LIEBERMAN AND BROWNBACK SEEK ‘FUNDING STREAM’ FOR MEDIA RESEARCH
Senate Governmental Reform Committee ranking Democrat Lieberman (Conn.) and Sen. Brownback (R-Kan.) are crafting legislation that they hope will lead to a “permanent stream of funding” for research into the impact of electronic media on children. The bill specifically would create a new unit at the National Institutes of Health to determine how media consumption could be detrimental -- as well as beneficial -- to childhood development, they announced Wed. at a Children’s Digital Media Center news conference at the National Press Club.
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The impact of media on children under 6 will be a priority of the research, Lieberman said. Although he said “we know conclusively that heavy consumption of media violence can have harmful developmental consequences,” a gap in research exists that needs to be addressed: “This research gap makes it hard to have an informed debate about what most researchers and children’s advocates are convinced is a serious issue, but what many media producers still contend is an unsettled question. And it makes it even harder to reach consensus on what the appropriate response should be, what parents… and what advocates and policymakers can do to help.”
Lieberman said the Internet and entertainment industries had made some progress in setting standards, were acting more responsibly and had responded by “working with us to give parents more tools to exercise more control over their children’s media diets.” He said technologies such as the V- chip and Internet filtering software had helped parents “to limit their children’s access to inappropriate or harmful materials.” Improvements in rating and label systems likewise have enabled parents to “make more informed decisions about the products they buy for their kids.”
Lieberman emphasized that censorship and legislation that would regulate content “are unacceptable responses to our concerns about media messages. It is the responsibility of parents, not the government or the entertainment industry, to decide what media children should consume.” He said that despite that parental responsibility “there are some proactive steps we can take to help empower parents and make the job of raising children today a little easier.”
Brownback said “we have a cultural environment that is polluted” and that extra effort -- and funding -- is needed to determine scientifically how media influence young minds for better or worse. He will chair a Senate Science Subcommittee hearing today (Thurs.) featuring panelists from the medical community with expertise on neurobiological research “and its use in the investigation of the impact of entertainment media on children’s health.” The hearing is 2:30 p.m., Rm. 253, Russell Bldg.
Although the Lieberman-Brownback legislation focuses on media research and doesn’t call for regulation of content, the ACLU issued a statement outside the briefing that warned of the dangers of censorship. It also expressed empathy for parents “who are concerned about the effects of media violence, no matter how unproven.”
The problem with “any regulation or ratings system” is that it’s impossible to distinguish between “good” violence and “bad” violence, the ACLU said. It questioned assumptions about the negative effects of viewing violence, which it said ignored the societal value of teaching lessons about history or called attention to societal problems: “Roots was a national television event of enormous educational value that showed the brutality of the institution of slavery. The made-for-television movie The Burning Bed was credited with bringing about reform of existing spousal-abuse laws and included what some would call disturbingly violent scenes.”