Page 105 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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

ColuMBine
The teenagers who shot and killed their classmates at Columbine High School in 1999 were
alienated youths in long, black trench coats. Though they did not sport the make-up, jew-
elry, and other dark markers of the Goth subculture, the boys were widely identified as
Goths, and a national hysteria about the dangers of youth culture ensued. Goth influences
range from horror films to Romanticism and Gothic literature, and Goths express their
loneliness and feelings of alienation through their theatrical, vampire-like appearance and
their taste for dark music. In the wake of Columbine, adults were quick to blame musicians
like Satanist Marilyn Manson for his corrupting influence on Goths. Less attention was paid
to the important sociological conditions that cause nonconformist youth (those with no
interest in sports and unusual tastes in music, clothes, or books) to feel lonely and alienated
in the first place. A handful of liberals observed that easy access to guns obviously enabled
the Columbine killers, but most irate adults felt that media—which was assumed to turn
kids into Goths—was the more pressing problem. One Republican cited in Time magazine
went so far as to say that our country needed “Goth control” not “gun control.”

to children each week. The rationale for imposing such obligations on broadcast-
ers is twofold: (1) Children are a vulnerable minority audience, and broadcasters
have an obligation to provide something of value to this vulnerable audience
rather than simply manipulating it. (2) The broadcast spectrum (the air through
which broadcast signals are sent) is, in principle, owned by the public, and broad-
casters are legally obliged “to serve the public interest, convenience, and neces-
sity.” Free market proponents argue that the Nielsen ratings are a sufficient gauge
of which programs serve the public, and that government has no place interfer-
ing with broadcasters’ business practices. Those favoring regulation, conversely,
argue that children’s special needs cannot be assumed to be met by whatever
program is able to garner the highest rates for candy and toy ads; excessive com-
mercialism, from this perspective, has a very negative effect on children.

assumPTions anD misunDErsTanDings unDErPinning
aDuLT aTTaCks on ChiLDrEn’s mEDia

Adult-led attacks on media consumed by children have shifted their focus
over time, but certain elements seem to recur, underpinning the activities of
anxious adults. First, adults have tended to exaggerate the vulnerability of chil-
dren while, conversely, imagining themselves mysteriously immune to being
negatively affected by media. Second, adults have assumed that children are
naturally innocent and pure, and are only corrupted when introduced to mass
media. That children might be naturally greedy, violent, or sexually curious is
rarely considered because such an idea would conflict with very strong cul-
tural assumptions (which only emerged in the Victorian era) that children were
inherently good and pure. Third, media have become scapegoats. If a child is
excessively hostile, it is easier to blame television or video games than to look