mass-communication-theory

Chapter 7 Moving Beyond Limited Effects: Focus on Functionalism and Children 191
between social researchers who had confidence in that perspective and those skeptical
of its conclusions despite the consistency of its empirical findings. Strong advocates
of limited-effects notions were accused of being paid lackeys of the media
industries, and overzealous critics of television were accused of failing to take a scientific
approach, of oversimplifying complex problems and ignoring alternative
causes.
The argument about the media’s role in fomenting social instability and instigating
violence reached a peak in the late 1960s. After disruptive riots in the Los
Angeles suburb of Watts and in the cities of Cleveland, Newark, and Detroit, President
Lyndon Johnson established two national commissions, the Kerner Commission
in 1967 and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of
Violence in 1968. They offered some serious criticisms of media and recommended
a variety of changes in both news reporting and entertainment content. Writing in
the preface to the 1968 commission’s staff report, Violence and the Media, editor
Paul Briand asked, “If, as the media claim, no objective correlation exists between
media portrayals of violence and violent behavior—if, in other words, the one has
no impact upon the other—then how can the media claim an impact in product
selection and consumption, as they obviously affect the viewers’ commercial attitudes
and behavior? Can they do one and not the other?” (Baker and Ball, 1969,
vii). This question reflected growing public and elite skepticism concerning limitedeffects
assertions.
The federal government itself tried to locate new answers to this problem by
establishing the Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television
and Social Behavior in 1969. Its purpose was to commission a broad range of
research on television effects that might determine whether television could be an
important influence on children’s behavior.
What did this collection of scientists conclude after two years and a million
dollars of study? The surgeon general, Jesse L. Steinfeld, reported to a U.S. Senate
subcommittee:
While the … report is carefully phrased and qualified in language acceptable to social
scientists, it is clear to me that the causal relationship between televised violence and
antisocial behavior is sufficient to warrant appropriate and immediate remedial action.
The data on social phenomena such as television and violence and/or aggressive behavior
will never be clear enough for all social scientists to agree on the formulation of a
succinct statement of causality. But there comes a time when the data are sufficient to
justify action. That time has come. (U.S. Congress, 1972, p. 26)
Nevertheless, this report did little to end the controversy over television’s
effects. Industry officials and lobbyists worked hard to block development and implementation
of new Federal Communications Commission regulations for children’s
programming. They cited inconclusive research and restated limited-effects
arguments. The primary opposition to the industry was Action for Children’s Television
(ACT)—a Boston-based group that grew rapidly during the 1970s in response
to increasing public fears about television effects. Eventually the industry
agreed to a self-imposed family viewing hour in which violent content was ostensibly
minimized, and at the time, all three networks tightened their programming
standards and worked closely with program producers to limit gratuitous violence.
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