Page 102 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Ch ldren and Effects: From Sesame Street to Columb ne | 1

the teleVision ratings systeM
A voluntary ratings system for television was established in 1997, and all programs except for
news and sports are now rated Y (suitable for children aged 2 to 6), Y7 (may not be suitable
for children under 7), G (suitable for general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested),
14 (may not be suitable for children under 14), or MA (suitable for mature audiences). There
are also specific content indicators. Y7 shows, for example, are frequently labeled FV for
“fantasy violence”; the label is considered less strong than the plain V given to programs
for older viewers. Other content labels include: S (sexual situations), L (coarse language), or
D (suggestive dialogue). Studies have shown, though, that many parents are unfamiliar with
the ratings and that very few use their V-chips.

Anxieties about the possible effects of media on children spring in large part
from the adult desire to uphold a sacred ideal of childhood innocence. Adults
fear that media may have a wide range of effects on children, making them vio-
lent or sexually active, for example, or inculcating them with racist, sexist, or
homophobic prejudices. Of course, what is “negative” depends on the point of
view of the adult. Traditionalist parents, such as members of conservative reli-
gious groups, are likely to want their children to consume very different media
than that which would be favored by more liberal parents.
Unlike many concerned parents, most producers of media see children not
as endangered innocents but as savvy consumers capable of making their own
decisions about media consumption. If, from the point of view of video game,
TV, movie, and comic book producers, media are to be censored by anyone, it is
clearly parents who should be in the driver’s seat, not the government.
Activists tend to disagree, feeling that government should take a more ac-
tive role in regulating children’s media. However, activists vary widely in their
definitions of what is dangerous. Liberals like Action for Children’s Television
focused on eliminating excessive commercialism. Conservative groups like, in
the 1980s, the born-again Christian group the Moral Majority, and, more re-
cently, the evangelicals of Focus on the Family, have focused almost exclusively
on advocating the censorship of sexuality.

hisToriCaL ovErviEw
Perhaps the most famous opponent of putatively dangerous children’s media
was Anthony Comstock, a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century moral
reformer who was particularly concerned about dime novels—cheap storybooks
for working-class kids that emphasized criminal adventures. In the 1930s, the
social-scientific Payne Fund Studies also addressed the issue of the teaching of
crime to minors. One of the most widely publicized of the studies examined the
film-going habits of juvenile delinquents. Not surprisingly, when asked if they
had turned to crime because of gangster films, many boys were eager to oblige
the researchers and say yes. The girls studied were runaways, many of whom had