For years, debates have raged among scholars, politicians, and concerned parents about the effects of media violence on viewers. Too often these debates have fallen into simplistic battles between those who claim that media images directly cause violence and those who argue that activists exaggerate the impact of media exposure. Based on interviews conducted with George Gerbner before his death in 2005, the film urges us to think about media effects in more nuanced ways. In contrast to behaviorist models that see media violence as causing real-world violence, and limited effects models that question the impact of media altogether, Gerbner encourages us to move outside the frame of this debate to consider how the repetitive stories media tell constitute a pervasive cultural environment - a landscape of ritualized, often violent images that have the power to cultivate how we see and understand the world. An accessible and provocative introduction to Gerbner's thought and the subject of media influence and media violence.
GEORGE GERBNER was one of the world's foremost authorities on the effects of media violence. After earning a Bronze Star during World War II, he turned to academe, serving as dean of the Annenberg School for Communication for 25 years, presiding over the influential Cultural Indicators Research Project, and later establishing the Cultural Environment Movement, an international organization dedicated to democratizing media.