Mass Media and Violence, Vol. IX; A Staff Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
Washington DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1969. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Trade paperback. xxii, 614 pages. Tables. Footnotes. Cover has some wear and soiling. Includes Preface; Acknowledgments; Part I The Historical Perspective Chapter 1--The Printed Medium; Chapter 2--From Medium to Media; Part II: The News Media; Chapter 3--Functions and Credibility; Chapter 4--Intergroup Communication; Chapter 5--The Marketplace Myth: Access to the Mass Media; Chapter 6--Coverage of Civil Disorders; Chapter 7--Journalism Education; Chapter 8--Media Practices and Values; and Chapter 9--Conclusions and Recommendations. Also contains Appendices on How the Mass Media Work in America; Contemporary Functions of the Mass Media; Media Codes, Guidelines, and Policies for News Coverage; The Canons of Journalism; Code of Broadcast News Ethics; Broadcast Guidelines for Coverage of Civil Disorders; and Employment Date. Part III broadly addressed Television Entertainment and Violence. The National Violence Commission established task forces on assassination, group violence, individual acts of violence, law enforcement, media and violence, firearms, and violence in American history. As reported by John Herbers in the New York Times, the Chairman of the Commission, Milton Eisenhower, stated that the Task Force Report on Individual Acts of Violence was "by all odds the most important" of the reports written for the Commission. The National Violence Commission was formed only a few months after release of the final report of the Kerner Commission, which assessed the big city protests of the 1960s. In its final report in December 1969, the Violence Commission, as the Kerner Commission, concluded that the most important policy issue was lack of employment and educational opportunity in inner city neighborhoods. The Commission framed lack of inner city opportunity within a larger American economy that prized material success and within a tradition of violence that the media transmitted particularly well. The Violence Commission recommended new investments in jobs, training and education – totaling $20B per year in 1968 dollars. A long run "reordering of national priorities" was in order, said the Violence Commission, which shared the Kerner Commission’s moral vision that there could be no higher claim on the nation’s conscience. A majority of the members of the National Violence Commission, including both Republicans and Democrats, recommended confiscation of most handguns, restrictions on new handgun ownership to those who could demonstrate reasonable need, and identification of rifle and shotgun owners. "When in man's long history other great civilizations fell", concluded the Violence Commission, "it was less often from external assault than from internal decay…The greatness and durability of most civilizations has been finally determined by how they have responded to these challenges from within. Ours will be no exception." Condition: Good.
Keywords: Mass Media, Violence, Civil Disorders, Journalism, News Media, Communication, Television, Social Learning, Seymour Feshback, Richard Goranson, Print Media
[Book #81712]
Price: $60.00