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The impact of media in our society
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The impact of media in our society
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Juvenile Delinquency Jeremy C. Newell Active Learning Activity Video in Class = 20 pts. Wednesday, March 6, 2002 The video hosted by Bill Moyer that we watched in class on March 4th involved violence in the mass media and the effects that it may have on children in modern day society. Video games sometimes display graphic violence as well as violent verbal messages that often convey a message of appeal to children. Movies often combine humor, violence, and/or sex in order to be more appealing to the audience. Usually two or more of these factors are used. Whether it is through these sources or as something as simple as the evening news, violence is everywhere in the media today and displays messages of approval that American society may not realize. Social learning theory tells us that through association with or exposure to others, delinquency is learned just as conformity is learned. Many of the movies and television programs that are seen today contain a fair amount of violence in them, whether it is a cartoon or an R-rated movie. In either situation, children imitate what they see on the television or in the Movie Theater. Just as children learn the difference between right and wrong through punishments and rewards, children also learn an underlying theme of good and evil. In this theme, certain acts of violence are acceptable if they are for the “good guys.” The crowd in the theater watching a film may applaud or shout messages of approval when the “good guys” blow up the "bad guys". As a consequence, children exit the Movie Theater aiming their fingers like guns and shooting their friends, parents, and/or siblings. They learn that the behavior is acceptable and they imitate it. Not only is this detrimental to their sensitivity to violence, it also teaches them that there are exceptions to the rules of society and that conformity is not always the easiest way to solve a problem. Living in American society, the easiest and fastest way to solve a problem doesn’t always mean that the solution is morally right or that everyone will approve of the methods one takes to accomplish it. I would also like to address the levels of appeal that Moyer points out in the film. Within each kind of scene, violent acts are often accompanied by sex or humor. Not only can this be used to bring a higher level of acceptance to the viewer, but it also brings a level of gratification or appeal to the scene.
2. According to Sobchack, contemporary screen violence greatly differs than portrayals of violence in years past. Today, violent scenes are careless and lack significance because we as audiences have become calloused and desensitized to any acts of violence. She states that there is “no grace or benediction attached to violence. Indeed, its very intensity seems diminished” (Sobchack 432). Senseless violence, gruesome acts, and profound amounts of gore are prevalent in movies today, and because even this is not enough, it must be accompanied by loud blasts and noise, constantly moving scenes to keep audiences stimulated and large quantities of violence for viewers to enjoy what they are watching. Decades ago, it was the story that was engaging to audiences and filmmaking was an art.
Many stories people read are written for the express purpose of entertainment and sometimes even to persuade, but few are written to teach a moral. The story “A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling From The Pockets” written by Kevin Brockmeier does just that. Although relatively short, the story is filled with words of wisdom and life lessons that are meant to instill a sense of selflessness. The story is about a man who finds God’s overcoat from which he finds prayers from the people he encounters. Kevin Brockmeier makes exceptional use of magic realism and symbolism to teach a moral lesson.
In Edmond Rostand’s comedic and romantic drama, Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano and De Guiche strong and fiery personalities conflict throughout the novel. Although Cyrano and De Guiche are enemies they feel and want mostly the same things. Cyrano and De Guiche are brought together not only by their love of the same girl, but also by their position in the military and their desire to protect their honor; despite the many conflicts this brings, they are able in the end to respect each other.
Understand that there are more than one cause to juvenile violence. Media and television related violence is only one of the factors. Addressing and trying to correct one issue at a time is going to be the most productive. Take television for example. Lionel Tate was obviously influenced by actions he saw from people, adults, on television. Though not all blame can be put in the hands of the entertainment industry. Other factors including parent control and limitation, and previous behavioral patterns could have prevented Tiffany's death. In the book, Children in a Violent Society, Joy Osofsky makes a strong case about kids and the negative effects of witnessing violence. "Children learn what they see…and they do not learn that violence is bad. Too often, they learn that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict…"(Osofsky, 4). Take a hypothetical situation about Johnny.
In Gerard Jones’ essay titled “Violent Media Is Good for Kids”, he discusses the issue of media violence kids are exposed to. He personally believes violent media is good for children and their development. While many people may argue with him on his stance, he experienced violence as a child, even though his parents tried to shield it from him, and thus it resulted in him believing violence is acceptable for children (Jones 565). His belief that violence is good for children came from Marvel Comics, particularly the Hulk (565). Jones and Melanie Moore, a psychologist, agree violence stories “… to meet their emotional and developmental needs…” (Jones 566). Jones has created a program called Power Play, to enable children to tell heroic, combative, and powerful stories. However, he does believe violence has caused some real-life violence (Jones 567). Jones said that, ‘“I am going to argue that it’s helped hundreds of people for every one it’s hurt…’” (qtd. by Jones 567). Jones thinks American society has such a huge fear of ‘“youth violence’”, it has progressively made the fear into a reality (567).
In our society today, movies and television shows are being broadcast all over the world to many genders, races, and ages. Some of these shows involve many violent topics and situations. For example, the news qualifies as a violent shows because three fourths of every broadcast involves a violent situation. The next generation of adults is exposed to this violence everyday, thinking it’s cool or acceptable. I think that if teenagers witness the violent actions in person they would react differently than seeing them on TV.
...dolescents to weapons. In many cases children have access to a weapon, particularly a handgun, within their own home. With lack of supervision, children experiment with these dangerous weapons, and may even take them out of their homes. Another contributing factor to violent acts among children is the role of the media and the way that television and movies portray violence. Every where you turn on television and in movies, you see someone killing someone or someone getting killed. Kids see the brutal ways, or the quick and smart schemes of combat tactics. They falsely believe that these types of behaviors are acceptable, because the next week they are back on the show demonstrating another episode of violent acts, with no consequences.
Many Americans feel that the viewing of violence in the media reinforces negative behavior in society, especially among children and young adults. "Three thousand studies have been done since 1955 on the link between television and violence; 2,980 of them found a correlation between the two. We hear little about that because we get most of our news from television" (Peterson). With this much research one must acknowledge that there is a problem in America involving sex and violence in the media. We cannot blame all societal problems on the media and its portrayal of these issues, but we can become educated, ourselves, in order to better facilitate the healthy lives of our children.
Mass media is a major influence that causes violence in youth culture. According to Hoffman, studies show that children experience an incredible number of violent acts per hour of watching television (Hoffman 11). The advancement in technology such as video games and televisions have aimed children to watch shows with numerous violent scenes. In making this comment, one can infer that violence is becoming a common and unexceptional act for which one can learn that violence is an accepted act in our society (12). Personally, I agree with Hoffman. I visited a websit...
When families sit down to watch television, they expect to watch family type of shows. Family type shows meaning rated PG or PG13, sitcoms and movies that do not include weapons, killing, foul language, and non-socially accepted actions. When children killing, they start to believe that it is accepted. Do children think that killing and hurting others and themselves have little meaning to the real life, children can become traumatized. Most killers or violators of the law blame their behavior on the media, and the way that television portrays violators. Longitudinal studies tracking viewing habits and behavior patterns of a single individual found that 8-year-old boys, who viewed the most violent programs growing up, were the most likely to engage in aggressive and delinquent behavior by age 18 and serious criminal behavior by age 30 (Eron, 1). Most types of violence that occur today links to what people see on television, act out in video games or cyberspace games, or hear in music. Media adds to the violence that exists today and in the past few decades. It will continue in the future if it is not recognized as a possible threat to our society. When kids go to a movie, watch television, play video games or even surf the web, they become part of what they see and hear. Soaking violence in their heads long enough becomes a part of the way they think, acts, and live. The line between pretend and reality gets blurred.
Media violence is a topic that has warranted much discussion from active citizens, critics, and scientific researchers on both sides of the argument. In order to better understand the media violence debate a clear definition of violence, or aggression, must be established. However, one of the reasons that the heated discussion over media violence even exists is because of the difficulty in accomplishing this task. “Aggression is a highly complex phenomenon, whose etiology includes a wide variety of psychological, social, and circumstantial factors. 'Measuring' aggression in relationship to such an equally complex substance as the media is incredibly difficult” (Trend 45). Various sources offer different interpretations of aggressive behavior. One of the most popular references which excels in organization and categorization is the National Television Violence Study of 1998. “Violence is defined as any overt depiction of a credible threat of physical force or the actual use of such force intended to physically harm an animate being or group of beings. Violence also includes certain depictions of physically harmful consequences against an animate being or group that occur as a result of unseen violent means” (Federman 18). The importance of this study is that it highlights key aspects of media violence: involvement of animate beings, clear intent to harm, and harm that is physical in nature. Although the American society tends to believe that violent images in the media have powerful negative effects on viewers, especially children, which causes people to commit crimes and demonstrate aggressive behaviors, media violence actually produces minor effects at most, and can even prove advantageous.
“Myriad studies show that television violence affect children by desensitizing children to the horror of violence, teaching them to accept violence as a solution to problems, teaching them to imitate the violence they see on the television and leading them to identify with characters seen on television (and thus imitate the characters they identify with) (Parenthood Web).” The amount of violence in television programming is obviously directly related to the amount of violence witnessed by children. The more of a role that television plays in the daily activities the more of a role violence will influence that child. In 1985 alone, 85% of all television programming contained violence, with 92.1% of cartoons aired containing violence. These cartoons generally contain one violent act every three minutes ...
By the time a child reaches the age of one, they see about 200,000 acts of violence on television. (Nakaya, 3). The Media has been becoming more and more violent over the years. A poll in an issue of Times Magazine, from 2005, showed that 66 percent of Americans think that there is an abundant amount of graphic acts of violence on televisions (Nakaya, 18). People are exposed to thousands of acts of violence through video games, television, and movies. Many studies show that media violence increases violent behavior in in humans. Studies show, violent video games, and graphic television have physiological effects on children. The government has very few regulations on media violence. Some people believe the government shouldn’t limit content because others might be insulted by its material. Media violence is such a broad topic and has such a large presence in daily lives, so we cannot simple get rid of it. The Federal Communications Commission stipulates, “By the time most children begin the third grade, they will have spent the equivalent of three school years in front of a television set.” Even though the government shouldn’t censor the media, Media violence is becoming a serious issue because it is becoming more violent, it makes people behave violently, and it has little regulations.
Also, when television shows that allow the character who commits the crime they do not receive punishment, it teaches children that it is fine to commit a crime because there won't be punishment and kids feel that if they do the same thing as the character from the program who committed the crime they will be a hero, that is why many of the programs that children watch send the message that a conflict always involves a winner and a loser. The media in general reduces the different values of life, also makes violence and even death, which seem funny and unreal that children do not learn to respect themselves and in general, because of the violent television that is influencing them even more. If parents ignore or approve of their child's aggressive behavior, or if they lose control too easily themselves, a TV control plan will not help at all. In the same way, if parents themselves show violent behavior, they serve as role models for their children, too.