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Violence in the media is a problem in American society today. The effect can be severe and widespread. The people exposed to this media violence are mostly children. They are very impressionable and imitate what they see, hear and are told by their friends. In this essay I will state my opinion and the opinions of several physiologists and other officials.
Violence on television has been an issue that has plagued man from the day it was invented. Numerous shows depict violent acts such as rape, murder, and other such acts that many people consider inappropriate for adolescents. According to some studies the average child watches about 27 hours of television week. In some cases it is as much as 11 hours a day on a weekend. With the current amount of violence that is on television today these same studies estimate that the average child sees 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school. In 1992, there were over 1,800 acts of violence shown on television a day, over 360 those showed an act involving guns. Mediascope's National Television Violence Study found that 57% of television programs aired in 1994 and 1995, contained some violence most of these were cartoons. So the question is, should we ban violence from the television or should we just leave it the way it is?
Some people believe that it should be banned from stations that show children?s programs to prevent the exposure of those children. Sometimes children see a great amount of violence on television, they begin to think that this is right and start to imitate the acts that they see on television, which are not the things that the parents want the children to learn from. One example of this is a thirteen-year-old boy who shot his best friend?s father and then put salt in the wounds. When he was asked why he did this he said that he had seen the same thing on a movie the day before. Psychological research has shown three major effects of seeing violence on television: Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Children may be more fearful of the world around them.. Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others. Children who watch a lot of TV are less aroused by violent scenes than are those who only watch a little; in other words, they're less bothered by violence in general, and less likely to anything wrong with it.
Everyone’s seen the classic cartoons. Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner around a bend, only the Roadrunner turns, but our comedic--and usually stupid--villain doesn’t. So, he falls from a height of what looks like about 500,000 feet, only to become a small puff of smoke at the bottom of the canyon. After all, if what happens to you when you fall from that height were to have happened to Mr. Coyote, that would have been a very short lived cartoon series. Maybe this example is an exaggeration, but the idea is the same: violence comes streaming into our homes every single day through our TVs not to be viewed, but to be devoured. It’s been proven that sex and violence sell. For those of us who can tell the difference between reality and fantasy, the effect of TV violence is miniscule. But for our children--who think when the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers come to the local shopping mall, that it’s the biggest event since Bert told Ernie he snores too loud--the violence seen on TV seems like a logical reaction to life’s problems. And that’s a problem within itself. The impact of televised violence on children is only a slice of the pie that is the problem with the endless stream of violent acts on TV.
addition the average American child will witness over 200,000 acts of violence on television including 16,000 murders before the age of 18 (DuRant, 445). Polls show that three-quarters of the public find television entertainment too violent. When asked to select measures that would reduce violent crime “a lot”, Americans chose restrictions on television violence more often than gun control. Media shows too much violence that is corrupting the minds children, future leaders of our society. In a study of population data for various countries sh...
Happiness is a struggle for Montag in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and for Truman in Peter Weirs’ The Truman Show. They are both the main characters in their world, it is a dystopian society where everything is ruled by the government. For Truman, everything is fake, everyone in the small town of Seabrook was an actor and in Montags’ society, the government was in charge of how the people think. Montag in F451 is discontent because he starts questioning his society.
Television with its far reaching influence spreads across the globe. Its most important role is that of reporting the news and maintaining communication between people around the world. Television's most influential, yet most serious aspect is its shows for entertainment. Violent children's shows like Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and adult shows like NYPD Blue and Homicide almost always fail to show human beings being able to resolve their differences in a non-violent manner; instead they show a reckless attitude that promotes violent action first with reflection on the consequences later. Contemporary television creates a seemingly insatiable appetite for amusement of all kinds without regard for social or moral benefits (Schultze 41). Findings over the past twenty years by three Surgeon Generals, the Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence, the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical authorities indicate that televised violence is harmful to all of us, but particularly to the mental health of children (Medved 70-71).
For a long time now the debate has been, and continues to be, as to whether or not violence on television makes children more violent. As with all contentious issues there are both proponents and detractors. This argument has been resurrected in the wake of school shootings, most notably Columbine and Erfurt, Germany; and acts of random violence by teenagers, the murders of two Dartmouth professors. Parents, teachers, pediatricians, child psychiatrists, and FCC Chairmen William Kennard and former Vice President Al Gore say violent TV programming contribute in large part to in violence in young people today. However, broadcasters and major cable TV providers like Cox Communication say that it is the parent’s fault for not making it clear to their kids as what they may or may not watch on TV. The major TV networks and cable providers also state it is the TV industry’s fault as well for not regulating what is shown on TV. So who is the guilty party in this argument of whether or not TV violence influences of the behavior young people in today’s society?
A "hot topic" of discussions today is the issue of violence in the media. After reading about the subject, I am convinced that media violence negatively affects the viewer. The most susceptible are the young.
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.
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.
The government should not control the content of television shows and limit the amount of weekly violence shown. The responsibility of controlling the viewing of television shows expressing acts of violence should specifically be in the hands of parents. Parents are becoming too reliant upon governmental provisions with respect to raising their children and television violence is becoming an excuse for criminal acts. Children, especially younger children, are impressionable, but with proper guidance from a parental source in regards to television viewing, kids are not likely to act out violent television images.
Society has been bombarded with violence from the beginning of time. These concerns about violence in the media have been around way before television was even introduced. Nevertheless, there have been numerous studies, research, and conferences done over the years on television, but the issue still remains. Researchers do acknowledge that violence portrayed on television is a potential danger. One issue is clear though, our focus on television violence should not take attention away from other significant causes of violence in our country such as: drugs, inadequate parenting, availability of weapons, unemployment, etc. It is hard to report on how violent television effects society, since television affects different people in different ways. There is a significant problem with violence on television that we as a society are going to have to acknowledge and face.
The Effects of Television Violence on Children's Behavior. Television violence causes destructive behavior in children, however television can be a powerful influence on young viewers in our society. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is very violent. Many researchers, like scientists, pediatricians, and child researchers in many countries, have studied to find out what it is about television violence that makes it such a big affect on the way kids act and behave.
Summary #1 Television violence, and media violence in general, has been a controversial topic for several years. The argument is whether young children are brainwashed into committing violent real-world crimes because of violent and pugnacious behavior exposed in mass media. In his article “No Real Evidence for TV Violence Causing Real Violence”, Jonathan Freedman, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and author of “Media Violence and Its Effect on Aggression: Assessing the Scientific Evidence”, discusses how television violence, claimed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), does not cause real-world aggression among adolescents. The FCC determined to restrict violent television programming to late night hours only because their “scientific research” proves of increasing aggression among young viewers (Freedman Par. 2).
Does violence on television have a negative effect on children and teenagers? The violence shown on television has a surprisingly negative effect. Television violence causes children and teenagers to become less caring, to lose their inhibitions, to become less sensitive, and also may cause violent and aggressive behavior.
The American Psychological Association believe television violence affects young children negatively after doing many case studies. They believe children can learn aggressive attitudes and behaviors. Children can become desensitized to real world violent behavior. Young kids can develop a fear of being victimized by violence. The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry believe that television does influence the behavior of children from as young as one years old (Kalin.) These are all seemingly reliable resources to encourage that belief violent cartoons does affect young children.
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.