Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

March 2001 – A new government report on the "epidemic" of youth violence in the U.S. pointed to a number of causes, but de-emphasized the one factor that many people consider an epidemic of another sort-- violence in the media. 

Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General was released in January as an effort to identify both risk factors and prevention strategies in response to youth violence and crime. Risk factors are defined in the report as "anything that increases the probability…that a young person will become violent." 

Former President Bill Clinton had asked Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher to undertake the report following the deadly shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999. In one of America's most shocking crimes, 17-year-old high school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a 16-minute rampage that left 12 classmates and a teacher dead, and 21 people wounded. 

Following the tragedy at Columbine, many people pointed to violence in the media as at least one of the culprits, since the teenaged killers regularly gorged themselves on media violence, from gory video games like Doom to bloody flicks like Reservoir Dogs. 

That made it all the more puzzling when the surgeon general's report downplayed media as an important factor in youth violence. In fact, Satcher's comments at a news conference announcing the release of the report seemed to anticipate that reaction. 

"For some people [media violence] was in their minds the major purpose of this report," Satcher said. "We did not find the media to be a major factor--(just) a factor." 

A relatively small impact 
According to the report, after examining the wide body of research on the subject, Youth Violence placed exposure to television violence in the "Small Effect" category for children ages 6-11, and media violence was not even listed as a factor for older kids. 

Categories that were cited as childhood risk factors for violence were "substance abuse, being male, physical aggression, low family socioeconomic status or poverty and antisocial parents." For adolescents, Youth Violence said the "strongest risk factors are weak ties to conventional peers, ties to antisocial or delinquent peers, belonging to a gang, and involvement in other criminal acts." 

In the appendix on media violence, the report concluded, "Taken together, findings to date suggest that media violence has a relatively small impact on violence. The effect on aggression is stronger, ranging from small to moderate." 

In this regard, the surgeon general's report reached conclusions along the same lines as other research, which carefully separates aggression from violence as a result of media exposure. The Youth Violence report said "the causal links between media violence and behavior are more firmly established for aggressive behavior than for violent behavior." 

Public health hazard 
However, while most studies on the subject do draw this same distinction, other medical and mental health professionals seem to be more definitive on the issue than the surgeon general's report. 

For example, last summer Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) hosted an unprecedented public health summit on the subject of entertainment violence and children. Representatives from numerous organizations--including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists--issued a joint declaration on the subject which was far stronger in implicating the media. 

Referring to the more than 1,000 studies that have been conducted on the effect of media violence on children, the statement said the studies "point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children." (Emphasis added.) 

The joint statement also included a list of "several measurable negative effects" of children's exposure to violent entertainment, such as kids becoming "more likely to assume that acts of violence are acceptable behavior" and "an effective way of settling conflicts;" "emotional desensitization towards violence in real life;" and "a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children who are not so exposed." 

Of concern to both the signers of the joint statement as well as the surgeon general's office is the possibility that such things as video and computer games may wind up being an even bigger contributor to youth aggression than television, movies, and music. 

Youth Violence said, "The impact of video games containing violence has recently become a focus of research because children are theoretically more susceptible to behavioral influences when they are active participants than when they are observers.…The impact of video games on violent behavior remains to be determined." 

Despite its conclusion that the "evidence for [media's] long-term effects on violence is inconsistent," the Surgeon General's report did say that "[r]esearch to date justifies sustained efforts to curb the adverse effects of media violence on youths." 

The study added, "Although our knowledge is incomplete, it is sufficient to develop a coherent public health approach to violence prevention that builds upon what is known, even as more research is underway." 

Sen. Brownback was more explicit following the public health summit last summer. "The verdict on violent entertainment is now in," he said. "This statement reveals exactly what the consensus of the public health community is: that violent entertainment is a public health hazard."