Stop glorifying violence

Freedom of media is extremely important and should be zealously guarded, but at the same time responsibility should co-exist with freedom, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj ji

One of the notable changes in our social environment in the 20th and 21st century has been the saturation of our culture and daily lives by the mass media. In this new environment — radio, television, movies, videos, video games, cell phones, and computer networks, have assumed central roles in our children’s daily lives. For better or worse, the mass media is having an enormous impact on our children’s values, beliefs, and behaviours. Unfortunately, the consequences of the electronic mass media have a particularly detrimental effect on children’s well being. Research evidence, accumulated over the past half-century shows exposure to violence on television, movies, and most recently in video games increases the risk of violent behaviour on the viewer’s part, just as growing up in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behaviour. Correspondingly, the recent increase in the use of mobile phones, text messaging, e-mail, and chat rooms by our youth have opened new venues for social interaction in which aggression can occur and youth can be very easily victimised. These globe-spanning electronic communication media have not really introduced new psychological threats to our children but they have made it much harder to protect youth from the threats, and have exposed many more of them to threats that only a few might have experienced before. It is now not just kids in bad neighborhoods or with “bad” friends who are likely to be exposed to harmful elements when they go out on the street. A “virtual” shoddy street is easily available to most young individuals now.

Off late, it has become a common practice to link media for any inexplicable act of violence that are faced by the society. Like in a recent court hearing of an incident where a teenager who was kidnapped and murdered his own sister,  influenced by a crime television show. The honourable judge suggested that exposure to violent content on television might provide a partial explanation for the crime. Similarly, in the aftermath of a barbaric terrorist attack on a school bus, many reporters did it again, suggesting that the killers took their inspiration from a recently released movie. However, when we examine the nature of the evidence linking crime and media in these cases, the argument begins to unravel, which begs the question that what is at stake in blaming the media? Frankly speaking most of the people who pass such comments often have limited knowledge either of the

individual cases or of the huge body of research that goes into it, yet rumour and opinion quickly take on the status of ‘truth’ and ‘authority’. However, this does not mean that watching violent material on any visual medium does not effect the human mind. No, the effects may differ from person to person, but one cannot completely rule out that violent depiction of crime and violence which rather celebrated in some.

There are several well-researched reports which document the impact of cinema and television violence on real life tragedies. While freedom of media is extremely important and should be zealously guarded, at the same time responsibility should co-exist with freedom. Steps should therefore be taken to ensure that at least the obviously harmful depiction of violence and crime on television or cinema is checked.

Parents too should try not to expose children of a tender age to violent programmes, or even those seemingly harmless ones which if imitated can lead to accidents. While parental supervision and film certification rules help shield children to a large extent from objection-

able content on television and in films, but the internet, by its very nature, is beyond regulation and therefore, there is no way to check the free availability of such harmful content.

If we continue to turn a blind eye to this malaise, soon a time will come when even those of us who consider themselves immune to such acts of violence will become one of its victims.