Assessing the Violence Profile Studies of Gerbner and Gross

Abstract

By defining television as an "environment of symbols," Gerbner and Gross raise questions that are congenial to and problematic for humanistic study. A difficulty arises when the "environment of symbols" must be interpreted. In their interpretation TV becomes a world "ruled" by violence. Other content factors must be interpreted in terms of this dominant symbol. More serious problems emerge when audience responses are interpreted in terms of these prior interpretations. The difficulties are caused in part by the use of a "transportation" model of communication in spite of a rhetoric that reflects a "ritual" model. Application of a ritual model to the world of TV content would require the location of television's symbols in a culture's history of symbolic construct, definition of the reorganization of these symbols in TV content, and careful analysis of how meanings are appropri ated by audiences.