1. Though this is labeled as a debate, both George Gerbner and Todd Gitlin agree that media violence should stop. “Television violence is mainly redundant, stupid, and ugly.” (Gitlin, paragraph 7) They also agree that “the problem goes beyond violence, ratings, or any single factor, to the heart of the system. Television is driven not by the creative people who have something to tell, but by global conglomerates that have something to sell.” (Gerbner, paragraph 24).
2. Gitlin uses Japan as an example of the effects of media violence to show how the mass population was unaffected by their harsh media violence. He backs up his argument by saying that they Japan has far more vile media violence but less real world violence. Gerbner responds with saying that that was not the only influencing factor that had an impact on the results.
3. Both Gerbner and Gitlin have strong views on the V-chip. Gerbner doesn’t like the V-chip at all. He said, “The V-chip is not the solution. That technology merely protects the industry from the parents, not the other way around.” (para. 14) Gitlin doesn’t share those same views with Gerbner. He instead feels that, “any device that enables parents to redress the imbalance of power they suffer under the invasion of television is to the good.” (para. 16) Though he knows that the it will be hard to fight Hollywood in his attempts to stop the media violence and doesn’t think that the V-chip can really do that much for us.
4. According to Gerbner the excessive TV violence is just another way to cause fear and social control. He says that TV watchers think there is an increasing number of violence the more TV they watch. Gitlin says that the amount of media violence has nothing to do with the amount of actual violence and that the reason why they shouldn’t put it on air is because it’s stupid.
