Present day: As I sat there, the sunlight flickering through the slightly closed blinds, flashbacks from the fight I witnessed earlier on campus appeared in my mind. The sheer anger that over took the two men fighting led onlookers to believe that death was a possibility for either of the men on campus. As the bloody images appeared in my mind, I contemplated what would cause such utter violence to overtake someone. And if this violence did overtake someone, what would constitute it as being acceptable to employ violence? Would stealing the others girlfriend be an acceptable reason for nearly beating the other to death? Or would it need to be a more life or death situation to constitute for the violent action? These thoughts raced through my …show more content…
I knew why my parents left the television on – they always tried to make me watch something besides Friends or, if I was really having a bad morning, SpongeBob. I lazily walked over to the couch, ready to scroll through and find an episode of Friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile. As I was about to sit down, the bold, red letters flashing across the screen caught my eye. The newscaster sounded frantic as she tried to retell the news of the young journalist who was brutally mutilated and killed earlier that morning. Grotesquely horrifying images of the act and threatening words from the terrorist were replayed on the screen. Mortification filled my senses; I wanted nothing more than to stop looking, but I couldn’t. The fact that someone could possess such evil and hate inside them to commit such a violent act on another human being was appalling. I didn’t finish my yogurt that day, nor did I watch crummy television in the mornings anymore. That one horrifying incident shocked me into realization that there are real crisis’s occurring in the world that are much more important than silly, plotted dramas found in the crummy television I had been watching. I wanted to stop that violent crime from every occurring again – why should that person deserve that? I suppose my parents goal had been
Violent Media is Good for Kids, by Gerard Jones, is an article which makes many claims to support the argument in which a controlled amount of violence could be beneficial for a young, developing child. Even though the topic of this article can be controversial, the claims serve to support the argument in many noteworthy ways. It is written in such a way that it tells a story, starting when the author was a child and works its way to his adulthood. In this case the author uses, what I believe to be just the correct amount of each rhetorical strategy, and fulfills his goal for writing the article. This argument is interesting and at the same time, effective. Throughout the analyzing process logos, ethos, and pathos are searched for and scrutinized.
The media has long been tagged as a catalyst that influences the way people act in their daily lives. In the article “Unnatural Killers”, author John Grisham criticizes the movie “Natural Born Killers” as the only influence upon which two youths commit murder. The various types of environments shown on media most certainly influence the thoughts people make towards certain situations. However, the ultimate decision of the actions taken is up to the individual; everyone is responsible for their own actions. Therefore, the defendants in the article should be declared guilty of the crimes done.
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.
In 1989 the results of a five year study by the American Psychological Association indicated that the average child has witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on television by the time he or she has completed sixth grade. In further studies it was determined that by the time that same child graduates from high school he or she will have spent 22,000 hours w...
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 person’s motive to watch gore and violence is fueled by their desire to explore and familiarize themselves with situations and emotions that could possibly be all too real. In Gerard Jones’s essay “Violent Media Is Good For Kids” Dr. Melanie Moore, a psychologist, supports this claim by stating: “‘Children need violent entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they’ve been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood’” (374). Adults function in the same manner and also need violent films to explore those feeling that are locked away inside. By bringing them to the surface, we can confront those feeling and then grow accustomed to them. An example of individuals watching film to
Eric Harris, a seventeen year-old who committed the Columbine High School massacre next to his companion Dylan Klebold, wrote “I have a goal to destroy as much as possible… I want to burn the world. Kill mankind, no one should survive” (Cullen). Klebold was said to be suicidal and depressive and would always blame himself for the problems he encountered. On the other hand adults described Harris as a nice sweet-faced young boy, but they didn’t see the cold and calculating person he truly was. Both teenagers have been bullied all through out high school and had an intention to make everyone suffer as much as they did. For Harris the victims meant nothing to him, same feeling as someone who cuts the turkey for Thanksgiving. They both wanted a revenge and control so powerful that it would be assumed to be the greatest massacre in the history of the US, which made that their horrifying motiv...
In 1973, Thomas Elmendorf, an emergency room physician, made a speech to the American Medical Association about the increase in violence behavior among young adults and it’s correlation to violence on TV. In it he cited that “Murder is the fastest growing cause of death in the United States. The annual rate of increase exceeded 100 percent between 1960 and 1974.” He also goes on to explain that by the time a child graduates high school, they have spent an astonishing 18,000 hours in front of the TV, not to mention other forms of media, versus 15,000 hours in the classroom. Elmendorf also elaborates that within those 18,000 television hours, a young adult will have witnessed “18,000 murders and countless highly detailed incidents of robbery, arson, bombings, shootings...
Throughout human history, violence, for the most part, has been a perpetual struggle we’ve faced. It does not discriminate against location, color, or creed, and it has an impact, lasting or not, on each of us at some point during our lives. Living in a Western country, many of us have become accustomed to the idea that true violence only lives in the ravaged lands of warring countries or the dilapidated streets of rundown neighborhoods, but in truth it can be found anywhere. Community center’s, schools, churches, and even the most secluded towns all encounter violence, though sometimes behind closed doors, everyone is vulnerable to it. But what prompts it to occur exactly? Violence itself stems from the causality of several different factors,
Violence is huge in today’s world and continues to get worse and worse as the years go by. People go throughout their days being controlled by violence and all it brings. Being controlled by an act such as violence will have an effect on the person that you will become and the outcome of your future. Violence has consequences, ruins lives, and it controls you and the actions you take. All choices have consequences.
The daily diet of violence and sex that the media feeds to children poses a serious risk to the future of the nation, writes Sisela Bok in Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (1998). "Is it alarmist or merely sensible to ask about what happens to the souls of children nurtured, as in no past society, on images of rape, torture, bombings, and massacres that are channeled into their homes from infancy?" asks Bok. Before finishing elementary school, the average child will see some 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television, according to a study by
A widely accepted cause of the murders committed by children is violence in the media. The parents of three students killed at a high school in Padukah, Kentucky filed a $130 million lawsuit against the entertainment industry because they believe that violence in the media inspired the boy, Michael Carneal, who killed their children ("Media"). To some extent, these parents are correct in their assumption. On average, children watch television 16 to 17 hours per week, beginning as early as age 2 (Strasburger 129). Furthermore, when video games are added, some teenagers may spend as many as 35 to 55 hours per week in front of the television set (Straburger 129). Within these many hours of television viewing, there are many violent scenes. The National Television Viole...
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). Freedman goes on to explain that the FCC has no substantial scientific evidence stating that there is a correlation between fictional violence and real-world aggression among young audiences. He has completed research in 1984 and 2002 on the relationship between media violence to actual acts of violence on the street. Because he has completed research projects related to this topic, Freedman’s statistical evidence shows that there is a reduction in youth violence and it essentially does not cause real-world crimes (Freedman Par. 1). The FCC continues to claim that exposure to media violence does in fact increase aggression, and yet their readers continue to believe their fabrications. Freedman argues that people who research media violence tend to disregard and omit the opposing facts. No one type of violence is more effective on aggression than another type. There is no evidence showi...
Television violence causes children and teenagers to be less caring, to lose their inhibitions, and to be less sensitive. In a study on the connection between violence and television done with 1,565 teenage boys over a six-year period in London, William Belson, a British psychologist, found that every time a child saw someone being shot or killed on television they became less caring towards other people (Kinnear 26). William Belson also discovered that every time a child viewed this violence on television, they lost a fragment of their inhibitions towards others (Kinnear 26). In addition to William Belson’s study, studies done by many scientists and doctors show that seeing violence on television causes viewers to become less sensitive to the pain of others (Mudore 1).
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.