NCJ Number
150860
Date Published
1994
Length
20 pages
Annotation
The celebrated Ronny Zamora murder case (1977) is discussed.
Abstract
This paper presents the results of a case study of the defendant, television, and trial based upon research on television violence, extensive examination and evaluation of witnesses' depositions, courtroom transcripts, official police records, psychiatrists' reports, and extensive conversations with Ellis Rubin, the defense attorney. As stated by the authors, after years of studying this case, their intention is not to disprove the television violence/aggression relationship, but rather to present strong support for the position that the defense placed too much emphasis on television as a cause rather than as a contributing factor to the murder. In addition to a detailed description of the Zamora case with numerous quotations taken from the case record, this paper includes a literature review with brief discussions of Joseph Klapper's Effects of Mass Communication (1960) and Wilbur Schramm's Television in the Lives of Our Children (1961), as well as summaries of numerous other studies regarding media's influence on children. The authors conclude that this case presents a classic example of the scapegoating of the media by exaggerating their influence and masking the real causes of violence in society. The authors urge public education on violence by using the media to teach the public about the relationship of guns, alcohol, and drugs to violence. The authors voice their concern with the failure to do justice to the hypothesized psychological processes operating in any mediation of television violence; the failure to grapple with the political uses of violence in the mass media; and the failure to closely analyze the evident public concern over mass media violence. 25 references