A new report on the influence of media violence on children was the topic of a high-profile hearing held by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on September 13. Committee Chair John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) requested the report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) following a violent shooting incident last year at a Colorado high school.
Opening the hearing, Sen. McCain commented on the FTC’s conclusions regarding the marketing practices of the motion picture, music, and video game industries. According to the report, he said, “Individual companies in each industry routinely market to children the very products that have the industries’ own parental warnings or ratings with age restrictions due to their violent content.” Sen. McCain described some practices as “patently offensive,” including a finding on “extensive marketing and, in many instances, explicit targeting of violent R-rated films to children under the age of 17, and violent PG-13 films to children under age 13.”
Sens. McCain and Lieberman expressed support for the First Amendment, calling on media industries to more strongly regulate their own content and marketing practices. “I am hopeful that these entertainment industries will respond responsibly to the FTC’s findings,” said Sen. Lieberman, adding: “Rather than helping to shoulder some of the growing burden on parents, according to the FTC, the entertainment industry too often has chosen to go behind their back, targeting the sale of violent, adult-rated products to children.” He added: “It is outrageous, and it must stop.”
Representatives from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), BMG Entertainment, the Recording Industry Association of America, and Acclaim Entertainment Inc. testified before the committee, defending their respective ratings systems and marketing techniques. Echoing the comments of other witnesses, Jack Valenti of the MPAA called on the committee to be mindful of the First Amendment. “I believe that every citizen in this free and loving land understands with great clarity that the government cannot enter where the First Amendment stands guard, for that Amendment is the guarantor of the Constitution itself.”
Sen. McCain criticized the major motion picture studios, all of whom failed to send invited representatives to the hearing. “I am announcing today that this committee will convene another full committee hearing two weeks from today for the sole purpose of the motion picture industry testimony in response to the FTC report,” he said.
Several other witnesses commented on the FTC’s findings, including Lynne Cheney, the former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Media companies “claim unbridled license…under the First Amendment,” she said, but “their persistent irresponsibility, ironically, threatens the First Amendment, as their product is so objectionable that more and more good citizens find appealing the idea that government regulation should remove entertainment industry products from the public square.” Expressing opposition to such regulation, Ms. Cheney said she is concerned because “industry is causing such outrage that regulation is seriously proposed.”
Dr. Donald Cook of the American Academy of Pediatrics told the committee, “For several decades, pediatricians have been increasingly concerned about media violence and its effects on the physical and mental health of children and adolescents.” Acknowledging that parents, health professionals, and policymakers share much of the responsibility for protecting children, he called on media companies to use their “creativity, innovation and vision” to “respond to the FTC report and stop the marketing of violence to our youth.”
