MEDIA: The Poetry of Violence

ship perhaps by way of a V-chip which will make it possible for parents to shield their children from programs that have high levels of "violence or sexually explicit content." Apparently the study was concerned less with the quantity and explicitness of violence than with the context in which it is presented, particularly when the violence goes unpunished or is not punished immediately enough. In a subsequent meeting with President Clinton, representatives of the major production studios, cable companies, and broadcast television networks agreed to work out a ratings system by January 1997. Understandably, however, they found it hard to separate the idea of a V-chip (the president was in favor of it) from an infringement of their First Amendment rights to free speech. Here their advantage is a clarifying reduction of the issue to a conflict between liberating and restrictive forces. Unfortunately, the clarification comes at the expense of ignoring the fact that life, given its timeand place-bound nature, is a continuum of violence: controlled or uncon-