Sunday, 26th October 2008
Three parent families
“If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this
constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most
delicate among us of all respect for humanity.”
Who said this about TV? Any guesses?
Don’t try too hard. These words were not written about TV. Cicero wrote them about Roman theatre in the first century!
Avoid extremes
The media are generally faced by two attitudes. One looks at them as the solution; a sort of salvation. There is the attitude that “there is a medium for every ill.” Others, on the contrary, look at the media as the root of all evil. The media are a sort of modern day version of the original sin. If there were no apples at the time of Adam and Eve surely TV or the Internet would have done the trick.
We have to steer between these two extremes. This was the advice I gave MPs when I addressed the Social Affairs Committee of the House. Edwin Vassallo, chairman of the committee asked me and fellow academics Rev Dr Carmel Tabone, Dr Angela Abela and Dr Mary Anne Lauri to make a presentation to the Committee about the media and the family. It was a positive experience. MPs from both sides of the House discussed the subject basing themselves on their experiences while reacting to what I and my colleague, Fr Tabone were saying. (The other invitees did not make it to the meeting though my presentation was jointly prepared together with Dr Lauri.)
No beauty and the beast situation
Another extreme position to be avoided is the perception that the media are the beast and the family is the beauty. The family comprises a vast array of realities. There are one parent families, families, families with married parents, others with unmarried parents. There are beautiful families and beast families.
The more importance a family gives to media use the more influential the media would be. Our families give a lot of importance to the media, ergo, their influence would tend to be great. Many are surprised when I reproduce the following statistics which strongly make an important point though they are a bit dated as they are based on NSO press release number 60 of 2003.
* 98.9% of our Maltese homes have at least one TV set.
* More than half have two sets or more.
* 95% of homes have a washing machine.
* 93% have a water heater.
* 82% have a fridge-freezer.
TV is supreme!
The nice and the ugly
There is fantastic media content and horrible media content. There is the uplifting and the degrading. Our children are also exposed to the horrible kind of content. An NSO (2005) study on Internet Use shows that:
* On third of Maltese students are exposed to violent, pornographic and racial content on the Internet.
* Boys (43%) are exposed more than girls (25.75).
* The least exposed to such material are primary students in state schools (17.6%).
* The most exposed students to such material are those attending independent secondary schools (59.5%).
There is a very simple reason for this fact. The same NSO (2005) study shows that students in the independent secondary schools have home access to computers and the Internet much more than students in state or church schools. Consequently they use that medium more.
* Maltese students spend on line average of 5.1 hours a week on line.
* Students in independent schools spend on line an average of 9.7 hours a week.
* Students in secondary schools (not the Junior Lyceum) spend an average of 3.8 hours a week.
These statistics point toward the existence of the digital divide amongst us as students in independent schools generally come from higher income families than students in other type of schools.
Let me point to one very important caveat. Statistics in this area change quite a bit. Internet and the new media are increasing by leaps and bounds thanks, among other things, to the government’s aggressive policy of popularizing access to computer and the Internet, especially broadband internet.
The following statistics speak for themselves.
* Houses having a computer:
* One third (2000)
* Two thirds (2006)
* Houses having the Internet
* 9% in 2000
* 50% in 2005
Internet subscriptions rose from 22,700 in 1998 to 107,000 in June this year! Quite a staggering increase, isn’t it?
Communicating through email or SMS
Families that choose well will, quite naturally, be better off than families that make bad media choices. Choosing well, in my opinion, also includes and means choosing together. The increase in the number of different media in different rooms and for different members of the family can mean that media communications increases at the expense of family communication. Family communication should never come second to media consumption. It would be a sad day when families start communicating by means of emails or SMSs or dialoguing in the cyber space of social networks than in face to face in their own living rooms.
Teaching swimmers
If someone lives by the sea it is better to teach him/her how to swim than to build a wall! Media education teaches people how to swim in our media saturated environment. Together with others I have been working on the subject since 1980. Education not censorship is the way forward. But that could be the subject for another blog.
Till next time I wish you all good bye and good luck.
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Comments
I have far more imortant things to do in my life than swot the pro-pornography literature recommended by you for authenticity and reliability. My experience does not support your beliefs and that is enough or me.
In still more research on the pornography-aggression link in natural settings, Abramson and Hayashi (1984) studied the incidence of violent pornography and sex crime in Japan. According to these investigators, "the juxtaposition of sexuality and aggression is evident in almost all forms of Japanese sexual material. . . . If there is a direct connection between the prevalence of rape imagery and rape behavior, Japan should have an overwhelming occurrence of rape" (p. 181). Despite the very high prevalence of rape theme pornography in Japan, however, this nation has an extraordinary low incidence of reported rape (2.4 per 100,000, compared to 34.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.)'
The following is quoted from “Pornography, Erotica, and Behavior: More Questions than Answers” Fisher and Barak, Intl Journal of Law and Psychiatry, V.14, 65-83, 1991
"With respect to the impact of increasing amounts of pornography on aggregate sex crime statistics, three studies known to us have failed to establish a link between the availability of pornography and the incidence of sex-related crimes. Kutchinsky (1973) studied the impact of the legalization of most forms of sexual material in Denmark in 1965 on the occurrence of sex crime in that country. Contrary to what would be expected if there was a robust pornography-aggression link, the legalization of sexually explicit material was associated with either no change or with a decrease in various categories of sex crime"
Guess who should do some reading?
What worries me even more is the barrage of advertising during children's programmes.
You are evidently wrong, you know, when you claim that ADULTS does not include the "young and immature". That word includes many young adults and other adults who never attain the maturity one would expect from their actual age and who end up in court after going on rampage of indiscriminate murder with an automatic weapon or after committing violent sex-related crimes in imitation of such scenes shown on films, television and similar media.
That would be evident to you if you spent more of your time listening and watching the news instead of putting up a defence for salacious entertainment
That is the key-phrase in what Cicero said, and which still applies to those who handle the media today.
The incident curently hitting the headlines in the UK, of two highly-paid and prominent media celebrities who felt free to offend by a gutter sex-loaded prank, an actor and his grad-daughter, on the prestigious BBC, whose editors saw no reason for suppressing this abuse, perhaps in the name of freedom of expression, and who ignored public complaints until they reached a level that could not be dismissed, is a sad reflection on the level that the modern liberal emphasis on unbridled so called freedom can sink.
Now, because the consequences of this abuse of media power threatens the pockets of these so called celebrities and officers of the BBC, we have apologies and urgent meetings. A sense of responsibility and a dose of respect for humanity would have spared us all this.
let us also not forget our rediculous double standards. Why are some reluctant to show a 'Die Hard X' movie to a kid but then are eager to take the child to a good friday procession to watch a butchered Christ hanging from a cross (Rendentur).
"There is ample evidence that violent crime and pornography provoke imitation by the young and immature."
I never said that the young and immature should be experiencing violent crime and pornography. I only said that 'There is no hard evidence that backs any correlation between psychological harm (in ADULTS) and violence and sex in the media'.
The term ADULTS does not include 'the young and immature'.
The mainstream media is strictly controlled, especially in the US, but also in great part of the EU. BBC has 80% of its staff as Jews? Am I being racist by stating so? I hope not.
Did you know that Ron Paul, (Republican) running for President as well? Why is this not shown to the media, but Obama and McCain? Because he wants to bring army home, and abolish the Federal Reserve! An eyeopener.
"Prepare yourself to be lectured by the same people about cruelty to animals and insulting your readers by implying that they are donkeys" - straw man.
If you say so! There is ample evidence that violent crime and pornography provoke imitation by the young and immature. You have only to read the newspapers and follow the news dispassionately.
Moderation should be the key to everything. I never said that having an 8 hour a day porn obsession would be healthy to anyone. Child pornography is a different issue altogether because I am only considering a law abiding mature audience. There is no hard evidence that backs any correlation between psychological harm (in adults) and violence and sex in the media. Parents should do their job and protect their children from being exposed to material that can confuse them or harm them. Most parents abandon their children infront of the tv and let their brains ripe. They should take the time to discuss things with them and help them understand the realities of this life as exposed through the media.
The pornography I was talking about only involves mature actors and is produced and 'consumed' by a mature audience within the limits of the law in a liberal society that protects the rights and freedoms of individuals. I doubt that there is any hard evidence corelating 'legal' pornography with any psychological harm (there are so many contrasting studies dealing with this issue that its hard to have a hardline answer). If in your opinion whoever watches porn is a sociopath or anything of the sort, well then maybe you should lock up most 'respectable' citizen.
The fact is that everyone is complacent with some kind of pornography, lets face it! Sex sells, it is used subliminally in movies, tv, games etc..
Violence is also present in the media but how can you interpret that violence? Can you compare the violent experience in a computer game with that experienced by a teenage bully? its a hot debate but I think we should not forget the space that separates us from the medium we are watching or experiencing.
Your seemingly complacent attitude to the harmful effects of abundant pornography (especially child pornography) and excessive violence "for its own sake" on television and other media is not justified by everyday experience in such fields as criminology and psychiatry especially where children and immature audiences are concerned .
My suggestion is to consider even the type of media that one considers 'healthy' PBS is still littered with family oriented mind numbing programs aimed at the middle aged viewership.
“If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this
constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most
delicate among us of all respect for humanity.”
I strongly disagree. What does this mean? Am I going to turn violent if i watch the aftermath of a suicide bombing on tv or watch a hardcore movie? I dont forsee us watching any gladiators killing themselves infront of us so until then my guess is to pack Cicero in the dark forgotten alleys of ancient history.
I think that a good dose of violence and pornography is healthy to shake up abit the individual in this hypocritical morally upright maltese society. In malta we are still obsessed with filtering everything.
Perhaps that is why comments are still so few - perhaps we feel we know enough!!!
When I congratulated you for eliciting a response from your readers by "dangling a baited hook" I was rather foolishly lambasted as being inexplicably derogatory. Now you yourself rashly admit to "prodding". Prepare yourself to be lectured by the same people about cruelty to animals and insulting your readers by implying that they are donkeys. In the unlikely eventuality of your asking for my intervention I will not fail to come to your assistance.
think so. in Malta politics is our hobby or let my rephrase arguing about politics is our hobby.
eeq you are the expert you presented us with lots of facts about the divide we have in our SMART country and so we took your word and believed every part of it.
It seems that reactions are slow this week as well. Are the readers of this column only interested in politics and religion? Don't they have an opinion on one of the most powerful means of contemporary times i.e. the media?