Madam, - James Fryar (September 22nd) seeks to prove that media violence has little social effect by stating that there is no relationship between the number of television sets and the number of homicides in the US. This is faulty logic.
It is like trying to prove that drivers have no responsibility for traffic accidents simply because there is no relationship between the number of driving licences issued and the number of road deaths.
That our behaviour is influenced by what we see on television is beyond dispute. This is adequately demonstrated by all those hard-nosed business people who, with research at their fingertips, spend millions of euro advertising their products and services on TV.
Is it credible that our behaviour can be influenced by advertisements but not by other things we see repeatedly on television? Children must be influenced by the 8,000 violent deaths they see before going to secondary school. How they deal with this influence is the question of concern.
Is it unreasonable to ask television stations to observe a single day each year when they will not show any violent deaths in their entertainment programmes? This would provide a focus for education on all aspects of media violence.
This is an opportunity for RTÉ and BBC to demonstrate the social responsibility of being public service broadcasters. - Yours, etc,
TERRY GILLESPIE, The Glebe, Stradbally, Co Laois