----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A.J. Miceli wrote:
 
>Molly Olsen puts her finger on the *real* issues that confront television
>criticism:  lack of personal responsibility and scapegoatism, the desire
>to always have someone else to blame for our personal failings.
>
I agree. I'd just like to add that a big problem with the mass communication
research which claims there is a causal connection between TV viewing and
aggression/antisocial behavior/crime and so on, is the inability to grasp the
variable "amount of TV viewing" as an indicator of anything else than just TV
viewing. In other words, if we know that a certain child watches TV for six
hours a day, this doesn't just tell us that he/she watches TV for six hours a
day, it also tells us that the interaction between parent and child is in some
way not (lacking a better word) "normal". That the partent *allows* the child to
watch that amount of TV clearly indicates that the parent-child interaction
lacks something. TV is easy to blame because it's not a "real" problem - blaming
fiction is always a lot more safe than trying to change social problems that we
rather close our eyes to.
 
Ulf Dalquist
Ulf Dalquist                Phone:  +46 46 104266
Dept. of Sociology          Fax:    +46 46 104794
Box 114 221 00 Lund SWEDEN  E-mail: [log in to unmask]