any topic,especially one so illusive and complicated as violence. Even after coming under intense congressional pressure in the mid,1970s to study and possibly step into this policy quagmire, the Commission pointedly rejected any direct governmental role in overseeing television violence: "As a practical matter, it would be difficult to construct rules which would take into account all of the subjective considerations involved in making such judgments." (Report 22) Predictably, enactment of the Television Program Improvement Act of 1990 led almost immediately to increased public pressure on the television industry to institute voluntary measures, followed by a series of hearings in both the House and Senate designed to assess the industry's progress and performance.(Subcomm. 71) Moreover, unlike past deliberations, these most recent hearings were peppered with a number of specific legislative proposals. Included were measures that would, among other things, make it unlawful to distribute any "violent video programming during hours when children are reasonably likely to comprise a substantial portion of the audience," (S.1383 11) A problem that becomes immediately apparent to me is there is no regulation that determines when children should be in bed. This may seem a bit rediculous, however, barring this form of regulation, any attempt at controlling violent content in the mass media through regulation would be largely ineffective. Parental enforcement is necessary. I would also like to know what constitutes "substantial". One method of attempting to control the content of television that appears to be acceptable on the surface, though quite minipulative, and subject to bias by the differing perceptions of the meaning of "violence" has been suggested by congress. This would require the FCC to " issue quarterly "violence television report cards" ranking both programs and sponsors according to violence," (S.973 3) "require all television ...
