Making Waves: Historical Aspects of Public Debates about Children and Mass Media (PDF)

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5 Making Waves: Historical Aspects of Public Debates about Children and Mass Media Chas Critcher INTRODUCTION: OFF LIMITS We have concentrated on those mass media which historically have most appealed to There is a symbiosis between childhood and children. We begin with film, which even the Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. the mass media. Both were institutionalized illiterate child could appreciate, and end with in the twentieth century, though with much computer-based technologies, which most earlier roots. Both allegedly pose dangers children in the developed world can now which must be headed off by new regulatory access. To define childhood we have followed bodies. Both help define a modernized society. Smith (2005) and taken 16 as the upper age When the two coincide, there is often unease. limit. New media forms have always had their For example, trouble has been expected in supporters, apart from commercial interests. those times and places when: children are They will appear only occasionally. Nor shall found at popular theatres or in darkened we pay much attention to the regulatory efforts cinemas; children read comics or watch tele- which often resulted from these debates. vision too avidly; children spend hours with Though varied and complex, these are not our gameboys or before computer screens. The primary concern. dangers identified have varied, but the sense of Some media have caused more adverse unease has remained constant (Drotner, 1999). comment than others. Film is not only the Examining such debates reveals how both the best-documented case, but it also rehearses new medium and childhood are relocated in the basic arguments reproduced for later the prevailing social order. forms. The next mass medium, radio, caused Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  92 THE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CHILDREN, MEDIA AND CULTURE very little concern in relation to children, Anthony Comstock objected to these mainly whilst by contrast another, comics, provoked cowboy and detective stories because they one of the largest and most international affected their readers by arousing their sexual controversies of all time. By the time we reach desires, inciting them to commit criminal acts television the usual accusations are made but and diverting their minds from hard work are more severely contested. Later reactions and thrift (West, 1988). Drotner (1999) also to computer-based media are much narrower notes campaigns against new forms of popular in scope and purchase. literature in the late nineteenth century in Each medium will be discussed in turn as Germany, France and especially Denmark, it appeared: film, radio, comics, television, with a furore over the Nick Carter crime video games, computing. Wherever possible, novels at the turn of the century. we shall refer to debates outside the English- Popular amusements other than literature speaking world. Unfortunately, studies avail- also attracted criticism. In the England of the able in English come predominantly from the 1860s, youths congregated at nightly penny USA and Britain. There is an urgent need gaffs, especially in London. These provided for more internationally comparative work on a mixture of song, comedy, magic and debates around children the media. The gaps dance. Middle-class observers disapproved of in the following account may help identify opportunities for lewd intercourse between where this need is greatest. the sexes. The dramatization of the exploits The specific interest is not merely in of highwaymen and other notorious criminals whether concern over children and the media allegedly encouraged criminal thoughts and is ‘motivated by a desire to protect children, deeds. Eventually, health and safety regu- or to control them’ (Smith, 2005: 178). We lations were invoked. Gaffs were forced to want to identify what such debates tell us close or else mutate into the emerging self- about how those involved conceptualized the regulating respectability of the music hall nature of the new medium, the nature of (Springhall, 1998), but they continued the childhood and, thus, the relationship between tradition of the collective show, portraying them. Towards the end we will consider expla- real events as well as fantasy, on which film nations of recurrent controversies over the especially would draw (Flichy, 2002). media and children. Our final concern will be The encouragement of crime, disorder and with the continuing dilemmas of censorship. sexual desires were thus criticisms of different kinds of popular culture well before the advent Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. of truly mass media. Youth were certainly at POPULAR MEDIA BEFORE FILM: risk, children not yet so. But electronic media CURTAIN RAISER would soon jeopardise their place in the social order as well. Our main concern here is with mass elec- tronic media of the twentieth century, but the arguments and complaints they would FILM: PROJECTING FEARS provoke had a history of their own. The charges to be levelled against the electronic The first major media threat to children came media of the twentieth century had already with the advent of moving pictures. The first been evident in reactions to mass literature. nickelodeons, as they were called, appeared The novel was accused of overstimulating in the USA in 1905. By 1915 the cinema was young women of nervous disposition, invited established as an internationally dominant to identify with the emotional traumas of form of popular entertainment. It expanded the heroines (Starker, 1989). In America in after the First World War, especially with the the 1870s there was a crusade against cheap introduction of sound in 1927. dime novels for consumption by popular Established opinion reacted negatively. In audiences, including children. Its leader 1907 a New York Commissioner of Police Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC DEBATES ABOUT CHILDREN AND MASS MEDIA 93 condemned the movies as a ‘pernicious, Nevertheless the requirement for regu- demoralizing and direct menace to the young’. lation, especially to protect children, was Good Housekeeping, in 1910, complained accepted and ‘would drive the development that films ‘represent real-life forms’, ‘impart of censorship and the regulation of cinema- their lessons directly though the senses’ going, both in Britain and worldwide’ (Smith, and give the child ‘first-hand experience’. 2005: 19). In came an increasingly elaborate A psychologist offered the opinion in 1916 machinery of censorship through certification: that ‘the sight of crime may force itself the British Board of Film Censorship in on the consciousness with disastrous results’ the UK, while US filmmakers themselves (Starker, 1989). voluntarily complied with the strict moral In the USA the Catholic Legion of Decency precepts of their own Hays Code. As campaigned for films to adhere to Christian early as 1914, most countries with cinemas morality. Using propaganda effectively and had introduced some form of censorship; threatening to organize boycotts of ‘immoral’ by 1930, all regulated children’s access. films, they were instrumental in forcing Unfortunately, as Smith (2005: 4) notes, ‘no the industry to undertake self-regulation, work has yet been published that considers in the form of the Hays Code. This governed the international dimension of the debate the content of American films from the late over children and film’. Essentially the same 1920s to the mid 1960s, when for the first time arguments, enquiries and remedial measures America introduced the age rating of films. appeared not only in Anglophone countries, The arguments against certification up to then such as Australia (Bertrand, 1978), Canada had been economic; in order to maximize (Dean, 1981) and New Zealand (Watson audiences, films should be suitable for all and Shuker, 1998), but across Europe and (Black, 1994, 1997). into Asia. Japan, for example, introduced British critics were more varied. Smith’s censorship regulations in 1915, with 15 as analysis indicates the importance of family the minimum age requirement to see adult- associations, schools and youth movements, certificated films. as well as churches. Since these are ‘struc- Reactions to film were shaped by the tures traditionally considered responsible for preoccupations of national elites. In Germany, socialisation’ this suggests that such concerns for example, the questions asked about cinema ‘related to unspoken issues of social control’ related to its implications for definitions of (Smith, 2005: 86). high culture and the validity of pure pleasure Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. Not all of the middle class was necessarily (Kaes, 1987; Jelkavich, 2004). Whatever the antagonistic. A common reaction was to nature of local debates, they all recognized convene a committee of investigation. The that nothing like film had ever appeared outcomes were not a foregone conclusion. before. Drotner (1999) identified its five The 1917 Cinema Commission of Enquiry set unique characteristics. One was that film was upon by the National Council of Public Morals the first medium not to have print as its in Britain largely exonerated the cinema main mode of communication, reliant initially from criticism. The Payne Fund studies in on moving pictures, with speech and music America in the 1920s also, on balance, felt later. A US magazine lamented in 1914 the that films did more good than harm (Charter, pictorial emphasis as ‘a poor exchange for the 1933), despite a misleadingly sensationalist analytical elements of logical interpretation summary (Forman, 1934). Smith (2005) which reading and listening demand’ (cited in found that of four British local enquiries into Starker (1989: 98)). film in the 1930s, two came out in favour Second, the mode of participation, unlike of film and two against it. British police reading, could not be taught and channelled. mostly approved of the cinema because it Without tuition, children would automatically helped keep mischief off the streets (Richards, be led to identify with characters and to imitate 1984). their nefarious ways. The populist Payne Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  94 THE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CHILDREN, MEDIA AND CULTURE Fund summary stressed that the audience in 1936 that parents puzzled over disturbing member changes in their children’s behaviour because radio ‘has gained an invincible hold of their loses ordinary control of his feelings, his actions, and his thoughts, he identifies himself with the plot children’ (cited in Wartella and Jennings and loses himself in the picture, he is possessed by (2000: 33)). the drama. (Forman cited in Starker (1989: 103)) But reaction was not organized. No new leaders or pressure groups emerged. The Third, it appealed particularly to children, objection was not that the detective and estimated as half the early cinema audience. other stories to which children could listen The British Home Office in 1917 noted that, would encourage them to commit crime. unlike theatre, the cinema ‘audience is less Quite the opposite: they were likely to be intelligent and educated, and includes far frightened by the dramatic features of radio. more children and young people’ (Jones, Such comparatively mild protests had some 2001: 337). Fourth, films were shown in effect in the USA, where radio broadcasters cinemas, places of specialized activity which adopted a code of ethics in 1939 (West, 1988; were commercial and unregulated. Film Starker, 1989). historians have demonstrated how the need to In studying reactions to new media, the control such places (initially through health absence of controversy is as significant as and safety, then censorship of content) often its presence. We can advance three possible preoccupied local authorities. Fifth, films reasons why radio caused less controversy purported to show real events, likely to than media forms before and after it. The first confuse the simple-minded into confusing is that children, as an audience, were not a fantasy and reality. For boys this meant primary target. They were not the significant temptation into a life of crime, for girls paying customers for a radio licence or for enticement into illicit love affairs (Black, the goods advertised in commercial breaks. 1997). Second, radio was self-censoring from the Later media would also be primarily beginning. Whether organized by commercial visual, require few formal skills of their enterprise or the state, there were clear reasons audiences, appeal to children and make little to avoid giving offence, especially as the distinction between fantasy and reality. A material was broadcast directly into people’s crucial difference was that films were shown homes. Third, radio broadcasting lacked what in public, so the location of viewing could be for many critics was the true power of other licensed and the composition of the audience Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. new media. It had no pictures. Reliant upon stipulated. But new broadcasting media would the power of the word, radio could not be send their messages directly into the home, criticized for fostering an illusion of realism directed at a family audience. New forms of or detracting from the development of proper regulation would be required. literacy. Hence, radio was and still is regarded as the least problematic medium for child audiences. RADIO: SOUNDING OFF Radio started up in the late 1920s and by the COMICS: DRAWING LESSONS mid 1930s was a common household object. Reaction to radio was low key, since, unlike Children’s literature had its origins in film or television, it was primarily an adult eighteenth-century Britain. Periodicals spread medium. Programmes for children neverthe- from middle-class boys to middle-class girls less caused concern, at least in the USA, to working-class boys and then working- where objections came from existing middle- class girls. Comic books, aimed specifically at class organizations of parents or women. children and emphasizing pictures as much as One contemporary commentator suggested words, appeared early in the twentieth century. Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC DEBATES ABOUT CHILDREN AND MASS MEDIA 95 For boys especially, stories of detectives, 7 They suggest the forms a delinquent impulse may adventure and war proved popular, with girls’ take and supply details of the technique. equivalents concentrating on the minutiae of 8 They may tip the scales toward maladjustment or boarding-school life. Sales of such comics delinquency. peaked either side of the Second World War (Drotner, 1988). But in the USA a rather For Wertham, the comics were crude, the different kind of comic had evolved, which readers gullible. Again, the pictorial element would prove extremely problematic for the was regarded as crucial. Audiences were defenders of childhood innocence. more likely to imitate actions in comics American comics grew out of the comic because they could actually see them taking strips prevalent in US newspapers in the place, with the suffering of victims all too late nineteenth century, becoming specialist graphically illustrated. Boys, for this is a supplements in the early twentieth century. highly gendered debate, were likely first to Separate comic books appeared in the USA in endorse the attitudes and second to replicate the 1930s, grew steadily in readership before the conduct to be found in these comics. As and during the Second World War and reached Barker (1984: 85) said of British opponents their widest circulation in the 1950s. Crime of comics: comics peaked in popularity between 1948 and 1950, horror comics between 1950 and their vision of what is contained in the stories, and what therefore will transfer to the minds of the 1954. Aimed at (male) teenagers and young children, is tied in with their views on the nature adults, the main subjects of comics were of children and how they are influenced. crime, cowboys, war and horror. They soon attracted criticism. Wertham, whose views on many other The objectors, led by American child social questions were highly progressive, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, had specific became obsessed with comics. His influence objections to each type of comic book. Super- was considerable. The American solution was hero stories, including Superman and Batman, increased self-regulation. The comics industry were criticized for presenting violence as introduced a six-point industry code in 1948, the optimum solution to all problems; for revised in 1954 and again in 1971. In Britain, implicit homosexuality and sadomasochism the characteristic response was legislation, (the Batman–Robin relationship especially the Children and Young Persons (Harmful open to such interpretations); for racism Publications Act) 1955, which prohibited, Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. towards outsiders; and, finally, for inviting on pain of fines and even imprisonment, readers to immerse themselves in a world of printing, selling or otherwise distributing total fantasy. Crime stories glorified crime, comics featuring violent or criminal acts encouraging its imitation, and blunted the ‘likely to corrupt its readers’. sensibilities of readers, especially in relation The comics scare occurred in at least to violence, often against women. Horror twenty countries on four continents, with comics condoned grotesque acts of violence. specific legislation in at least five: ‘the Wertham (1955: 118) summarized his eight issues were basically the same, as were basic objections to crime comics: the players, methods of handling the con- troversies and solutions’ (Lent, 1999: 25). Documented cases include: USA, Canada, 1 The comic book format is an invitation to illiteracy. Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, 2 Crime comic books create an atmosphere of cruelty France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, and deceit. 3 They create a readiness for temptation. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Brazil, 4 They stimulate unwholesome fantasies. Mexico, The Philippines, Taiwan, Korea 5 They suggest criminal or sexually abnormal ideas. and Japan. Anti-American sentiment abroad 6 They furnish the rationalization of them, which may often encouraged liberal or left organizations be ethically even more harmful than the impulse. to join in the condemnation. In Germany, Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  96 THE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CHILDREN, MEDIA AND CULTURE for example, comics were attacked on aes- habits and outlook. The study concluded thetic and ethical grounds. They invited that television influenced children’s lives readers to identify with characters and, thus, rather less than many adults supposed. Much to imitate their actions. Comics were censored depended on the child, their viewing habits under a general law about literature for and social context. Similar conclusions were juveniles in 1953 (Jovanovic and Koch, 1999). reached in American research published In France, opposition to comics was part of 3 years later (Schramm et al., 1961). an overall effort to create a new sense of Television initially provoked no pressure citizenship amongst young people following groups favouring censorship. The most tren- the ravages of war (Jobs, 2003). In virtually chant critics of television as a medium every country the 1950s was perceived to be appeared well after television’s first impact. producing the new phenomenon of juvenile Three critical texts focused on children. delinquency. In the absence of any other For Winn (2002), originally published in explanations, popular literature would do. 1977, the problem is not the content of In retrospect, the reaction to comics seems television programmes but how the nature of quite bizarre. Comics were a minority pas- television affects the development of children time, not the weekly leisure pursuit of millions and relationships with significant others. She as film was. This whole furore was not concludes that ‘the television experience is at about comics at all, ‘but about a conception best irrelevant and at worst detrimental to chil- of society, children and Britain’ (Barker, dren’s needs’ (Winn, 2002: 12). To develop 1984: 6) or equivalent nationhood elsewhere. properly, children need to discover their own The febrile atmosphere of the 1950s – with the abilities, acquire communication skills, relate Cold War threatening violence from without to others in the family, enjoy fantasy and and juvenile delinquency threatening violence experience intellectual stimulation. By con- from within – may have contributed to the trast, television induces in children passivity, tenor of the debate. Other factors also intrude; capacity for instant sensory gratification and film earlier and television later had their addictive behaviour, whilst decreasing levels defenders, but comics had none. The power of physical activity. Television is particularly of organized lobbying and propaganda against injurious to two vital activities. The first is popular culture would never again be so play. Television decreases the time for play effective. and channels it into simulating television scenarios. The second is reading. This is Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. perceived as quite different from and superior TELEVISION: BOXED IN A CORNER to the television watching which threatens to displace it. Above all, television is destructive Mass-produced television sets first appeared of family life: its times, rituals, common in the USA in the late 1940s and by the end activities and shared experiences. of the 1950s were common household items Postman (1994), first published in 1982, in industrialized democracies. Immediately, opposes television because it destroys child- familiar charges were levelled against tele- hood, one of the great historical accom- vision, including ‘over stimulation, creation plishments of the late nineteenth and early of aggressive and destructive tendencies, pas- twentieth centuries. Childhood, a period for sivity, eye damage, anxiety and nightmares’ learning the skills and abilities necessary in (Starker, 1989: 132). In Britain, a major study the adult world, had been institutionalized (Himmelweit et al., 1958) investigated and by print culture and mass schooling. This is rebutted criticisms of television’s effects on now under threat. Television, as essentially a children: that it caused aggression; displaced pictorial medium, is inferior to the process and more worthy activities, especially reading; habits of mind stimulated by language. The stopped children going out and meeting their picture ‘does not put forward a proposition, friends, and made children more passive in it implies no opposite or negation of itself, Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC DEBATES ABOUT CHILDREN AND MASS MEDIA 97 there are no rules of evidence or logic to which violence in real life. Some writers are explicit it must conform’ (Postman, 1994: 72–73). about their view: Television is seen to undermine childhood because it needs no tuition to appreciate that violence, as it is dramatized on-screen in it, demands little from its watchers and all its forms, affects our children and conditions them to be more violent than they would naturally recognizes no barriers between children and become without being exposed to it. (Grossman adults. and Degaetano, 1999: 10) Kline’s (1993) critique comes later, reflect- ing the progressive deregulation of American This debate has sidetracked media studies television in the 1980s. Kline focuses on for decades. Summaries are available else- the appropriation of children’s television as where (Barker and Petley, 1997). Two basic a marketing tool. The inherited forms of points are relevant to the current discussion. children’s culture (toys, children’s literature, First is the problem of the media text. Given ‘traditional’ cartoons) are converted into a a consistent definition, the presence of a comprehensive marketing strategy in which ‘violent’ act may be easy to detect; but what it programmes, videos, characters and games means is less obvious, especially if interpreted become indistinguishable. Lacking adult dis- or shown out of context. This is essentially cernment, children are powerless against a the problem of genre, cartoon violence being mass-marketing machine. Children’s televi- the obvious example. The second problem sion consists mainly of formulaic fantasies, is that of response. Children are regarded as especially animations, which will attract child impressionable: still learning and developing, viewers. Equally poor in quality are TV tie- they model their own conduct on that shown ins, toys and games. All this is argued to to them on screen. Yet this process is impoverish children’s play, as being a: assumed, or more properly inferred, from their behaviour. There is no interest in how such cause for concern for those people who still believe material is decoded. Other problems with the that the quality and content of the stories told violence debate include the peculiarities of the to young children and the way that they play are excessive violence on American television, important for their socialisation. (Kline, 1993: 232) the dubious status of experimental evidence and the apparent lack of interest in other more Different in other ways, these critiques obvious and substantiated causes of violence share three increasingly familiar assump- in social conditions. Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. tions. The first is a sense of the past as Such reservations do not prevent controver- being somehow better for children, because sies such as that in Britain and Australasia, television did not exist (Winn), childhood though not the USA, over ‘video nasties’. was an unambiguous status (Postman) or In two episodes in the early 1980s and corporations had not penetrated children’s 1990s, horror movies were alleged to be television (Kline). The second is a belief that, reaching child audiences because they could left to themselves, children spontaneously be watched in the unregulated space of generate innocent play which television or home when hired from unscrupulous retailers. its corporate masters seek to undermine. The Twice the British Parliament saw the need third is that words are better than pictures, to legislate, the first time introducing and reading better than viewing. It is difficult to the second time tightening legislation to avoid the impression that, for these and many certificate videos on ever more stringent other media critics, they would really prefer grounds. Australia and New Zealand followed children to eschew all media and sit down to suit (Critcher, 2003). read a good book. In the USA, acceptance of the media’s These arguments have, however, been effects on children became political ortho- dwarfed in importance by the one dominant doxy. The preamble to the 1996 Communi- accusation, that violence on television begets cations Decency Act stated that such a link Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  98 THE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CHILDREN, MEDIA AND CULTURE had been proven, for both violence and sex. game regulation has been identified as a The outcome was the V-chip amendment, problem world-wide’ (Watson and Shuker, requiring all new standard television sets to 1998: 163). The US Video Game Violence be fitted with a filtering device which could Act (1993) pressurized manufacturers to label be activated to block identified programmes. each product with suitability rating stickers Broadcasters would rate each programme so (Jones, 2001), but few parents seem aware that adult material would not reach children of the system (Subrahmanyam et al., 2000: (Price, 1998). 123). Such concerns were reinforced by the Two assumptions dominate: that children Columbine High School shootings in 1999, are directly affected by violent and sex- when it was alleged that the perpetrators were ual materials on television and that the obsessed with the violent computer game responsibility for monitoring their access lies Doom. It seems that ‘the amount of aggression ultimately with parents. The very notion of and violence has increased with each new effect is a problem here, as if the child generation of games’ (Subrahmanyam et al., exists outside of television to be suddenly 2000: 123). In 2003 the video game Grand changed by encountering this alien medium. Theft Auto III caused controversy, with its The violence debate perpetuates a view of apparent endorsement of attacking police the normal, healthy child who is led astray officers and of sex with prostitutes. by media images. This was the assumption By the turn of the century such games were made by early critics of film. Almost 100 years an international multi-million dollar indus- later, it is still present in the arguments about try whose revenues exceeded Hollywood’s television violence. (Buckingham, 2000). The basic fear remained that innocent children might be corrupted by exposure to their violence, while the already VIDEO AND COMPUTER GAMES: corrupt might be tempted to play out in real SCREEN SAVERS life the simulated actions on the screen. For some, the interactivity of the medium made Video games emerged in the late 1970s, this even more likely: initially as coin-operated machines such as Space Invaders in specialist arcades and whereas before the children were just ‘passive receivers’ of screen violence, with video games they amusement parks. The early version of the push the button, click the mouse, and pull the table tennis game PONG transferred to trigger to initiate the carnage and killing. (Grossman Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. television. Specialist consoles were produced and Degaetano, 1999: 3) from 1982 onwards. Some concerns were expressed, mainly in the USA, about the Other less polemical researchers argued addictive nature of the games and the that since these games are mostly violent sleazy environ of the arcade (Haddon, 1993). and aggressive and given that we ‘know’ Concern heightened when the early shooting media violence elsewhere causes aggression, games acquired narrative content and then then we must assume that to be true of transferred from arcades to consoles and on computer games as well (Subrahmanyam to microcomputers. et al., 2001). Research findings on this issue Video games prompted familiar accusa- are typically confused. Those claiming to have tions about the physical effects of extended found negative effects (Anderson, 2004) are periods of play, the moral debilitation from countered by those who find none (Bensley aggressive fantasy, the severe sexual stereo- and van Eenwyk, 2001), whilst yet others typing endorsed by the games, the displace- claim positive effects (Durkin and Barker, ment of other more worthwhile activities and 2000). possible thefts by addicts to support their The wider debate reworks familiar themes, ‘habit’ (Watson and Shuker, 1998). The need such as the vulnerability of youth to the to act was not confined to the USA: ‘video debilitating effects of a new medium and Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC DEBATES ABOUT CHILDREN AND MASS MEDIA 99 the consequent threat of imitative deviant It has been argued that children’s likeli- behaviour. Effects are not proven, but are hood of exposure to internet pornography assumed. The text (here, the absurd and has been so wildly exaggerated that it cartoon style violence) is interpreted literally constitutes a moral panic (Sutter, 2000) for its inherent moral message (Watson or ‘cyberpanic’ (Sandywell, 2006). Concern and Shuker, 1998) or inserted into inappro- may have been too sporadic to justify priate typologies of ‘degrees’ of violence these terms. More obvious is a general (Buckingham, 2000). The adult observers, not recognition that ‘the “interactivity” that is the young players, mistake the virtual for the the hallmark of children’s use of new media real world. enables both greatly enriched learning as well as increased risk of harm’ (Wartella and Jennings, 2000: 39). HOME COMPUTERS: TIGHTENING This latest medium has its dangers for THE NET children, but the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. In a world of digital media, Games addiction apart, the personal computer, new technologies are no longer regarded with with its access to the internet and World Wide suspicion. Gadgets of every kind proliferate, Web, was seen to pose less of a threat to with children as their most enthusiastic users. children. The interactive nature of computer Adults are not far behind, credit card in technology and its obvious advantages for hand. There are intermittently concerns about education excused it from accusations of software, but the hardware is a normal not inducing passivity and illiteracy which had an alien presence. Children are comfortable dogged previous technologies (Buckingham, in their relationship with new media. Adults’ 2000). It was nevertheless suggested that reservations are limited. excessive use of computers might induce obe- sity, cause repetitive strain injury, encourage social isolation and detract from sports and DISCUSSION: THREE-DIMENSIONAL play activities (Shields and Berman, 2000). IMAGES More substantial concerns about computers and children concentrated largely on their Programme interruptions exposure to sexual material and to sex- ual predators via chatrooms (Wartella and The history of debates about children and Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. Jennings, 2000). the mass media reveals discontinuities and As a response, in 1996 and 1988 the US continuities. Some original worries no longer Congress passed laws making it a criminal apply. Media are no longer accused of offence to supply obscene or harmful material physically damaging children or being shown to minors, but both stalled when challenged in in venues which expose them to sexual court as inimical to the First Amendment of temptation, nor can they now be required to the American Constitution, which guarantees uphold traditional Christian morality. Possi- freedom of expression. It has not proved bilities of censorship have declined. Films viable to follow early examples of prosecu- could be certificated and comic books banned. tions of internet service providers in Germany Terrestrial television can still be regulated, and France for allowing child pornography but satellite television cannot. The content to be accessed (Jones, 2001). Instead, the of the internet is out of control. Campaigns emphasis is on providing ‘protected online about the dangers of new media have become space for children’ (Montgomery, 2000: 159). narrower, such as the need to protect children The responsibility shifts to parents to monitor, from encountering pornographic materials or with or without the help of specialist software, predatory men. Nobody could now inveigh the sites which their children can visit against the whole idea of the internet as they (Akdeniz, 1999). once did against moving pictures. Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  100 THE INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CHILDREN, MEDIA AND CULTURE Attitudes towards moral evaluation of Other writers have expressed reservations media have also changed. Significant shifts about the usefulness of the moral panic have been identified in the discourses about model (Barker, 1984; Springhall, 1998; children and media, moving from an initial Buckingham, 2000; Smith, 2005). It assumes ‘pessimist elitism and censorship’, through that concerns are irrational and driven by the ‘tacit paternalist measures’ to a ‘democratic media, that there needs to be a folk devil pluralism’ (Springhall, 1998: 156; Drotner, and that all panics conform to essentially 1999). The nature of the debates has changed. the same pattern. None of these seems As media technologies multiply and media to be true of media ‘panics’. The moral have become ever more enmeshed in chil- panic model may have been misinterpreted dren’s lives, media debates have become more (Critcher, 2003), but it remains limited. short-lived and dispersed. Panics over media An alternative is to see moral panics as are less frequent and more localized. extreme instances of a wider process of moral regulation: Panic rules practices whereby some social agents problematize some aspect of the conduct, values or culture Despite all these changes, there is a remark- of others on moral grounds and seek to impose able constancy in the cycle of reaction to many regulation upon them. (Hunt, 1999: ix) new media. Reviews agree that quite different media provoke essentially similar reactions Whereas moral panics are discrete (West, 1988; Starker, 1989; Springhall, 1998; episodes, moral regulation is a continuous Wartella and Jennings, 2000). The pattern process. Reformers have to establish the is standard. A new medium, product of a moral dimension, often through organizations new technology or a new application of an of middle-class females. In the process old one, emerges and finds a mass market. of moralization, distinctive discourses are Its content is seen as criminal or violent or generated. For children and media, one horrific. It constitutes a danger to children persistent discourse is the superiority of who cannot distinguish between reality and words over pictures. Upon examination, this fantasy. turns out to be about class-based definitions As an explanation, Gilbert develops the idea of culture. of an ‘episodic notion’. Each has four charac- teristics: it reworks the theme of the innocent Words and pictures: the writing Copyright © 2008. SAGE Publications, Limited. All rights reserved. corrupted by culture; the debate is actually on the wall about something else than it appears to be; campaigners often have ulterior motives; and From film onwards, mass media have been it is always bound up with anxieties about derided for their reliance on pictures. For the state of social order (Gilbert, 1986). Such Postman (1994), for example, print is the a pattern bears a remarkable resemblance repository of rational thought because words to the classic definition of a moral panic. enable the reader to reflect upon the ideas A ‘condition, episode, person or group of being expressed. By implication, primarily persons’ is identified as a ‘threat to societal visual media involve us too much, enticing values and interests’. It is stereotyped by other us to endorse our feelings which are, by mass media, often the press. Moral guardians definition, irrational. To forsake print, there- pronounce upon the evil. Experts concur in fore, is to give up on intellect and reason. denouncing the injurious effects. Measures Postman is, as it were, inviting us to compare are put in place. The issue goes away, returns Wittgenstein with Walt Disney, in the belief in another form or is replaced by a new that we will find it no contest. Several writers, one (Cohen, 1973: 9). This fit has prompted such as Barker (1984) and Starker (1989), Drotner (1999) to offer ‘media panic’ as a have noted how this perspective sets up a subspecies of moral panic. series of binary oppositions between literary Drotner, K., Livingstone, S., & Author (Eds.). (2008). International handbook of children, media and culture. SAGE Publications, Limited. Created from york on 2024-11-28 17:16:38.  HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC DEBATES ABOUT CHILDREN AND MASS MEDIA 101 Table 5.1 Binary oppositions between threaten established ways of understanding literary and media culture. the world. Second is the loss of cultural control Literary culture Media culture over media which intrude into the home and rational emotional communicate directly to children. Third is a abstract thought concrete situations sense of psychological vulnerability. The new analytical intuitive media are so insidious because they invite us individual response group response psychological distance psychological involvement to project our emotional selves into the story linearity/chronological time reversal or fragmentation by projection and identification. largely verbal largely visual The basic insecurity is that socializing mainly factual mainly fictional children is inherently a hazardous enterprise. It is accomplished by families and schools, despite a mass-media system which is at and media culture, which can be represented best indifferent and at worst hostile to the as shown in Table 5.1. enterprise. The media are not to be trusted if Media reliant on visual messages, from ‘upbringing is seen as the locus of character comic books to television, are perceived as formation, and childhood is defined in terms inherently inferior (Starker, 1989). A cultural of development’ (Drotner, 1999: 613). hierarchy locates print media at the top and Adult reactions to children’s media expo- visual media at the bottom (Drotner, 1999). sure are often about control. Initially the Little understanding is shown of the distinc- control they seemed to have lost and sought tive nature of each new medium or genre. to restore was control over content; hence Moral content is simply read off from the plot the regulation of film and TV. Then came or an allegedly typical scene. Films, comics, new media, characterized by interactivity, television programmes and computer games convergence and ubiquity. Adults struggled have, thus, all been interpreted reductively. to acquire media literacy that their children Preference for the literary indexes class