Columbia Pictures and agenda setting

I am a Vietnamese student and I arrived Fort Collins about 2 months ago. Actually, America is not really like what I have imagined, or at least what I have “known” about it through the media. With the impression that violence might occur anytime and anywhere (as what I saw in many American films with my dad on Star Movies, HBO, etc), I have some fear before coming here. However, I finally realize that what arouses my anxiety is not the USA itself but things called “cultivation”. And one of the most popular American film production and distribution studio I know and wanna send message to today is Columbia Pictures Industries (CPII).

Cultivation is known as the theory about the impact of media on audiences. When we watch entertainment programs repeatedly, we begin to internalize what is portrayed on TV. What I have observed from films especially the products of American films in general and CPII in particular is that brutal scenes take places very often. You could easily find a film with the scene of killing people, fight, hijack, kidnap, etc on the internet, the cinema or on TV. Of course, this has huge impacts on people from all ages. In my opinion, watching violence film could help adults release stress in some ways because we could reveal our hidden emotions inside when stress in our daily life could be accumulated over time However, in daily life, people try to keep calm and avoid the “explosion” as much as possible. Through imitation of films, adults might have the tendency to get into fight and “explode” his stress in many ways including violence when he loses his temper. They might not be aware of that watching violent films on regular basis could cause them to act more aggressively and uncontrollably. Violent films also raising fear of the society on audience. Is there much violence in reality as what is shown in action films? The answer might be “Yes” if we take a look at the online news. The main topics founded from different online news pages are politics, taxes, wars and violence. If the real world is portrayed exactly on the online news channels, we are living in such a dangerous world! Actually, what we see on those media has been affected by the agenda setting theory.

The theory of Agenda setting said that press and media does not reflect the reality. They filter it and shape it. The media concentrates on few issues, make people believe that something is more important than the others. That’s the reason why by the exposure to news about violence on the media, people tend to pay more attention to violence and we may believe what is portrayed in entertainment programs.

But why should CPII show concern about the relationship between cultivation theory and agenda setting? That is because their products are negatively and directly affected by the frequency of news about violence on the media. How many action films of Columbia Pictures Industries are produced each year and on TV every month? What is the number of violence news that a citizen catches in a day? The audience might be getting more and more tired of the “violence-everywhere”. We could easily find many violent movies in the list of Columbia Pictures Industries : Salt, Django Unchained, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Ghost Rider, Total Recall, The Equalizer, etc. As one of the biggest film industry in America, CPII is supposed to offer an escape from the stress of everyday life by their products. They are expected to bring more love, friendship, hope and happiness to their customers instead of too many brutal scenes. The short- term gain could be the increase in sales and revenue from such films, but what might be the long- term lost when people are fed up with the world full of aggressive behaviors and conflicts? What if adults realize negative impacts of Hollywood films on themselves and their children?

The suggestion is that Columbia Picture Industries should try to estimate and control the frequency of their violent products. The simplest solution, of course, is to reduce the number of violent films and scenes in their products. In such films, the cost of violence and punishments should be shown more obviously, the contextualization should be better. What about reviews from the customers? Yes, they also play an important role. The producer should pay more attention to the rating and comments of the audience so that they could know what they should focus on when making their products. We live in a stressful world, you know, and entertainment programs should offer a way out of tough time instead of being stuck in violence and crime. If CPII do realize that our lives are “boomed” by enough violent news, and many other producers are producing the same tons of action films, and if they considers about introducing films with more “peace” and happiness, they might become a leader for a new trend. It does sound good, right?