1,014 adult Americans where asked, How much of the blame should be put on television and movies for violence, 31% replied a great deal, 34% replied some, 8% said only a little, and 26% said no blame should be put on them.The National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV) was formed to reduce the depiction of violence on television and in other mass media.Dr. Radecki, NCTV’s chairman, found that at one Catholic high school he spoke at, 75% of the student body has seen Friday the 13th, and 20% had seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Both movies that have been proven to cause significant increase in the willingness to rape women in normal collage males. (Censorship, 1985)The obvious question to ask is, if violent programming has such negative affects, why does it continue to flood the airways? One factor, of course, is making money. During the 1980’s television was deregulated and toy manufactures jumped at the opportunity to create violent cartoons that advertised their toys. From 1983 to 1986 war toy sales increased by 600 percent. Violence sells and it is universally understood so producers will keep producing violent programs for both children and adults. (Media/ Society, 1997) Fiske sheds a different light on the reason for the popularity of violence than the common belief that we like to see violence because we, as humans, are naturally aggressive. He says that violence is popular because of its metaphorical connection to class or social conflict. In the United States violence on television is more frequent and the gap between the social classes is bigger than in countries such as Britain where welfare and taxation systems mitigate some of the social and class differences. Fiske is not blaming social systems for the violence on TV, but he points out that it is popular because its relevance to people that live where resources are not evenly distributed. Violence is a representation of social domination and subordinatio...
