Text C: NON-FICTION

This extract is from an on-line article about our attitudes to violence.

Read Text C, then answer Question Three.
Source (adapted): Jayran Mansori ‘A Critical Look at Violence’, Youth Focus for a Just world: http://www.
justfocus.org.nz/global-themes/culture and society. “Global Focus Aotearoa”, (accessed 4 /4/ 2012).

TEXT C
In my English class, we were watching a film. There was a scene when a man hit his wife. My class was almost
unanimously horrified and disgusted. This reaction was something I found intriguing. I realized that this was one of
the few times I’ve seen people react with shock and horror at seeing violence on screen. Why aren’t we nearly as
upset when we are presented with other violence? With the exception of violence from men towards women, our
culture has been desensitised to violence. A man hitting a man is no big deal, a man hitting a woman provokes a
strong negative reaction. We really, really don’t like seeing men beating up women. Fair enough.
That is quite as it should be. But we don’t seem to mind any other form of violence.
There’s no outrage, no horror, no disgust, no OMG!!!

Last year I studied Gandhi for history class, and something about him that stuck out to me was how deeply horrified
he was at violence. I realised that violence doesn’t upset me nearly as much. I have accepted it as part of my life,
something I will see daily in the media. The violence I see in the media is not all presented in a negative light, and I
am rarely shocked or horrified. As New Zealanders in the 21st century, we are exposed to a lot more popular media
than Gandhi was. Too often, we focus on whitewashing violence, rather than thinking more deeply about it and the
violent messages we get through the media.

It is up to us, the viewers and consumers, to look at the portrayal of violence in the media with a critical eye.
Unfortunately, the media, particularly the television, is designed to communicate to our emotional side, rather than
the rational side. It is therefore hard to analyse the messages in the media on an intellectual level. It takes work to
look at the messages you receive and challenge them, rather than swallow them whole.

Sometimes, I’ll read or listen to someone say something about violence in our culture.
Condescendingly, they say, “we’re all desensitised to it”. This has made me feel somewhat guilty and ashamed for
being desensitised to a certain level of violence. We can’t help being desensitised. We can’t undo a lifetime of
exposure to violence. We can’t re-sensitise ourselves. Innocence isn’t something you can’t get back. We can’t really
control our emotional reaction to violence. Trying to be horrified is an exercise in futility. What we can do is control
our intellectual reaction to violence. We can ask ourselves, ‘why do I feel this way?’

Our best bet is to see everything in our media culture with a critical and analytical eye.

By Jayran Mansouri

Refer to Text C above, ‘A Critical Look at Violence’ to answer this question.

(a) (i) Identify ONE language feature the writer uses to show you that often New Zealanders don’t react
appropriately to violence in the media.
(ii) Provide an example of this language feature from the text.
(b) Explain how this example shows you that often New Zealanders don’t react
appropriately to violence in the media.
(c) Explain how the writer, through the whole text, tries to persuade us that we
should change the way we react to violence in the media.
You could use one or more of the following ideas as a starting point for your answer:
• the techniques, including language features, that the writer uses to persuade us
• the writer’s opinion of media and viewers
• the narrative viewpoint of the writer