Forum A Move In Right Direction

Wed., March 17, 1999

By Rebecca Nappi rebeccan@spokesman.com (509) 459-5496

By the time children finish elementary school, they have witnessed 8,000 murders on television. They’ve seen people shot, stabbed, strangled, drowned. Even their cartoon buddies meet awful fates. Aliens eat animated characters, cars run them over, axes slice and dice. Does witnessing the murders have a negative impact on children? Can viewers do anything to alter this reality?

These questions haunted Jan Foland, a middle school teacher from Spokane who believed the garbage television dumps into the minds of young people results in garbage actions of aggression. These questions also haunted Don Higgins, executive director of the West Central Community Center, and John Caputo, a Gonzaga University communication arts professor who has long studied the link between television and real-life violence. The three community leaders came together in recent months, with the help of many others, to organize a forum to be held Saturday evening, starting at 7 p.m., at the Spokane Convention Center. The subject is the impact of media violence on our children and culture. The free forum will feature national speakers and researchers. About 1,600 people are expected to attend.

The organizers deserve kudos for taking on such a big event and providing the opportunity for frustrated viewers to share their concerns about violence in the media. But the organizers should acknowledge the problem is complex and the solutions even more so. They will run into issues of free speech and the reality that no matter how much people say they hate violence and sex in movies and on television, they continue to watch.

Media violence could be a runaway train. But this group can at least help determine some of the contents in the boxcars on that train. Viewer support has resulted in success for nonviolent television shows such as “Touched By An Angel.” The mission is not impossible. And ultimately, the responsibility lies with individual parents. The National Television Violence Study devoted much space in its recommendation section to the role of parents in stopping television violence. The study urged parents to take an active interest in their children’s television watching, view programs together and discuss them, and be aware of the dangers of certain violent cartoons for very young children.

The challenge of media violence won’t go away. People who care should make their voices heard Saturday evening.

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