How to Define Violence

It is clear from the research that I have undertaken in to defining violence that it is not as simple as an oxford dictionary definition.

The Oxford dictionary states that:

Violence

“Behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something”

“Strength of emotion or of a destructive natural force.”

However when this is applied to Fictional Media Violence these definitions do not appear broad enough to define all types of violence that audience watch and react to. James Kendrick begins to look at why we wish to define violence

“Our immediate inclination is to treat violence as a fully-formed and delineated object: something that can be defined, categorised, quantified and, most importantly, understood and therefore controlled.” (Kendrick:2009:6)

This leads to the idea that to seek to define violence, reveals an underlying need to control violence.

Film is a fantasy, it is not reality, it is constructed and choreographed and in every real respect the violence is controlled. It is controlled by those who create and construct it, but in my opinion to enter that world of fantasy, and see it for a short time, as the real world, for watching a film in my opinion sucks you in to that world for a short time, I know that from personal experience after watching a 2 hour film when I look around the room I am watching it in, it has the same effect as waking from a dream, I know I am safe and comfortable in the area I am watching it from but five minutes previously I was somewhat hypnotised and transfixed in the world that I  was watching, a world where to define the violence, to try and control it was important. This is the point where I agree with Kendrick, who goes on to say

“ The implied semantic equivalency in using the term violence to describe both actual events and their mediated representations suggest an inherent connection, and some would argue that film violence is a form of actual violence in that it can cause psychological distress and even act directly upon the body, causing revulsion, involuntary muscle spasms and even physical illness.” (Kendrick:2009:8)

This also links in to what James Potter says about effects research when it comes to defining television violence “How we define television violence makes a big difference for two reasons…Another reason why the broadness of the definition is important is that it sets the parameters for effects research. Activity that is not included in the definition likely will not be included in the definition likely.” (Potter:1999:63) To look to define violence in broader and somewhat subjective terms, it is important to look at how different audiences react to different scenarios.

This in my opinion leads to illustrate that defining violence using different parameters is crucial in understanding not only the audiences reactions, whether the reactions are physical or psychological but also to how these definitions lead to how audiences look at how violent acts are justified our unjustified.