Russian TV-programs on a Violence Theme

(partly published in Media I Skole og Samfunn (Norway), 2000, n 1, p.19-23)

The violence is shown on the Russian screen frequently. However how frequently? At what time? Is the screen violence accessible for the children's audience? I have tried to answer these questions, analyzing the repertoire of a common Russian week’s TV program. And here are the results. Practically all TV channels (except for STS) include TV-news (3- 8 times a day) containing episodes of violence (victims of murders, accidents, military actions, terrorism etc.). There are also special programs specializing in criminal topics: violence and victims of violence, bloody details of accidents etc.: for example, some night programs are replayed in the morning like "The police station ", "Crime", « Crime: Frank Confession”, " Road Patrol ", "Petrovka, 38"...

 On the average each program lasts 15-20 minutes. But the total amount of hours dedicated to special “criminal programs” on Russian TV channels is 6 hours a week approximately!

What “criminal programs” can children watch in the morning and daytime in Russia? Here are some examples.

 Monday. Close up of children’s corpses. Tuesday. Again the strangled and killed corpses on the screen. These times 3 dead bodies are shown. Plus a close up of a killed gangster. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday... More dead people…

By the way, "criminal" programs on different channels show practically the same reportages about crimes within a day. This is monotonous serial of screen violence...

I have made the monitoring of special Russian TV-programs dedicated to a criminal theme, within 7 days (since Monday, January 10, 2000 till Sunday, January 16, 2000). The received data are presented in the tables below.

Table 2. PERIODICITY OF RUSSIAN SPECIAL TV-PROGRAMS ON AVIOLENCE

THEME

As one can see from the contents of Table 2, different Russian channels broadcast special criminal programs, including documentary films of victims of violence and accidents, practically all week long. And not only in the evening, but also in the morning and afternoon, that is quite open to the junior audience, including children less than 10 years.

Table 3. PRESENCE OF THE IMAGE OF ACTS AND VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ON THE RUSSIAN TV-CHANNELS IN SPECIAL “CRIMINAL PROGRAMS”

The analysis of Table 3 shows, that almost each day of a week this or that special "criminal" TV-program contains documentary shots of corpses, victims of road and other accidents, killed gangsters, etc. For example, in "Crime" (NTV-channel) at Jan.10.2000 and Jan.13.2000 were shown close ups of bloody corpses. Two corpses in release Jan. 14.2000. Two corpses in pools of blood were shown in "The Police Station " in the program Jan. 13.2000. Plus close ups of more corpses in a program from Jan14.2000. Similar documentary shots were given in the criminal TV-program "Road patrol" (TV-6): Jan.10.2000, Jan.11.2000, Jan.13.2000, Jan.01.2000, etc.).

I repeat, if all these criminal TV-programs were intended only for adults and after 23-00, in would be O.K. Adults should have an independent choice. However, as it has already been said, besides night releases of "patrols" and "crimes" programs, they are accessible to children of preschool and younger school age in the morning and afternoon too...

Certainly, some scenes of violence are shown in usual TV-news in Russia. But not so frequently. And, secondly, not so aggressively as in special “crime-programs”.