Author: Tom Pigeon (---.earthlink.n)
Date: 08-10-2001 19:13
Good article. I applaud you for your personal honesty and I think you have raised in interesting point about the usefullness of RPGs.
I hate to disagree with anything in the article, but I have to disagree over the state of affairs as you make them out. You say:
"Nowadays, we have a lot more honesty in our media, and there's a lot more of it out there as well. We realize there's a problem, so there's a lot more talk about where it comes from, the damage it does."
The media is not as honest as you think.
Life does seem more violent in America these days, and the school shootings are very alarming. However, let's keep some perspective here. Life isn't as bleak as it may seem.
Unfortunately, we all must view American life through the lens of the national media. The way the media portrays America is not the way America actually is. As spread out as the national media is, it is, for all intents and purposes, virtually one giant entity. As such, it tends to focus on a topic du jour, giving it intense scrutiny and then moving on to something else. This gives us a distorted picture of life in America.
I'm a partner at a public relations firm and I have been working in and around the media for more than 12 years. I've been involved in many campaigns designed to sway public opinion, and I watch the media with interest.
For instance, let's take violence in general. Most people seem to think that America is at it's most violent now. The news is certainly full of violence.
However, from 1975 to 1980 was actually America's most violent period. Murders were at a peak during that time, much higher than the 1960s. In the 80's, violence declined. It spiked again for a few years in the early 1990s, then fell even more than before. Today, murder is at its lowest level since about 1965! (Murder is a good barometer of overall violence since it is the easiest to tabulate ... someone was either killed, or they weren't. For more on these stats, see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm)
Our perception, though, probably has nothing more to do with the fact that the news media was not as exploitative then as it is now. It wasn't entertainment then, it was news. They simply didn't play up mayhem the way they do now. Today, I make little real distinctive difference between entertainment television and news television.
Or take road rage and freeway shootings. There was a time not too long ago that we heard about this everyday. We don't hear so much anymore. Has the phenomenom died down?
Nope. In fact, it never flared up. There has been road rage as long as there have been roads. In fact, there are even writings indicating there was road rage in horse and buggy days!
Does this diminish the horror of school shootings? No, of course not. It just rankles me when I see people assuming what they see on the news is the norm. It's sometimes worthwhile to take a step back and question these assumptions, and realize things are not as bad as they seem.
|
|
