Bringing to a wide public opinion the present debate on the possible damaging effects of representations of violence in the media: that’s the appeal of Cardinal Karl Lehmann, President of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), in his speech at the ceremony for the award of the Catholic Media Prize in Bonn in recent days. “Violent video games, videos of terrorist acts and capital executions that can be downloaded from the Internet, films shot on mobile phones containing scenes of people being abused or beaten up represent as highly problematic dimensions of the use of the media as scenes of sadism in films or on television”, said Lehmann. “Overcoming these phenomena of violence is an objective that concerns the whole of society, and one that the media must take into account. In contrast to what is happening in relation to the environment or food safety, society still shows insufficient awareness of possible ‘polluting agents’ in the media”, he added. Lehmann criticised the fact that the results of controls conducted in the field of voluntary self-regulation are not accessible. “In the current evaluation of the legislation on the protection of children in relation to the media, we need to examine how to make such information accessible also to parents and youth. In education in the media, the emphasis must be put not on prohibitions, but on freedom in responsibility”. Now in its fifth year, the German Catholic Media Prize was awarded this year to the journalists Angela Graas and Bastian Obermayer, “examples”, according to Lehmann “of how the media can stimulate the posing of existential questions”.
