Pictures of Violence

The essays in Pictures of Violence focus on the social influence and functions of crime and violence on TV.  Lajos Császi’s article provides a general theoretical exploration of TV violence from historical, sociological, and cultural perspectives.  Császi claims that genres of popular culture, such as the crime story, play an important role in modern society’s reproduction of its normative system and promotion of social integration.  Crime stories serve as moral tales and purification rituals at the same time.  The contents of these stories – the transgression of norms and its subsequent punishment – illuminate conflicts within the moral order of society.
The following two essays expand on different facets of the problems discussed by Császi.  Stuart Hall’s paper asserts that it is necessary to broaden the scope of earlier ideological discourses on violence.  Studies should focus not only on what effects TV violence has on the audience, but also on what is represented by violence, and who reacts to it negatively and why.  John Sumser interprets the media as a stage on which the dramas of social life are presented through stylized forms of popular culture such as the crime story.  At the end of his study, Sumser offers an annotated bibliography for further readings on the sociological problems concerning the media and popular culture.