Martin Barker

Julian Petley

The influence of the media is a contentious issue. Every time a particularly high-profile crime of violence is committed, there are those who blame the effects of the media. The familiar culprits of cinema, television, video and rock music, have now been joined, particularly in the wake of the massacre at Columbine High, by the Internet and the World Wide Web. Yet, any real evidence that the media do actually have such negative effects remains as elusive as ever and, consequently, the debate about effects frequently ends up as being little more than strident and rhetorical appeals to common sense. This text argues that the question of media influence needs to be debated by those with a clearer understanding of how audiences and media interact with one another. Analyzing the failure of the effects approach to understand both the modern media and their audiences, this new edition examines the influence of the effects tradition in America, the United Kingdom, Australia and Europe as well as the role of the British Board of Film Classification.

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