Violence in the Media
What makes the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons so funny and memorable? Of course, the explosions, hits and falls the Coyote takes while in pursuit of the Roadrunner. Pediatrics, a pediatrician read magazine, wrote an article on the influence violence, such as that in cartoons and other forms of media, has on children from ages 2-18 titled “Media Violence.” “Although recent school shootings have prompted politicians and the general public to focus their attention on the influence of media violence, the medical community has been concerned with this issue since the 1950s,” says American Academy of Pediatrics, the author of the article in November of 2001. The article calls for a need for all pediatricians to take a stand on violence in the media and help to make sure their patients are not influenced negatively mentally or physically by violence in the media, using multiple statistics from many publications. “Media Violence” fails to be persuasive, however, due to its failure to show any evidence that its statistics are true.
“American children between 2 and 18 years of age spend an average of 6 hours and 32 minutes each day using media (television, commercial or self-recorded video, movies, video games, print, radio, recorded music, computer, and the Internet),” claims the article citing the Kaiser Family Foundation Report in 1999. This helps to show that media is definitely a major part of a child’s life which would definitely help to make in an influence, but how does a child have time for all of this media usage between school and homework? Another statistic the author uses claims by the time a child is 18, he or she will witness over 200,000 acts of violence on television alone, stated by a Un...
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...ph of the section titled Influence. These are statistics of deaths among the pediatric population caused by homicide, suicide and trauma. These statistics are believable and seem to be cold hard facts, but still, even with sympathy for deaths among children, no facts are presented to show that any of these deaths had anything to do with violence in the media.
With many scholarly authors, the argument is clear and well fought, but due to the lack of show of studies or reason behind statistics, the argument is lacking believability and ends up coming across as having the same impact as saying that car accidents among women are caused by the increase of caffeine in a woman’s system over the last decade. It could be backed up with statistics of car accidents and evaluating of caffeine intake, but without connecting the two it is unbelievable, just like this article.
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.
Gina Marchetti, in her essay "Action-Adventure as Ideology," argues that action- adventure films implicitly convey complex cultural messages regarding American values and the "white American status quo." She continues to say that all action-adventure movies have the same basic structure, including plot, theme, characterization, and iconography. As ideology, this film genre tacitly expresses social norms, values, and morals of its time. Marchetti's essay, written in 1989, applies to films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Rambo: First Blood II. However, action-adventure films today seem to be straying farther away from her generalizations about structure, reflecting new and different cultural norms in America. This changing ideology is depicted best in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), which defies nearly every concept Marchetti proposes about action-adventure films; and it sets the stage for a whole new viewpoint of action in the '90's.
Rodriguez, G. (2010a). Culture Fix: African Divination Objects. Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives Retrieved November 13, 2011
Norman Schwarzkof once said, “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of the men to go into battle”. As young adults, many of us have a preconceived notion that being a hero is in some way the same as being a leader. In times of war, being a leader defines ones as a superior that others look to for guidance and direction in predicaments; not necessarily a hero. The true heroes are not always the ones calling the shots, but the soldiers who courageously leave their comforts behind to fight on the fronts for their country, even if it results in their death. In All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, describes the journey of a young man named Paul and the struggles he endures as an effect of the declaration of World War One by his elders. Remarque develops the theme of how older men’s decisions of declaring war effects the younger generation by elaborating on how this declaration effects the younger soldiers’ physical physique and their mental wellbeing.
Children spend more time learning about life through media than in any other manner. The average child spends approximately twenty-eight hours a week watching television, which is twice as much time as they spend in school (Dietz, 75). According to the American Psychological Association, the average American child views 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence before finishing elementary school. In
Throughout time children have worked myriad hours in hazardous workplaces in order to make a few cents to a few dollars. This is known as child labor, where children are risking their lives daily for money. Today child labor continues to exist all over the world and even in the United States where children pick fruits and vegetables in difficult conditions. According to the article, “What is Child Labor”; it states that roughly 215 million children around the world are working between the ages of 5 and 17 in harmful workplaces. Child labor continues to exist because many families live in poverty and with more working hands there is an increase in income. Other families take their children to work in the fields because they have no access to childcare and extra money is beneficial to buy basic needs. Although there are laws and regulations that protect children from child labor, stronger enforcement is required because child labor not only exploits children but also has detrimental effects on a child’s health, education, and the people of the nation.
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).
... people. Either that, or he’s talking about music having the precise meaning to one people or culture as it does to another. If this is what he is trying to convey, his belief may be accurate. Otherwise, I feel that his writing is impartial and unbiased.
The media, including television programming, cartoons, film, the news, as well as literature and magazines, is a very powerful and pervasive medium for expression. It can reach a large number of people and convey ideas, cultural norms, stereotypic roles, power relationships, ethics, and values. Through these messages, the mass media may have a strong influence on individual behavior, views, and values, as well as in shaping national character and culture. Although there is a great potential for the media to have a positive and affirming effect on the public and society at large, there may be important negative consequences when the messages conveyed are harmful, destructive, or violent.
Child labor is common in agriculture, domestic service, the sex industry, the carpet and textile industries, quarrying and brick making in countries in Asia and Africa (IPEC, 1). Employers in these industries buy children from their debtors or through the labor contractors (1). Sometimes children work to help pay off a loan incurred by the family (Grootaert, 2; IPEC, 1). In some cases the parents give their children to outsiders to work without pay in exchange for better living conditions in wealthy houses (IPEC, 1). Child labor also results from the system of apprenticeship, in which a child is sent to work to learn a trade. But actually they work more than they learn (Grootaert, 5).
Child labor refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work (International Labor Organization). Child labor has been a big problem ever since the Victorian Era. Many counties worldwide have used and still to this day use child labor. Though there are many laws that have been implemented against using children to work, many countries tend to ignore them. In my paper I will be discussing countries where child labor is present, push to stop child labor, companies that use child labor, the effects on children, and the reasons for child labor.
“Together the matrices of race and music occupied similar position and shared the same spaces in the works of some of the most lasting texts of Enlightenment thought..., by the end of the eighteenth century, music could embody differences and exhibit race…. Just as nature gave birth and form to race, so music exhibited remarkable affinities to nature” (Radano and Bohlman 2000: 14). Radano and Bohlman pointed out that nature is a source of differences; Racial identities, inevitably, exist because of these differences. However, as racial identities are founded on the differences of physical appearances, they are displayed through the differences of music, as music embodies the physical differences of human. Racial differences are magnified through many musical features, including language, tonality and vocal expression. Nonetheless, music is the common ground of different racial identities. “In the racial imagination, music also occupies a position that bridges or overlaps with racial differences. Music fills in the spaces between racial distinctiveness….” (Radano and Bohlman 2000:8) Even though music serves as a medium through which the differences of racial identities are revealed, it glues them
Child labor is an immense international issue in the world today and gives rise to other problems. Through several facts, articles, and stories this paper will dive into the problems that many face on a daily basis due to their situation in child labor. This problem will look at where it is hitting some groups of people the hardest and where it may not be as much of a problem and is considered to be over exaggerated, getting several different perspectives of the issue. The various factors contributing to the dilemma of child labor will be touched upon throughout as well. This topic starts with the children who have been brave enough to tell their stories and allow light to shine on the issue.
In sub-Saharan Africa, thousands of languages, cultures, and geographical regions helped influence our African society. The ways in which we produce our artwork, spiritual ideals, and ritual performances are organic and raw. From the tropical regions of Congo and Ghana, to the arid regions of Mali; I pass through the global gateway into a domain where the Western world lost its roots and artistic imagination and grandeur. Africa appeals most to me for its ability to create a realm where the living, dead, and artistic ideals come into a single unit of tranquil philosophy.
In the slippery terrain created by globalization and cultural brokering, contemporary art made in Africa (and its diasporas) has enjoyed a steady growth in interest and appreciation by Western audiences during the last few decades (Kasfir, 2007). Several biennials, triennials, and scholarly works attest to that, with much of its impact owed to the figure of Okwui Enwezor. However, seamlessly uniting diverse African artists under the untrained Western gaze for the commercialism of the international art circuit – notwithstanding their different cultural contexts and the medium in which they work – is bound to create problems. Enwezor’s and other authors’ sophisticated publications and curatorial works show both the vitality and issues still to be addressed in this field of study (Ogbechie, 2010).