Violence in the media and Its Effect on Society
"It was a scene straight out of Oscar-winningAmerican Beauty"
This quote sums up my view on the media. It's a quote out of a
magazine article about Kristin Rossum and the murder of her husband.
The media is a source of communication. It includes television,
cinema, video, radio, newspapers e.t.c. It is inescapable.
The media plays a large role in society; it defines your life and the
way you think. I will be proving this by analysing case studies I have
done on films and magazine articles. The aspects I will be discussing
to represent the role that the media plays in promoting violence
within society are how the media presents the violence, how the
audience responds to the violence, other factors which contribute to
violence in society, my case studies and what they proved and finally
how the media protects society.
The media presents the violence in many ways. I will be explaining
these ways by analysing two of my contrasting case studies as
examples. There are many different narrative contexts that the media
have to take into consideration. They are the fictional setting, the
character involvement, the form of violence and the physical setting.
The fictional setting is the type of programme or film. My case study
examples are Beauty and the Beast, which is a cartoon, and Enemy at
the Gates, which is a historical film. There are many other fictional
settings, for example, British crime drama, western film/TV series,
science fiction, comedy, romance, and thriller.
The character involvement is who is committing the crime and who is
receiving the violence for example the character involvement in one of
the scenes in Beauty and the Beast is a beast and a male (Gaston). The
character involvement in Enemy at the Gates is German soldiers and the
Soviet Union.
The form of violence is the type of violence being used. Some examples
of types of violence are shooting, stabbing, an explosion, a fight and
physical. In Beauty and the Beast the violence is mainly physical
The two main characters in this book are of course Beauty and the Beast. The two characters seem to contrast in this book with different personalities. At the beginning of the book, the Beast seems fierce and is shown to be a real monster.
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.
Beauty and the Beast is one of the oldest fairytales known to man. A little bit of fantasy with a little bit of fiction. It provides life lessons that society, deems important to learn. Throughout the years one lesson has remained constant beauty is only skin deep. Generation to generation the story has been passed down, changing ever so slightly but still maintaining that fairytale edge. Differences are slim but still recognizable. In Beaumont's version that we had read in class Beauty and the Beast is told more for an older crowd because of the language and dialogue as well as the ability to understand it, but the message was the same as the Disney version just the Disney version isn’t as in depth.
Have you ever looked at someone and thought, I wonder what made him/her the way she is today?” When you do this, you often have to look back on a person’s childhood. How did certain events affect them? Over time violence has become dramatically evident is children’s lives. Parents do not seem to be careful with their children’s viewing habits. They are beginning to let them watch whatever is on TV. For example: Family guy, all those shows on Adult swim. These violent TV programs could cause so many problems for the children and parents later on in life. Parents should carefully monitor children’s viewing habits so they have limited exposure to violence, increase their physical activity, and decrease aggressive behavior.
The violence portrayed by the media has a negative outcome because humans are observant learners. Media influences behavior when people begin to mimic or spectate actions. For instance, if a child sees an abusive behavior on television, they are likely to repeat the action. On the contrary, if a prosocial media group gives an optimistic message to the problem it’ll give a potential solution. For example, if the child sees a model say something positive through media they are likely to adopt the behavior. The model is whom the child is imitating. (Chapter 5, pg. 220)
“The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore…No we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.” (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News) This example is tremendously important in the author’s discussion because it proves that news stories do manipulate people through bias. Popular news networks are viewed by thousands of people every single day, thus making it have a huge impact on the public since they believe what they see. When news reporters present their news segments, it is natural for them to give their insights due to human nature being instinctively biased. “The news media is [sic] only objective if they report something you agree with… Then they’re objective. Otherwise they’re biased if you don’t agree, you know.” (CNN’s American Morning) In this quote, the readers are presented to current panelists agreeing that news consumers have a very hard time separating their own view of the news from the perspective of the news reporters because they are presenting their own opinions throughout their segments. This problem exists once again because of the bias that is contained in media
Beauty and the Beast centers on Belle who is desired by handsome but egocentric Gaston. Belle’s father, disappears on a journey to a local fair and becomes captive of the Beast. Belle bravely offers herself as an alternative hostage and Beast accepts. As his prisoner, Belle befriends Beast’s household of Enchanted Objects, all talking, walking furniture and kitchen utensils. Belle learns about how the Beast and his staff are all the victims of a witch’s curse that has transformed them. They fall in love during her hostage. In the end, Bella’s love reverses the spell on the Beast.
This belief is also demonstrated in the article “Challenging ‘He Said, She Said’ Journalism,” in which Linda Greenhouse contests the objectivity in the media claiming that “the ‘he said, she said’ format...impedes rather than enhances the goal of informing the reader” and leads to the twisting of words, altering the meaning of what is communicated (Greenhouse 21). Stefan Halper also argued on this topic in his article “Big Ideas, Big Problems” by commenting on how the truth is often overshadowed by flashy slogans and “Big Ideas” which the public is more likely to listen and respond to as opposed to a less extravagant news story filled with details the public should know but may not want to hear. Halper asserts that 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.
Bang! Bang! Little children running and screaming; terrified that they are going to die. The shooter walks into the room heavily armed, with a crazed look in his eye. There’s a women near a closet and small group of 1st graders behind her. He starts to go toward the little room to finish what he started. Then the young woman steps in front of the unstable gunman to shield the students from harm. A fatal shot is fired and the young teacher lies dead. That woman was Victoria Soto, a hero in the Sandy Hook Shooting, who risked her life to save her students from that delusional man, Adam Lanza. The horrific incident that took place on December 14, 2012 took the innocent lives of 26 students and teachers. Lanza did have a mental illness, but that isn’t all to blame. The shooter was known to play and watch violent movie and games (Aliprandini and Finley). This shows that media violence can be linked to aggressive behavior and that violent media can affect the minds of some young children and teens. Studies in the past decade have helped prove that sometimes the media can be bad for kids. The outcome of playing first-person shooter games could end up in innocent lives dying like in Newtown.
Media Violence and its negative impact has been discussed and debated for many years As children grow into teens they encounter as vast amount of violence in the media, negatively impacting today’s youth. Teenagers who are exposed to media violence will fail to develop effective socialization strategies and resort more readily to violence, which makes society a more dangerous place.
Beauty and the Beast was featured in Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. The story is set in Africa and features the voices of Vanessa L. Williams as the Beauty, Gregory Hines as the Beast, Debbie Allen as Precious, Terrence C. Carson as the Tree, and Paul Winfield as the
Her father accidentally get in the Beast’s castle, and steal a fllow from the Beast. The Beast was mad, so he imprison Bella’s father. Bella go save her father, and she follow love with the Beast and remove the fateful magic for his castle. In the class we watched two version of the “Beauty and Beast”. One is produce in 1946, it is a black and white film directed by Jean Cocteau and produced by André Paulvé.
The main characters in Beauty and the Beast, the Graphic Novel are: Beauty, Beauty’s father, the beast, and Beauty’s sisters. The main characters in Beauty and the Beast are: Beauty, Beauty’s father, the beast, and Beauty’s sisters. In the movie and the books the plot is about the same; a girl gets locked in a castle by a beast and quite awhile after falls in love with the beast and marries him. In the books the setting isn’t specified but in the movie you can almost assuredly say that Belle lives somewhere in France. In the books and movie the conflict is the same; man vs. man or man vs. fate. Man vs. man comes from Belle/Beauty not wanting to marry the beast but the beast wanting to marry her. Man vs. fate comes from how Belle/Beauty couldn’t do anything to stop her father from getting lost. The climax for the movie is when Belle agrees to spend time with the beast and even dance with him. The climax for the books is Beauty leaving the beast for the first time to see her family. The falling action for the movie is when the beast and Gaston get into a fight on the castle. The falling action for the books is when Beauty comes back and decides to marry the beast. The resolution for the movie and the books is the beast getting turned back into a human and marries Belle/Beauty. The theme of the books and movie are don't judge a book by its
One problem that plagues us everyday without us even realizing it is media bias. We see it in the news. We see it on our favorite sitcoms. We read it everyday in the paper. Yet, we really don't recognize it when we hear it or see it. Media bias is evident in every aspect of the media, yet the problem is that we don't even recognize it when it is right in front of our faces. Are the impressions that we form about individuals a product of the media? Do we form certain opinions about particular types of people based solely on the things we see and hear in the media everyday without even realizing it? The problem is not only that there is media bias present, but also that we can't recognize it when we see it.