Sissela Bok’s excerpt titled “Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence” is not very convincing. Bok uses the Logos appeal, however, not effectively. After reading the title I expected to read solid evidence regarding the issue of media violence and its contribution to aggression. I found that Bok’s thesis was somewhat convoluted and more of a discussion as opposed to a statement. Bok attempts to convince the reader of the correlation between aggression and media violence, but her sources do not come across as credible or factual.
The first instance of this is Bok’s use of John Grisham as an example. Grisham’s friend was murdered by a young woman and her boyfriend after the couple repeatedly watched Oliver Stone’s film Natural Born Killers. Grisham reacts by writing “in protest against the film” and proposing legal action by relating films to breast implants as being “products.” Bok goes on to write about the fact that Grisham himself has written many books that have been converted to films and contain violence. This gives the impression that Grisham’s protest is based purely on emotions which does not help Bok’s cause.
Bok chooses to use psychiatrist Brandon S. Centerwall’s studies of “white homicide” in this piece. These studies show that violence has risen with the launch of television. This also is a weak example as “his conclusions have been criticized for not taking into account other factors, such as population changes during the time period studied, that might also play a role in changing crime rates.”
While this piece made me think about the issue of aggression and how it relates to the portrayal of violence in the media, I am not convinced one way or another.
Can television be properly viewed as increasing aggression when you consider the numerous historical examples of violence and aggression? Consider Ghengis Khan and many others.
I agree with your observation that the piece is not very convincing and that her thesis was convuluted. As a matter of fact, I felt that she was actually arguing, not very strongly, that media violence is NOT the cause of agression. At one point she says "obviously, not even the total elimination of media violence would wipe out the problem of violence". I found the whole thing very ambiguous and after reading and rereading, I think I finally got her point. Your example is much more clear: Where were the TV's when Ghengis Khan and many, many others where out and about.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Kristi and any generation, decade or century has an incredible amount of violence in it. I cannot even begin to count the amount of factors that can also play into the reason for climbing crime and aggression rates. I would be nice to be able to blame one thing but like Bok said herself that ridding violence from media will not eliminate crime. I also think that there is other things that we could spend our time trying to fix, that would net us better results.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis, Susannah!
ReplyDeleteAs writers, we have to be strong enough to admit the weaknesses in our argument. Supposedly, it only make our argument stronger if we can talk about its limitations.
But, as you've said, Bok simply doesn't offer us enough sound evidence of the correlation between watching a violent movie and committing a violent act. She does note that violent pornography affects men's treatment of women. This might have been an area for her to expand.
Do you think some of the fault lies in the scope of her essay? Did she fail to narrow her topic? The effects of pornography on men, the effects of violent cartoons on children, the instances of copycat crimes are all good topics but does she do justice to any one of them?