annually by George Gerbner of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication, the level of violence in television showed no significant change throughout the 1970s. Instead, broadcasters continued to insist that the research on behavioral effects of TV violence was "inconclusive."

The research continued, and in May 1982 the National Institute of Mental Health released the findings of a ten-year follow-up to the surgeon general's 1972 study: "After ten more years of research, the consensus among most of the research community is that violence on television does lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the programs."⁸

Thus by 1982 the overwhelming weight of research had demonstrated various degrees of relationship between violence in the media and violent behavior in the society. The U.S. public felt something was terribly wrong but lacked an organizational structure to do anything about the degree of violence. Some vigilante groups, tired of promises and no action by the broadcasting industry, began to take matters into their own hands by initiating boycotts and urging the passage of censorship laws in communities and states. Fortunately, they had very little success, because the courts rejected attempts by individual groups to impose their views on others.

At that point the National Council of Churches decided the time had come to do something about both the increase of violence and the increasing threats of censorship. But to take action, it first needed the facts. In 1983 it established a special study committee "to examine the problems of exploitative sex and gratuitous violence in the media."

The study had two aims: first to help church people and the public to identify the issues; and second, to identify solutions that would not restrict the rights of citizens to express themselves freely in a democracy.

The committee recognized that sexuality and violent actions are found in all of life, and that the mass media would be dishonest if it were to attempt to "sanitize" these dimensions of the human condition. For these reasons, the Commission focused on "exploitative sex" and "gratuitous violence."

In 1984 the study committee held three public hearings, one focused on the research findings (in New York City), a second on the views of the communications industry (in Los Angeles), and a third on policy proposals and alternatives (in Washington, D.C.). It heard testimony from thirty-one persons, including researchers, producers, directors, writers, actors, corporate executives, legislators, and leaders of national educational and public interest organizations.

Research Findings

The committee consulted some of the most respected and eminent researchers in the field. Here is a summary of what these experts reported:

Edward Donnerstein of the Center for Communication Research at the University of Wisconsin reported on young men who were exposed to "slasher" films (I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Toolbox Murders). When these men were placed in a "jury" at a mock rape trial, they were far more likely than the control group to believe that the rape victim "was asking for it," that the rape did not do serious damage to the woman, and that the accused should get off with a light sentence.

Donnerstein's research showed that films which combine erotic material with violence tend to desensitize people regarding aggression against women. He emphasized that the problem was with the element of aggression, not with the sexual component.

David Pearl of the National Institute of Mental Health had just conducted a ten-year follow-up study on behalf of the surgeon general's office. Pearl found that television has four effects on violent behavior:

1.         direct imitation of observed violence;

2.         "triggering" of violence which otherwise might be inhibited;

3.         desensitization to the occurrence of violence; and

4.         viewer fearfulness.

Regarding the overall social effect, Pearl warned

Consider the situation if even only one out of a thousand viewing children or youth were affected (there may well be a higher rate). A given prime time national program whose audience includes millions of children and adolescents would generate a group of thousands of youngsters who were influenced in some way. Consider also the cumulative effects for viewers who watch such programs throughout the year. Even if only a small number of antisocial incidents were precipitated in any community, these often may be sufficient to be disruptive and to impair the quality of life for citizens of that community.⁹

George Gerbner, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications, reported on the findings of his seventeenth annual Violence Profile, which indicated that the overall Violence Index during 1982-1983 once again had not diminished but was approximately at its seventeen-year average. However, violence in children's weekend programs reached a record high, with a rate of 30.3 violent incidents per hour against a seventeen-year average of 20. Gerbner summarized his findings:

For the past 17 years, at least, our children grew up and we all lived with a steady diet of about 16 entertaining acts of violence (2 of them lethal) in prime time alone every night, and probably dozens if not hundreds more for our children every weekend. We have been immersed in a tide of violent representations that is historically unprecedented and shows no real sign of receding.¹⁰

Since then, Gerbner and his researchers have issued five additional annual Violence Profiles that show essentially the same pattern: no decrease in violence on TV. Indeed, there has been a slight but continuing increase in violent programming aimed at children through the 1987-1988 season.

Gerbner explained to the study committee the role of television in creating a "mean and violent world" in the minds of many viewers--particularly heavy viewers:

viewers in every education, age, income, sex, newspaper reading and neighborhood category express a greater sense of insecurity and apprehension than do light Most heavy viewers ....

Fearful people are most dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled .... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities. That is the deeper problem of violence-laden television.¹¹

Gerbner called for parents, educators, and religious and political leaders to mobilize, to combat not only violence in the media "but the larger structure of inequity and injustice behind it."¹²

The study committee concluded that violence in the media does lead to aggressive behavior by children, teenagers, and adults who watch the programs. The committee stressed that not all viewers become aggressive, of course, but the correlation between violence and aggressive behavior by some is undeniable. In the words of the committee: "Media violence is as strongly related to aggressive behavior as any other behavioral variable that has been measured."

Who's in Charge?

If media violence, especially when that violence is in its nature sexual, in fact does threaten the quality of American life, then how do the creative and managerial people in television feel about the use of violence in their productions? What pressures within the industry lead to such a high degree of violence? Who makes the decisions: the actors? directors? producers? distributors? networks? sponsors? And what can concerned citizens do about the problem?

These media issues were discussed by the National Council of Churches study committee with a number of the media creators in Los Angeles, people who spend most of their time bringing into being the world of television. What the committee found was disturbing, though perhaps predictable. First, individual members of the industry are concerned, many of them profoundly, about the increasing amount of sex and violence in the media in which they work.

For example, from Christine Foster, a major TV producer:

"Mainstream, legitimate network and production company executives, producers, writers and directors, are, like you, conscientious citizens, family people, mothers and fathers .... We are conscious of the effect we have on the public and on our communities."

Second, the people working in the media industries are part of a vast and complex system which parcels out responsibility, a little bit to everyone, so that, in the end, no one is ultimately responsible. For example, when participants in the Los Angeles hearing were asked, "Who has the responsibility to do something about the problem of sex and violence?" the answers consistently placed responsibility on someone else.

Actors said they only do what they are told by the writers and directors. Writers and directors said producers require them to put more sex and violence into the shows. The producers said it is the networks that demand more sex and violence. Networks said their choices are limited, the competition is brutal, and the sponsors demand results. Everyone agreed they don't like the amount of exploitative sex and gratuitous violence that they, together, created.

What about the sponsors? Producer Gene Reynolds charged that "sponsors in the last twenty years have escaped responsibility." David Levy (president of the Caucus of Producers, Directors, and Writers) explained that some twenty years ago such sponsors as Kraft, Hallmark, and Texaco normally purchased a whole series of programs on television, but that today sponsors only purchase time--a few minutes of spot advertising on many different programs. Thus the sponsors now reach many different audiences many times each day but in doing so they diffuse their responsibility for any particular program among a half-dozen or more other sponsors.

Sponsors dearly have an interest in the content of programs with which the public may associate their commercial message. For example, General Motors has had the following guideline for many years:

Our aim is to avoid association with those programs that appear to emphasize offensive subject matter and language for their own sake.

Levy summed up the situation by saying that "there are no 'wild men' in the media today. Instead, they are all in a System that traps them."

Third, each TV network has only one ultimate objective--to win the largest number of viewers during every half hour of every day. This ratings drive, on which fees for commercials are based, is the economic reality at the root of the problem.

Given this system, advertisers are acting quite rationally when they buy the cheapest programs that will reach the largest number of viewers with their message, regardless of program quality. Broadcasters are considered by their stockholders to be acting in an economically responsible way if they provide programs that are produced very cheaply--even if the programs contain much unnecessary violence--if, in doing so, they reach the largest possible audience and make the largest number of sales and highest possible profits. But their decision to air violent programs must be considered irresponsible by the public at large.

Deregulation of broadcasting in the U.S. and the Federal Communications Commission's apparent indifference to the practices of broadcast licensees and cable operators in effect seem to legitimize the operation of these media as businesses like any other business, disregarding the public trusteeship that is required by the Communications Act. In spite of the view of writer Bill Sackheim that "ninety percent of the people in this business want to do good work," the FCC has created a regulatory vacuum that inevitably fosters inexpensive, low quality programming which, to be cheap and yet get instant mass attention, must become increasingly violent.

In summary, there are four major reasons for the high amount of sexual violence and overall violence in TV produced in the U.S.: (1) monopoly control of program production and distribution by a handful of powerful companies (2) the drive for profits far in excess of those enjoyed by the vast majority of U.S. businesses (3) a lack of accountability on the part of sponsors and (4) the failure of the Federal Communications Commission to exercise adequate oversight of broadcasting.

What has happened since the National Council of Churches study report and recommendations? Essentially nothing. The churches have not seen the issue as a high priority. Some even question whether church organizations ought to be meddling in such matters. The vigilante and boycott groups have gotten nowhere. Meanwhile, the Violence Profile for 1987 shows that the amount of violence on television continues at the same high levels. Some programming, such as MTV and cable channels, are actually increasing the overall amount of violence and sexual violence going into homes in North America.

What can be done? The study committee made specific recommendations for each of the major visual media in the U.S., recommendations that remain to be implemented. In Canada the problems are somewhat different, both in scope and complexity. In May 1985 a Canadian Task Force report on Broadcasting Policy was established by the minister of communications, and it studied most of these same issues within the Canadian context.¹³ Where applicable, the Canadian Task Force report will be used to supplement the U.S. recommendations.

How to Decrease Violence on Television

1. In the U.S., the key to decreasing violence on television is for broadcasters to exercise their responsibility to serve the public welfare. Television will serve this larger purpose only when the Federal Communications Commission reasserts its oversight of the broadcasting industry on behalf of the public interest. Broadcasting was deregulated during the early 1980s, and as long as deregulation remains in effect, the public cannot expect an industry engaged in a constant "business war" over ratings to take seriously its social obligation to reduce the amount of violence in its programming. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulates radio and television and imposes conditions of license which are considerably more detailed than in the United States. With the growth of the multinational communication giants and their effort to remove communication from regulation worldwide, Canadians should insist that present regulations of the CRTC not be compromised. Also, the Canadian Task Force recommends the creation of "TV Canada," a new satellite-to-cable service which would be non-commercial and would focus on "redressing the present imbalance that favours foreign [American] programs."¹⁴

2. In the U.S., broadcasting networks and stations should be required by the Federal Communications Commission to carry the rating of the Motion Picture Classification and Rating Administration (G, PG, PG-13, R, and X), with additional short descriptive phrases that indicate the amount and intensity of violence. Ratings and descriptions should appear in on-the-air promotions for programs, in newspaper and television guide listings, and in network, sponsor, and station advertisements.

In Canada, movie ratings are determined differently in each province, so there is no national rating system. However, the CRTC could enact a regulation requiring all stations to alert viewers to the amount and intensity of violence on forthcoming programs. Fortunately, many newspapers in Canada and the United States voluntarily note excessively violent and sexually explicit material in their movie reviews.

3. The FCC should be required to conduct annual hearings, open to the public, in which producers of television programming (networks, stations, syndicators, production houses, sponsors) would be required to explain how and by whom decisions are made to determine the content of entertainment programs. Only by such public discussion can the present anonymity of program decision making be penetrated and responsibility for program content be fixed. Stations should also be required to meet regularly with members of the public to discuss and assess the content and effects of entertainment programs and the relationships of these programs to generally accepted community values. Some stations follow this procedure even though regulations no longer require it, but most stations have dropped any significant community involvement.

4. Networks and stations should be required by U.S. law to devote a percentage of their air time, production budgets, and facilities to children's programming. The United States remains the only developed nation that does not require its television industry to provide programs for children. There is no Constitutional reason why Congress could not require television stations to provide regularly scheduled programming for children, Monday through Friday during after-school hours, at a time when older children could view it (4 p.m. to 6 p.m.). The courts have ruled that while the FCC cannot tell broadcasters what to broadcast, it can establish program categories that broadcasters must provide, and "children's programs" could be such a category.

In Canada the number of hours of children's programming per week actually increased between 1976 and 1985, but the CBC, Canada's public broadcasting network, recently has reduced its children's programming as part of overall cutbacks. If the Canadian Task Force recommendation for the creation of a "TV Canada" cable system is approved, the new channel would provide extensive additional programming for children and young people.

5. Incidents of violence should not be included in commercial announcements, such as trailers that advertise violent movies. If violent commercials are run, then free counter advertising time should be accorded to local community groups under a "Fairness Doctrine" which would require that a station that airs an issue of public importance (such as violence) must also air the opposing views. In the 1960s when the FCC required stations to run counter advertisements (under the Fairness Doctrine) every time an ad for cigarettes was played, the broadcasting industry soon agreed to legislation prohibiting all smoking ads, since the alternative was to run one free minute for every paid minute of cigarette advertising. The same mechanism could work against commercials with violence. In Canada, such additional regulation would be up to the CRTC.

How to Decrease Violence on Cable

1. The film rating system of the Motion Picture Association of America should be adopted by the U.S. cable industry. This step would involve a commitment by all "member" cable companies to make the ratings available in all advance information, schedules, and promotion as well as on the screen at the time of showing, as recommended for television broadcasting stations. In Canada, every cable company is licensed by the CRTC, which to date has much stricter requirements than in the U.S. The CRTC could require cable systems to adopt the MPAA ratings, or establish a similar rating system for Canada that would be carried on cable.

2. Congress should require all cable companies to make the lockout feature available on all channel-switching devices they normally provide to their subscribers. The lockout makes one or more channels temporarily unavailable.

3. Cable companies should be required to place all R- and Xrated films on a channel separate from other movies. For example, HBO, Cinemax, and The Movie Channel each would be required to have an "A" channel for family fare and a "B" channel for the more violent and sexually explicit films. This division would allow parents easily to lock out films deemed objectionable for their children, and still have access to them when desired. Suppliers such as Disney, which run only G, PG, or PG-13 films, would still have only a single channel, as would Playboy and other suppliers of exclusively R- and X-rated films. The advantage of this plan is that it does not restrict access on the part of adults while it gives parents more freedom of choice about what their children can see at home. The same system could work in Canada, especially since most of the "second tier" cable channels are American.

How to Decrease Violence in Videocassettes

The number of stores renting and selling videocassettes has increased dramatically during the past decade. Sixty percent of U.S. homes now have videocassette recorders, and this number is expected to increase steadily. The New York Times reports that dealers estimate that from 20 to 40 percent of cassettes rented in video stores are in the category of sexually explicit material. Virtually all of the Rand PG-13 films that contain violent and sexually violent material are available for sale in videocassette stores. The situation is similar in Canada, and many of the video stores are subsidiaries of U.S. companies.

Congress should require that videos intended for adults (Rated, X-rated, and unrated) not be displayed prominently in storefronts and not be sold or rented to persons under seventeen years of age. Videocassettes do not come into the home like cable TV. Cassettes must be rented or purchased in stores. In this sense they are more like books or magazines than television, and they are entitled to the same protection under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution accorded books and magazines.

However, the First Amendment protection of free speech does not extend to children. The Supreme Court has taken the position that society has the obligation to judge what speech is appropriate for children. Just as persons under a certain age are not allowed to drink, drive, or vote, the sale of X-rated videos to children should be forbidden, either by industry self-regulation or, if this does not work, by law. Most video stores in the U.S. and Canada do not openly display X-rated videos, or sell or rent them to children under seventeen. On the other hand, to allow government the authority to decide what adults may see and hear represents a greater threat to the welfare of the society than to allow expressions that may be objectionable to many.

Conclusions

Clearly, violence and sexual violence in the media must be reduced. This goal can be attained without depriving those in the media of their livelihood or the rewards which are justly theirs, and without depriving citizens of their freedom of speech.

In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is reasonably responsive to public concerns, and concerned citizens should express their views regarding the growing problem of violence and sexual violence in all of the mass media. The CRTC could require better information about the amount of violence in broadcast material; it could insist that the CBC and other broadcasters provide more children's programming; and it could require lockout boxes on all cable systems -- changes that would go a long way in dealing with violent material.

In the U.S., concerned citizens must understand the extent to which the whole system of commercial broadcasting establishes an environment encouraging not violent programming itself, but the conditions that result in violent programming. Profits require large audiences and economies of production. Large audiences require vivid, exciting, simple movement. Economies of production require stereotypes and action rather than complex relationships. Sponsors want audiences, networks engage in "business war," and writers and directors get the message: more violent action.

In one sense no one is in charge of this complex system, hence no one can be blamed. But in another sense, everyone must share the blame--including the audience, the industry, and the political leaders who symbolically wash their hands of the problem by leaving it to "the marketplace." So long as we allow television to be an instrument for sales rather than for communication, the situation will persist. Christians have an obligation to reduce violence wherever possible, an obligation that stems from the explicit teachings and example of Jesus, from their faith in God's purpose for human creatures to live in harmony, and from their everyday ministry with those who suffer the effects of violence.

REFERENCES

1. Benjamin Spock, "How On-Screen Violence Hurts Your Kids," in Redbook,

November 1987, p. 26.

             .        Newsweek, October 22, 1984, p. 38.

3. Jervis Anderson, "An Extraordinary People," The New Yorker, Novem-

ber 12, 1984, p. 128.

4. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract

of the United States 1985 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984),

pp. 166, 172, 183.

5. The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), vol. 1, p.536.

6. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, "Commission Statement on Violence in Television Entertainment Programs," September 23, 1969 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office).

7. Broadcasting magazine, March 27, 1972, p. 25.

8. Broadcasting, p. 25.

9. David Pearl, "Television: Behavioral and Attitudinal Influences," National Institute for Mental Health, Washington, DC, 1985, p. 6.

10. George Gerbner, "Gratuitous Violence and Exploitative Sex: What Are the Lessons? (Including Violence Profile No. 13)," prepared for the Study Committee of the Communications Commission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., September 21, 1984 (Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA 19104), pp. 2-3.

11. "Gratuitous Violence," pp. 5-6.

12. "Gratuitous Violence," pp. 10-11.

13. Task Force on Broadcasting Policy, Government of Canada, Report of the Task Force on Broadcasting Policy (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1986).

14. Task Force, Report, p. 353