Abstract
This study aims to examine and analyze role of motion pictures as an agent of socialization. It focuses the contribution of Indian movies to the increase of violent crimes and criminals in Pakistani society across the four decades (i.e. 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s) through favorable rather glamorized depiction of violence and perpetrators of violence. It is arbitrarily assumed that violence is often projected on silver screen as a quick and easy solution to social injustice and class discrimination in the blockbusters of Bollywood and Lollywood. Five top grossing Indian films selected through popularity charts and youth polls are thus content analyzed from the four decades under study for the census and portrayal of both perpetrators and subjects of violence, following sampling techniques of Shipley and Cavendar, 2001. Subsequently, four samples of one month issues of the largest circulated Daily Jang __ from each decade (1976-2006) __ were carefully content analyzed to identify the population, age, gender, class and depiction of criminals and victims as a representative day-to-day record of social crime scene. Results show that the population of violent criminals has increased both in Pakistani society and in Indian movies during the forty years sampled but the increase is curvilinear rather than linear in nature. Though, there seems to be fragile, proportional relationship between the two variables, it is observed that the presence and portrayal of criminal elements in Pakistani society fluctuate and subject to several other socio-economic and political factors both in national and international scenario. The very fact reflects that the impact of mass media as an agent of socialization is rather slow, gradual and subtle unlike the hypodermic needle or magic bullet theories of yesteryears. Besides there is an assumption that strikingly popular Indian movies (which actually fill the cinematic vacuum in absence of sufficient quality local films) are likely to play a vital role in transmitting patterns of conduct and defining role models in Pakistani society.
Highlights
People and institution that contribute to individual’s self-image, approach and conduct are known as agents of socialization
Considering the instigation and observational effects of social learning theories, these queries aim to identify the treatment of violence in Indian films; assuming that favorable approach towards violence and violent characters might pave the way to acceptance and even imitation of these acts in real life
The key concern of the current study is to explore if there is any correlation between the depiction and representation of violent criminals and victims in fictional world of Indian movies and factual crime-world actors and subjects in Pakistani society, considering the immense popularity and reach of Indian films during the last four decades from 1970s to 2000s
Summary
People and institution that contribute to individual’s self-image, approach and conduct are known as agents of socialization. The growth of cable TV, globalization of film industry and concentrated media ownership has transformed the electronic media from a public trust to a transnational business enterprise It gives a large part of Pakistan’s population a swift, round-the-clock access to all sorts of programmes on various local and foreign channels that often depict crude violence and sex solely for profit motives. Pouliot and Cowen (2007) discovered that exposure to fictional films generate rich memory of verbal and visual information as well as intense emotional reactions They summarize that dramatic narratives can cause audience members to identify with protagonists, increase emotional involvement in the story, and activate cognitive frames which Entman The current study heavily relies on Social Identity, Culture and Learning Theories assuming that onscreen violence might incite certain vulnerable segments of society to react violently especially when they come across similar situations as portrayed in fictional world of films. Even when majority of viewers might not turn criminal in reaction to exposure to violent films, they might get converted into either desensitized or fearful human beings since they possibly take onscreen depiction of violence as a representative reality of its age
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