Killing Screens

Media & the Culture of Violence

PRICE REDUCTION! Duration: 46 min ISBN: 1-893521-52-4 Date Produced: 1997 Filmmaker Info Study Guide Transcript Awards Related Links Praise for the Film

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Killing Screens
Media & the Culture of Violence

Addressing specifically the question of violence and the media, The Killing Screens urges us to think about the effects of the media in new and complex ways. In contrast to the relatively simplistic behaviorist model that media violence causes real-world violence, Gerbner encourages us to think about the psychological, political, social and developmental impacts of growing up and living within a cultural environment of pervasive, ritualized violent images.

Sections: Intro | Stories of Power | Happy Violence | Accelerating Violence | Violence is a Social Relationship | The Lessons of Violence | Citizenship in the Cultural Environment | What Parents and Teachers Can Do

George Gerbner

George Gerbner (1919-2005) was dean emeritus of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania for over thirty years. In 1968 Gerbner implemented the Cultural Indicators Project, an ongoing study designed to examine television content and its effect on Americans.

Filmmaker Info

Producer: Robert Dinozzi
Editor: Sut Jhally
Director: Sut Jhally

Film Festivals

Related Links

New Television Rating System Is Extremely Flawed

Is Media Violence Free Speech?

The Man Who Counts the Killings

Reclaiming Our Cultural Mythology

Society's Storyteller: How TV Creates the Myths by which we Live

Press Reviews

Praise for the Film

"What lives in a box and commits six to eight acts of mayhem and murder per hour, witnessed by millions of people worldwide an average of six to seven hours a day? You know the answer, of course. George Gerbner, dean emeritus of the Annenberg School of Communication, offers an insightful deconstruction of TV violence and its consequences, punctuated by a montage of prime time's "expertly choreographed brutality." Gerber ends his talk with a discussion of what is needed to foster responsible citizenship in the new, perilous media environment."
- Gary Handman | American Libraries Quick Vids

"George Gerbner's scholarship is a precious national resource."
- Neil Postman | Author of Amusing Ourselves to Death