`` Videotape `` By Don Delillo : A Cynical, Social Commentary On The Overexposure Of Heinous Acts

Nate Londa's visual called “Silence the Violence” was created with the intent to effectively present the negative impact of the mass media on the youths’ psychological development. More specifically, Londa's visual makes a powerful statement against children and adolescents being exposed to the portrayal of violent acts in the mass media, e.g., television, movies, music, and video games. At first glance, the central image shows an infant being left alone to his or her own devices and being bombarded with destructive objects. Furthermore, the bareness in the background enhances the central image by not only demonstrating that the child has no one to prevent them from having access of, and exposure to violent imagery, but also the

This short story speaks not only around the content of the videotape, but also on the man that is viewing the tape; he watches the video and becomes desensitized to violence.

At first, the survivors requested that K-Mart stop selling handgun bullets, K-Mart later announced that they decided to discontinue the sales of gun ammunition altogether. For the next example, several individuals might disagree that this is not pathos but when Moore’s shares Tamarla Owens’ story. Tamarla is the mother of the six-year-old boy who shot and killed the six-year-old girl Michaela Roland in Flint, Michigan. Moore talks about how Tamarla was not home the morning of the incident because she was on her three-hour-round trip bus journey to Oakland country, to work at her two jobs at the mall, as part of the State of Michigan’s welfare program. Pathos conveyed in two ways to the audience; first, they are shocked, that how in the world did a six-year-old boy get a hold of a gun?

Walkowitz's investigation of this chapter primarily highlights the influential role of the press in the form of subjectivities and behaviors. She argues about the media coverage of these murders presented a discourse

The video was a series of one-act plays where the characters were an appellate court judge, her clerk, and her niece who is a journalist. The conversations between the three discussed the issues of confidentiality, privilege, reporting, and duty to warn in a legal context. The scenes centered on the judge and her clerk trying to resolve the legal ramifications of potentially ethical violations relating to confidentiality. To bring a real-world perspective, the judge’s niece who is a journalist stops by and engages in the conversation from a layperson mentality.

In his book, More Than a Movie: Ethics in Entertainment, F. Miguel Valenti examines nine “hot buttons” of violence – “creative elements that filmmakers use to manipulate viewers’ reactions to onscreen violence.” (99) These elements, posited by researchers conducting The National Television Violence Study (Valenti, 99) are “choice of perpetrator, choice of victim, presence of consequences, rewards and punishments, the reason for the violence, weapons, realism, use of humor, and prolonged exposure” (Valenti, 100) .

Since people are mostly only able to participate in catastrophes such as this mass shooting at a distance, news media is the primary source of information, which therefore creates the audiences’ reality of the events that occur.(Wheeler 80) With this, the mass media has the control of what people are exposed to, and the choice to amplify awareness to what they choose as important. In an interview conducted with Sarah, an undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she recalled her exposure to the news of the shooting: “The only reports I had access to, was what I saw in the news”. When asked how she thinks the media had an effect on her perception of the shooting, she stated: ”Well I believe that since the only information I was able to get was from news sources, what I saw in the news is what I believed. So I really do think the media had a strong effect since I was exposed to mainly what they chose to present to me.” With this, media messages, such as the reporting on the Las Vegas shooting, exert a strong influence on audiences and the cultivation of people’s perception. The frequent exposure to these stories of mass shootings and the use of descriptors based on race are fed to the audience and become a common knowledge. Ultimately, the promotion of racial stereotypes through the disproportionate representation of perpetrators of mass shootings influences public opinion and perception.(Lankford) With the strong effect that media has on the people, it is

In the riveting documentary Audrie & Daisy, husband and wife director team Bonnie Cohen and Jon Shenk retrace the events leading up to the harrowing sexual assaults of three teenage girls; Audrie Pott, Daisy Coleman, and Paige Parkhurst, and expose the agonizing after effects and exploitation of the assaults. Subsequent interviews with family members, friends and law enforcement officials give important details about the aftermath of the events, and introduce viewers to possibly the biggest villain of all, Sherriff Darren White of Maryville, Missouri. Throughout the documentary White appears smug when he states that “as County Sheriff, “the buck stops here” (Darren White), and when asked about the crimes committed by Maryville’s football star, he rebuts with “was there a crime?” (Darren White). As the film moves through the twists and turns of the cases, the settings, conflicts, and tragedies are enhanced by the use of montage, long and subjective shots, close-ups and personal sketches that submerge the audience into the victim’s point of view. At the conclusion of the film, the viewer is left to decide what constitutes sexual assault and rape, and if society and law enforcement are to blame for today’s ‘rape culture’ acceptance and the continued victimization of young girls. It also reveals how much can be hidden from parents, and how disconnected they can become from their children in a social media world.

Acts of violence are detrimental when regarding its effects on human emotion. When exposed to too much violence, a person’s perception on society and even themselves begins to be altered. Nevertheless, just as violence can be disadvantageous to people, it can also be seen as an advantage as it causes citizens to realize that change needs to occur. In “Great to Watch,” the author, Maggie Nelson, discusses how society, especially Americans, have become desensitized to violence. Nelson also goes into depth to explain how society has become accustomed to violence due to the fact that people are exposed to it on a daily basis. In addition, Beth Loffreda discusses and explains the effects that a violent hate crime had on the town of Laramie, Wyoming

In these cases of the Capital Hill shooting and the Atlantic rescue; I will criticize the news media industry who decided that it was appropriate to show videos of which these kid’s traumas will forever in history because they chose to reward the “heroes” with fame. These heroes will live on in fame, the kids trauma will never be left unspoken. With my own experiences in my mind, I criticize these “heroes”. True

It was the mugshot seen everywhere. The case the shook a decade and changed the way the U.S public handles the crimes of celebrities. In 1994, then America’s sweetheart Orenthal Simpson better known as O.J Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders of his estranged wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. There had never been a phenomenon like this before. It further separated an already divided nation and sparked a conversation on the obsession and idealizing of America’s elite. There have been many depictions of the crime and following court case, but only few correctly capture the essence of the race, celebrity, and power that lied at the center of the case. Ezra Edelman’s OJ: Made in America is one of the better documentaries. Edelman’s OJ: Made in America uses technical codes, specifically music and editing to explore the “Hollywood-esque” magnitude and celebrity of the OJ Simpson murder case and unbiasly connect viewers to the case.

Television has become a vital aspect of daily life, within modern society; every aspect of television exhibits, to a certain extent, a reliance on genre (Mittell, 2001). Industries rely on genre to produce programs, and audiences use genres as a means of organizing fan practices (Mittell, 2001). According to a 2006 Nelson Media Research study, ratings confirm that aside from prime time shows such as American Idol and Survivor, part-time crime drama’s have been classified as one of the most favoured genre (DeTardo-Bora, pg. 154, 2009). The relationship between the media and criminal justice system is delicate, where more often than not, crimes are portrayed in a false light (Graveline, pg. 1, 2015). These misconceptions lead to

In the riveting documentary Audrie & Daisy, husband and wife director team Bonnie Cohen and Jon Shenk retrace the events leading up to the harrowing sexual assaults of three teenaged girls; Audrie Pott, Daisy Coleman, and Paige Parkhurst, and expose the agonizing after effects and exploitation of the assaults. Subsequent interviews with family members, friends and law enforcement officials give important details about the aftermath of the events, and introduce viewers to possibly the biggest villain of all, Sherriff Darren White of Maryville, Missouri. Throughout the documentary White appears smug while he states that “as County Sheriff, “the buck stops here” (Darren White), and when asked about the crimes committed by Maryville’s football star, he rebuts with “was there a crime?” (Darren White) As the film moves through the twists and turns of the cases, the settings, conflicts, and tragedies are enhanced by the use of montage, long and subjective shots, close-ups and personal sketches that submerge the audience into the victim’s point of view. At the conclusion of the film, the viewer is left to decide what constitutes sexual assault and rape, and if society and law enforcement are to blame for the today’s ‘rape culture’ acceptance and the continued victimization of young girls. It also reveals how much can be hidden from parents, and how disconnected parents become from their children in a social media world.

Oliver Stone’s 1994 classic, Natural Born Killers, excited and traumatized its audiences while also causing controversy. The tale of white trash lovers caught up in a realm of chaos that includes a continuous murderous rampage from state to state, draws in audiences with its graphic violence and riveting pulse inducing music. Yet, the message of this film seems to be much deeper than just exposing audiences to yet another chaotic action movie filled with guns, blood and mayhem. Stone’s Natural Born Killers examines the subject of media’s investment in serial murder very thoroughly, and so it seems likely that it has the potential to offer a more rigorous interrogation of the nature of the American public’s fascination with the serial

In Don Delillo’s Underworld, the baseball is sought after as the ultimate goal and a fulfillment in life for Nick and the memorabilia collector. On the other hand, the ubiquitous use of waste throughout the novel is a motif of both the byproduct and the opportunity cost of mankind’s quests for fulfillment. Waste, whether as literal waste, wasted love, wasted lives, or objects all serve as a contrast to the value of the baseball as an object of fulfillment.