Majority Statement

• Daniel K. Inouye

  Senator
  Read statement

  Majority Statement

  Daniel K. Inouye

  Television plays a formidable role in our lives. In the average American household, the television is on more than 8 hours a day. American children watch 28 hours of television programming each week. By the time most children begin the first grade, they will have spent what amounts to three school years in front of the television set. 

   

  Television programming can be a tool for enlightenment, education, and discovery. But television programming also can impart more troubling lessons. Too often, for children, these lessons are violent ones. 

   

  Based on decades of research, authorities such as the Surgeon General, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that viewing television violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behavior in children. More troubling, still, is that despite this conclusion, children today are exposed to more violence on television than ever before. In a survey of primetime programming, a recent study found that between 1998 and 2006, depictions of violence increased by 45 percent in the 8 p.m. “Family Hour.”

   

  Television is a powerful medium, and those who control its programming have powerful responsibilities. Given the problem of television violence and the harm that can come from children viewing this violence, I hope we can encourage parents, industry, and government to act together to lessen children’s exposure to television violence.   

   

  I would like to thank Senator Rockefeller for his leadership on this issue. I look forward to the testimony from today’s witnesses.

• John D. Rockefeller, IV

  Senator
  Read statement

  Majority Statement

  John D. Rockefeller, IV

  Senator Inouye has asked me to open this morning’s hearing on the Impact of Media Violence on Children.  I am pleased to welcome our witnesses today.  I know many of you have traveled from across the country to be here today. 

   

  Before I start, I would especially like to welcome Chairman Martin, who continues to show strong leadership and courage on addressing violent programming.  After years of this issue languishing at the FCC, I am pleased that the Chairman has moved to find solutions to this vexing problem.  I know his wife, Catherine, just had their second son, William, a week ago and I want to thank him for taking the time to testify before the Committee today. 

   

  I must also recognize the work of Commissioner Copps on this issue.  Unfortunately, Commissioner Copps could not be here today due to other pressing FCC business, but he has been a genuine leader and advocate on this issue. 

   

  The issue of protecting children from indecent, violent, and profane content is a deeply personal and important issue to me.   Last Congress, I introduced legislation to address this issue, and will do so again in the coming weeks. 

   

  After years of inadequate and ineffective voluntary efforts by the industry, we are no closer to solving the problem of indecent and violent programming for children despite claims that parents have many tools at their disposal to address unwanted programming.

   

  Children today are being subjected to an unprecedented level of violent television content.  There is no doubt it is coarsening our culture.  I fear, too, that it is weakening our society. 

   

  For too long, we have heard promises to do better, to put better tools in the hands of parents, to provide more options for families.  But none of this has yielded results.  Instead, we have the industry blaming parents for their lack of oversight of children’s television viewing.  This is cowardly.  We have a responsibility to do better, a responsibility the government must take seriously. 

   

  I hold the entertainment industry responsible.  Decades of scientific research have shown that violent television programming has a detrimental impact on the development of children.  Yet today the content industry is in a never ending race to the bottom.  It makes you wonder if there even is a bottom anymore. 

   

  I am not sure that all of my colleagues know how violent television has become.  At my request, the Parents Television Council has put together a CD with clips from broadcast and cable channels that show shocking violent images.  These images are inherently disturbing to adults so we can only imagine their impact on children. 

   

  I know some of our witnesses will go into far greater detail, but let us consider these facts

   

  • Children watch on average between two and four hours of television every day;
  • The occurrence of violence on television has increased by 75% since 1998 and has increased across the board on all five of the major broadcast networks;  
  • On average, American youth view more than 1,000 murders, rapes, and assaults each year on television.
  • Sadly, by the time our children leave elementary school, they will have seen on average 100,000 acts of violence on television

   

  When I am home, I meet with West Virginia parents and educators and they have told me that children’s behavior is becoming more aggressive and at times crude or explicit, and that they blame television for much of the problem.

   

  I have met with many representatives from the entertainment industry representing – broadcasters, cable, movies, and others.  The one thing every CEO I meet tells me is that they are personally appalled by the violent content that is on television and they personally they agree with me.  And, if they could change it they could.  But yet, I never get a reason as to why the industry will not stop showing violent content.  I think we all know the answer.  Violent content is cheap to produce and profitable.  It sells. 

   

  The entertainment industry could change what we watch on television but it chooses to sell sex and violence instead.  I reject the notion that television merely reflects our society, but rather I believe that television can and should be a positive force.  

   

  To be blunt, the big media companies have placed a greater emphasis on their corporate short term profits than on long term health and well being of our children. 

   

  Instead of addressing the problem – too much violent programming on television – the industry seeks to hide behind ineffective band aids of voluntary action and providing parents more “tools”.  Parents do not want more tools.  They want the content off the air. 

   

  It is no big secret that the industry has hoped that its latest voluntary campaign will stave off Congress from establishing common sense content and ratings regulations for television.  I know that we will hear their now familiar arguments here today.  The entertainment industry will claim that voluntary actions are sufficient and that they are only giving the public what it wants to view while giving parents all the tools necessary to block unwanted programming. 

   

  But, none of these arguments are persuasive enough to convince me to abandon a serious effort to protect children from unconscionable levels of sex and gratuitous violence, on what, remains the most pervasive inescapable means of communication in America today -- television. 

   

  We now know that the entertainment and broadcasting industry has proven itself unable and unwilling to police itself. 

   

  I fear that graphic violent programming has become so pervasive and has been shown to be so harmful, we are left with no choice but to have the government step in. 

   

  I know that Congress has been reluctant to take on the issue of violence because defining decency is difficult.  I will again reintroduce my legislation, because we must address this issue.  I understand that these are hard lines to draw, but just because they are difficult doesn’t mean that we should stand by and do nothing.  For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we have a moral obligation to tackle television violence and arm our parents with the tools to make their children safer.

   

  The real question for all of us here today is “What are we going to do about protecting our children from the pervasive and escalating level of television violence”.  Doing nothing is not an option.  

   

  * Note: As of late last night, Chairman Martin will not be able to attend today’s hearing. This statement does not reflect the change.

   

   

• Mark Pryor

  Senator
  Read statement

  Majority Statement

  Mark Pryor

  Senator Rockefeller, thank you for requesting this important hearing.

   

  Over the past decade there has been literally thousands of studies and reports on the impact of media content on children.  The vast majority of these studies  conclude that children are indeed vulnerable to the message conveyed in TV shows, movies, and games -- and that the impact can be harmful. 

   

  I agree with these studies.  I believe that television programming, music, and video games have a strong influence on children, including a child’s perception of safe and reasonable behavior.

   

  I believe that there is a compelling government interest to understand and protect children from manipulative and destructive content.

   

  And, I believe that it is good business for business to develop content that is appropriate for kids.

   

  I hope that this hearing will start debate on meaningful initiatives to protect children from harmful content.  I further hope that industry and advertisers will take proactive steps to reforming the current trends in violent and sexual content.

   

  I look forward to hearing from the witnesses on this pressing issue.

Minority Statement

• Ted Stevens

  Senator
  Read statement

  Minority Statement

  Ted Stevens

  Thank you Mr. Chairman. As a father of six and a grandfather of eleven, with more coming, and more great-grandchildren coming soon, I share your feelings about this. But I think we have to tread a lot softer than you indicate, if we can. Because the constitutional restraints that have been imposed upon us in the past will certainly be restrained upon us if we go too far in terms of trying to regulate this industry, which is so vast and so diverse. Now you can pull down movies on your computer sitting at a desk where your parents think you’re studying. You can pull down movies to an IPOD. There are so many different ways to get to movies other than broadcasting and cable today that the whole question comes down to, I think to really, the movies industry itself. Although, even there, there are portions of the industry that are making movies that are not subject to the restraints that were self-imposed on the movies industry. I think that Jack Valenti, our late friend, started a process of trying to educate Americans, and particularly parents, on how they can control what their children watch in their home. I don’t know that even that’s effective in trying to control what they watch on their IPODs or on their computer or on the various devices that are available today. Clearly the Supreme Court has laid down some guidelines in the past and I fear that if we go beyond the concept of trying to make sure that we have a rating program that works and a program that works as far as giving parents every tool they need to protect the smaller children, by the time they get to the teens, they’ve got all these devices today that give them access to actual broadcasts from outside the country. It is not something that is easily regulated and the more that we put down too harsh rules on televisions that are in their home; the more they are going to acquire the facilities, the capability, and the technology to watch what they want to watch. I think there is a little bit of education involved here, as far as parents are concerned. My attempt to restrain my children watching programs is that I just didn’t buy the television and as you know, the Mayor lived about three houses down the block and he finally stopped me and said “Stevens, why are your kids always in my front room?” He had a television. It’s a simple matter; children will go where they want to go, to watch what they want to watch. As a practical matter, what we’ve got to do is be mindful of the constitution and do our best to put down the kind of regulation that will work. I do hope that we can achieve that and I am anxious to hear, really, I heard you say that you don’t believe that this has accomplished anything. I think the program that Jack Valenti has started after our three listening sessions in the last Congress has had some effect and I am anxious to hear whether we will get to have some real, good statistics on that, but I admire you holding the hearing. I hope that we can bring about some change, but I am fearful of going too far and losing control altogether. Thank you.

Testimony

• Mr. Tim Winter

  President

  Parents Television Council
  Read statement

  Testimony

  Mr. Tim Winter

  TESTIMONY BEFORE THE

   

  UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,

   

  SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION

   

  by
  TIMOTHY F. WINTER

   

  President, Parents Television Council

   

  June 26, 2007

   

   

  Good day Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman and Senators. Thank you for inviting me to be here with you this morning to discuss this important subject. And may I begin Mr. Chairman and Mr. Vice-Chairman, by saying what a personal honor it is for me to appear before this Committee, on whose staff I had the pleasure to serve under your good friend and former colleague, Warren Magnuson.

   

  My name is Tim Winter and I am President of the Parents Television Council. With almost 1.2 million members across the United States, the PTC is a non-partisan, non-profit, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting children and families from graphic sex, violence and profanity in entertainment.

   

  Many in the Congress know of the PTC mostly as a vocal advocacy group, but the lion’s share of our effort goes into research and education. The PTC staff monitors every hour of primetime broadcast entertainment programming and a growing amount of original programming on basic cable. PTC media analysts enter into a powerful computer database every instance of sex, violence, profanity, disrespect for authority, and other program content that parents might find harmful to their children; and we make that information available free of charge on our website so that parents and families can make more informed media choices.

   

  So in the course of our work, Mr. Chairman, we at the PTC see pretty much everything. And when it comes to violence on television, the trend of what we are seeing today is not only concerning, it is frightening. In fact none of us would even be here today but for a level of media violence that approaches epidemic proportions.

   

  This past January the PTC released Dying to Entertain – our latest Special Report analyzing the volume and degree of violence on primetime television. The television season which concluded last year was the most violent that the PTC has ever recorded – averaging 4.41 instances of violence per hour during prime time, or one instance every 13½ minutes – an increase of 75% since the 1998 television season.  Over the course of a year, that means many thousands of violent depictions are broadcast over the public airwaves at times when millions of children are in the audience.

   

  Between 1998 and 2006, violence increased in every time slot, including the so-called Family Hour of 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central Time. Last year nearly half (49%) of all episodes which aired during the study period contained at least one instance of violence. 56% was person-on-person violence.  And 54% of violent scenes contained either a depiction of death or an implied death.

   

  In addition to the marked increase in the quantity of violence, we are seeing several other disturbing trends. First, the depictions of violence have become far more graphic and more realistic than ever before, thanks in part to enhanced computer graphics and special effects employed in television production today. Second, there is an alarming trend for violent scenes to include a sexual element.  Rapists, sexual predators and fetishists appear with increasing frequency on prime time programs. Third, we are now seeing the protagonist – the person the audience is supposed to identify with – as the perpetrator of the most violent acts. And lastly we are seeing more children being depicted as the victims of violence.

   

  Mr. Chairman, violence has played an important role in dramatic story-telling for thousands of years. But the state of television violence is nothing like it has ever been before. As former FCC Chairman Newt Minow recently noted, “forty years ago I said television was a vast wasteland; now it is a toxic dump.”

   

  Even TV critics who generally praise shows that “push the envelope” were aghast at how grisly the TV networks’ 2005-2006 season offerings were.  The Washington Post suggested that the season was “dominated by a new brood of a relatively new breed:  shows that are horrific on purpose, with gore as graphic and grisly as in many a monstrous movie.”  Rolling Stone said “Welcome to prime-time-network and basic-cable television, where a bumper crop of bloodthirsty police procedurals and high-concept thrillers is making for perhaps the most violent, sadistic TV season ever.”  The Associated Press said, “The body count in prime-time television these days rivals that of a war zone…[making] network TV home to an astonishing amount of blood ‘n’ guts.”

   

  We as a nation have been talking about the problem of TV violence for a long time, and the industry has been providing excuses for the same duration. The House of Representatives held hearings more than 50 years ago to explore the impact of television violence and concluded that the “television broadcast industry was a perpetrator and deliverer of violence.”  In 1972 the Surgeon General’s office conducted an overview of existing studies on television violence and concluded that it was a “contributing factor to increases in violent crime and antisocial behavior.”  That was in 1972. As I will now illustrate, the manner in which violence is depicted today has changed drastically since 1972. 

   

  We have prepared for your staff members a DVD with a sampling of scenes containing violence from recent television programs. Let me describe to you a few highlights or, more appropriately, a few low-lights:

   

  During the May 22^nd episode of NCIS that aired during the so-called "family hour" of 8 p.m. Eastern time (7 p.m. CT/MT), a drug smuggler dies when the packets in his stomach containing the drugs release deadly amounts into his system. The drug dealer, who was waiting for the delivery, and the smuggler's sister, a desperate junkie, go to the hospital and attempt to retrieve the drugs from the smuggler's body.
  
  The scene shows the dead smuggler having his midsection sliced open and his blood-soaked organs pulled out of his body. The man's digestive tract is sliced open and white powder spills over his bloodied torso. When a fight ensues, one character stabs the drug dealer with a scalpel and another character shoots the drug dealer. Then the junkie-sister is shown with her face buried in her brother's bloody intestines as she snorts heroin off his dead body. This episode was rated TV-14, with no V content descriptor indicating violence.

   

  On an episode of C.S.I. – which normally airs at 9:00 (8:00 Central and Mountain times) and is often repeated at 8:00 ET/PT – a young man is murdered inside a mental institution.  Investigators discover that the killer was one of the nurses in the mental ward and mother to one of the inmates.  It turns out that the woman had been having sex with her son for many years.  The boy became a psychotic serial rapist and was institutionalized. The woman continued to send her son love letters while he was institutionalized and eventually took a job as a nurse at the institution so that she could continue to have sex with him.  When she learned that her son was having sex with one of the male inmates, she killed her rival by smothering him with a pillow, then had her son cover up her crime by bashing the dead man’s head into the ground until it became a bloody, unrecognizable mess.  Another inmate comes along, rubs his hands in the blood, and hungrily smears it all over his face as if he wants to devour it.  The episode actually began with this horrific scene of brutality and gore – so any parent watching TV with their children who wasn’t fast enough changing the channel, would have been subjected to this disturbing content. Because this program airs before 10 p.m., as many as 2 million children are in the viewing audience on any given week, according to Nielsen.

   

  A program called The Shield began on the advertiser-supported, expanded-basic cable network FX, and now the program airs on broadcast stations nationwide in syndication. This program has featured some of the most graphic violence and – in particular – graphic sexual violence ever seen on television – including premium subscription networks like HBO.  In one episode, Vic Mackey – the series’ anti-hero, a corrupt cop – becomes enraged when he learns that Armadillo, a Mexican gang leader, burned one of his informants to death by “necklacing” him – placing tires around him so that he is immobilized, then dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire.  Vic brutally beats Armadillo, repeatedly kicking him and hitting him in the face with a heavy book as blood spatters on Vic’s shirt and face.  Vic drags Armadillo into the kitchen and turns on an electric stove burner, then pushes Armadillo’s face into the red-hot coils of the burner.  He pulls Armadillo’s head back so that TV audience can see the melting and charred flesh on his face.  When Vic’s men finally pull him off, Armadillo’s mouth is filled with blood, and Vic’s face is covered with Armadillo’s blood.   

   

  In another episode of The Shield, Police Captain David Aceveda is forced at gunpoint to perform oral sex on a gang member.  While holding the barrel of a gun to the policeman’s mouth, the gang member asks him, “You ever suck a dick like a cell bitch, cop man?  Huh?" He threatens to kill the officer if he doesn’t perform fellatio, and the officer is seen and heard gagging and whimpering in humiliation.  The gang member then gets one of his friends to take a picture of the scene as he climaxes into the policeman’s mouth.  In the following season, Captain Aceveda repeatedly acted out violent rape fantasies with a prostitute.

   

  These basic cable examples appeared on the FX basic cable network. Ryan Murphy, the creator of another FX series, Nip/Tuck, publicly stated that it might be his legacy to make possible a rear-entry sex scene on broadcast television. And Senators, if you subscribe to a cable or satellite service, you are forced to pay almost $9.00 every year to the FX network so they can produce and air this kind of material. And with tens of millions of Americans forced into the industry’s bundling scheme, FX reaps hundreds of millions of dollars each year to produce this material, and that is before they sell even one TV commercial. FCC Chairman Martin has rightfully pointed out that “if a family must continue to pay for programming even when they object to it, there is little or no incentive for programmers to respond."

   

  This Committee has heard personally from cable distributors who would like to provide their customers with an opportunity to pick and choose – and pay for – only the networks they want. But they can’t. As DISH Network CEO Charlie Ergen, and American Cable Association president Matt Polka have told you, the cable network media conglomerates won’t allow it. So we must ask: are the cable industry’s Washington insiders looking out for consumers and families, or are they protecting a business model that not only forces unwanted content into tens of millions of homes, but also makes them pay for it?

  As troubling as those content examples are, Mr. Chairman, I am equally disgusted by the seeming contempt the industry has for anyone who would suggest reasonable self-restraint. Last month the CEO of Time-Warner hypocritically warned parents: "visit the Holocaust museum in Washington and you'll see what happens when government gets control of the message.”  Yet no one is arguing that government should do any such thing.  Are we to believe that the entertainment industry views the overwhelming concern of millions of parents and families with that level of disdain?  If so, how can we believe anything they say about wanting to help parents protect children?

  Every time the public – and our public servants – call for more responsible behavior, the industry refuses to have a meaningful dialog or offer real solutions. Rather than coming before you to address the negative impact their products have on children, they turn the conversation into a Constitutional lecture and hire a legendary scholar to speak for them. Rather than acknowledging the scientific evidence manifested in over a thousand medical and clinical studies, they underwrite their own research and point to its differing, but uncorroborated, conclusion. And rather than focusing on their statutory public interest requirements for using the public airwaves, they shift the conversation to entertainment in general and invoke the always-sobering term, “chilling effect.” Many TV executives have used this term publicly to denounce the FCC’s Janet Jackson ruling and the impact it’s had on their business. But I wonder how “chilling” things really are if, as we’ve read in TV industry trade papers, the Fox broadcast network will be airing a program this fall where an amorous monkey joins a man and woman in a sexual encounter.

   

  But I suppose the industry’s behavior should come as no surprise. Look at their track record. After the Janet Jackson incident, television executives were quick to come before the Congress to pledge zero-tolerance for indecency. Shortly thereafter they filed a federal lawsuit which would allow them to use the F-word at any time of the day, even in front of millions of children. And sadly they managed to find two judges in New York City who agreed to that preposterous abuse of the public airwaves.

   

  In a slap in the face to the Congress and to millions of outraged families, CBS will be arguing in front of the Third Circuit in September that the Super Bowl striptease was not indecent.  To add insult to injury, a few years ago CBS’ parent company signed a Consent Decree with the FCC admitting to violating broadcast decency law, agreeing to pay a fine and submitting to a detailed compliance plan to insure that indecent material would not meet its air during the times when children are most likely to be in the audience.  To this day, there is no hint that CBS has implemented the terms of this Consent Decree.

   

  Through efforts like the “TV Boss” campaign, the industry promised you hundreds of millions of dollars to educate parents on content-blocking technologies, yet all objective data shows that parents still have no constructive grasp over the TV ratings system or the technologies that are reliant upon them.

   

  And speaking of the rating system, let’s talk about parental controls for a moment. When the V-Chip was introduced the television industry denounced it as censorial heresy. That is, they denounced it until they found a way to manipulate what was supposed to be a simple and transparent prophylactic device. Instead the industry turned the V-Chip into a means for even more graphic content while using it as an excuse to violate the broadcast decency law.

   

  Our research into the television ratings system has repeatedly concluded that the industry’s application of it is arbitrary, inconsistent, capricious and self-serving. In a study we released this past April, content ratings descriptors were either inaccurate or missing 2/3^rds of the time. During the study period, not one single program on primetime broadcast television was rated TV-MA, meaning that the networks felt all of their content was appropriate for children as young as 14.

   

  Mr. Chairman, please understand that this is an industry that I love with every fiber of my being. I spent most of my career – more than 20 years – working in the media industry, the majority of which was in broadcasting and cable television. It is a wonderful business, capable of producing not only enlightening, educating and entertaining programming, but it is also a lucrative business with profit margins that most industries can only dream of. But with the ability to deliver a product directly into every home in America comes a duty to serve the public interest. As Commissioner Copps stated in this very room, the term “public interest” appears no less than 112 times in the original law that addresses the use of the public airwaves. But by my count, the terms “Nielsen Ratings” or “advertiser cost per thousand” or “earnings per share” never once appeared. I have publicly stated a number of times that “public interest” and “corporate interest” are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes the two do not see eye-to eye, and when they don’t, it is the public interest which must prevail. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, when does hurting children serve the public interest?

   

  Nobody on Capitol Hill needs help from me in reading data from a national poll, but last week we all received information that needs to be carefully considered here today. The highly respected Kaiser Family Foundation released data proving just how concerned parents are about this matter. Even though the vast majority of parents say they are closely monitoring the media behavior of their children, parents are so concerned about the harmful content that still reaches their kids that 66% favor new regulation to limit the amount of sex and violence during the early evening hours. Let me say that again: 2/3^rds of parents favor new regulation. Clearly the status quo is not working.

   

  Mr. Chairman, the entertainment industry could help if it wanted to, but it doesn’t want to. Producers should step back and reconsider their seeming urge for “one-upsmanship” in their depictions of ever-more-graphic violent content. Broadcasters could air graphic material later at night, when children are in bed. And the cable industry could allow its customers to select and pay for the cable networks they want to purchase.

  The industry knows graphic and indecent material is inappropriate for certain audiences and at certain times. They embrace rules to prevent words and actions from being used in their workplace which could be sexually harassing. In fact the content samples above could constitute grounds for dismissal of a network employee if he/she acted in such a way to a coworker. And the industry regularly incorporates into employment agreements what is called a Morals Clause, allowing them to fire an employee or an artist for broadly-defined behavior. Yet they somehow justify delivering material like I’ve just described into living rooms around the country.

  When it comes to behaving responsibly, sadly the industry is the model of inertia. Only when forced by the public through you is there every any positive movement undertaken by the industry.

  Mr. Chairman, I know in my heart that the industry is capable of solving this issue if they truly wanted to. The people I worked with during my twenty-plus years in the industry are brilliant and creative. In fact the industry did implement solutions for decades in the past. But the question is: will they help to solve this issue today? If the National Rifle Association can help the Congress pass consensus gun control legislation, then I believe Hollywood can help the Congress deal with this issue. Moreover, it must.

  Representing more than a million concerned families, we stand ready to work with you to forge real solutions to these problems. I hope the industry will step up and join us.

   

  Thank you.

• Mr. Peter Liguori

  President of Entertainment

  Fox Broadcasting Company
  Download Testimony (17.88 KB)

• Dr. Dale Kunkel

  Professor, Department of Communication

  University of Arizona
  Download Testimony (38.50 KB)

• Mr. Jeff J. McIntyre

  Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer, Public Policy Office

  American Psychological Association
  Read statement

  Testimony

  Mr. Jeff J. McIntyre

  Testimony

  Of

  Jeff J. McIntyre

   

  On behalf of the

  American Psychological Association

   

  Before the

  United States Senate

  Committee on the Commerce, Science, and

  Transportation

   

  On

  The Impact of Media Violence

  On Children

   

   

  The Honorable Daniel Inouye, Chairman

  June 26, 2007

   

   

   

   

                                     

  
  

  Good morning. I am Jeff McIntyre, and I am honored to be here today to represent the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA is the largest organization representing psychology and has over 148,000 members and affiliates working to advance psychology as a science, a profession, and as a means of promoting health, education, and human welfare.
  
  My years of policy experience related to children and the media include serving as a negotiator for the development of a television ratings system, as an advisor to the Federal Communications Commission’s V-Chip Task Force, and as a current member of the Oversight Monitoring Board for the television ratings system. I also co-chair the Children’s Media Policy Coalition, a national coalition of public health, child advocacy, and education groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Children Now, and the National PTA.
   
  In the late 1990’s, tragic acts of violence in our schools directed our nation’s attention to the serious problem of youth violence. School shootings in Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Oregon; and Littleton, Colorado, and, more recently, in Blacksburg, Virginia, have brought about a national conversation on the origins of youth violence and what we – as parents, psychologists, and public policymakers – can do to prevent more incidents of violence.
   
  Years of psychological research on violence prevention and child development has helped inform, and continue to address, this urgent need. While the foundations of acts of violence are complex and variable, certain risk factors have been established in the psychological literature. Among the factors that place youth at risk for committing an act of violence are exposure to acts of violence.  This includes, but is not limited to, those in the media.
  
  Foremost, the conclusions drawn on the basis of more than 30 years of research contributed by APA members – as highlighted in the U.S. Surgeon General’s report in 1972, the National Institute of Mental Health’s report in 1982, and the three-year National Television Violence Study in the 1990’s – shows that repeated exposure to violence in the mass media places children at risk for:

  • increases in aggression;
  • desensitization to acts of violence;
  • and unrealistic increases in fear of becoming a victim of violence, which results in the development of other negative characteristics, such as mistrust of others.

  This research provided the foundation upon which representatives of the public health community – comprised of the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association - issued a landmark consensus statement in 2000 regarding the state-of the-science on the effects of media violence on children.
  
  Certain psychological facts are well established in this debate. As APA member Dr. Rowell Huesmann of the University of Michigan stated before the Senate Commerce Committee - just as every cigarette you smoke increases the chances that, someday, you will get cancer, every exposure to violence increases the chances that, some day, a child will behave more violently than he or she otherwise would.
  
  Hundreds of studies have confirmed that exposing our children to a steady diet of violence makes them more violence prone. The psychological processes here are not mysterious. Children learn by observing others. Mass media and the advertising world provide a very attractive window for these observations.
  
  Excellent children’s pro-social programming (such as Sesame Street) and pro-social marketing (such as that around helmets for skateboarding) is to be commended and supported. Psychological research shows that what is responsible for the effectiveness of good children’s programming and pro-social marketing is that children learn from their media environment. If children can learn positive behaviors this way, they can learn harmful ones as well.
  
  As I mentioned before this committee last year, the ratings system merits attention in this discussion. There continues to be concern arising from the ambiguity in the implementation of the current ratings system. The ratings system can be undermined by the marketing efforts of the very groups responsible for its implementation and effectiveness (e.g., marketing adult-rated programs to children). This displays a significant lack of accountability and should be considered when proposals for industry self-regulation are discussed.  At the very least, the industry is failing to actively promote its rating system, except in response to possible government oversight.

   

  Where the vast amount of scientific data and agreement in the public health community is - regarding children’s health - is that exposure to violence in the media is a significant concern and risk factor for individual children’s health.  There is also a growing body of research on the health impact of sexualized images – on young girls specifically – as detailed in the recent APA Task Force Report on the Sexualization of Girls. 

   

  In terms of the recent Circuit court ruling, it's important to mention that there is very little scientific evidence that documents the effects of "fleeting expletives" on children.  This is not to say that it is not a concern - as many parents groups will point out.  However, in these instances, if the intent of regulating speech is concerned with the exposure of children - to reference the original Pacifica case - then that concern is about the harm that is done to children.

   

  If harm or risk to children is the concern, then we must establish a standard upon which all children may benefit equally.  That foundation should be a health based standard, based on decades of child psychology and research on child development. 

   

  We know exposure to violence is a risk factor for committing later acts of violence.  The more a child is exposed to violence - in the schools, in the family, in the media - the more prone they are to committing acts of violence later in life.

  In conclusion, a detailed, content-based ratings system is a vital step towards giving parents the information they need to make choices about their children's media habits. Decades of psychological research bear witness to the potential harmful effects for our children and our nation if these practices continue.
  
  Chairman Inouye and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to present this testimony today.  Please regard me and the American Psychological Association as a resource to the committee in your deliberations on this important matter.

   

   

   

• Mr. Laurence H. Tribe

  Carl M. Loeb University Professor

  Harvard Law School
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