Media Violence Essay, Research Paper

Our Childs are Violent:

Is the Media Really to Blame?

Why are kids our so violent? What has changed so much over the old ages to do today s kids so angry, so aggressive? Many people attribute the addition in violent young person to the addition of force in the media. If people are fed a day-to-day diet of slaying, offense and force, many come to believe that kind of thing is normal ( Foegen ) . There is a common belief that telecasting, movies, picture games, and even the every night intelligence are to fault for doing kids believe that force is non merely acceptable, but a necessary manner of work outing struggle. Is the media to fault for this rise in violent behaviour? It is possible that the media is being used as a whipping boy for the neglecting household unit which may be a more true cause of this behaviour.

There is no misidentifying that telecasting has become a family basic, much like staff of life or milk. The telecasting, one time a beginning of household amusement, has become a baby-sitter, and even a parental figure in some places. The mean 7th grader tickers about four hours of telecasting per twenty-four hours, and 60 per centum of those shows contain some force ( Violence and the Media 267 ) . This means that when a kid comes place from school, he or she may pass most of the staying twenty-four hours watching violent Acts of the Apostless. It has besides been noted that on norm, a kid receives more one-on-one communicating from telecasting than from both instructors and parents combined ( Grossman ) . With all of this telecasting observation, it should non be surprising that by the clip an American kid turns 18, he or she will hold watched 200,000 violent Acts of the Apostless, and 16,000 fake slayings on telecasting ( Violence and the Media 267 ) . While it is safe to state that witnessing all of these violent Acts of the Apostless has the ability to desensitise viewing audiences, it does non intend that those viewing audiences will be more violent than people who do non watch telecasting.

One popular illustration of violent telecasting is professional wrestle. Many parents have chastised wrestle for promoting force and portraying it as glamourous. There is a concern that preteen and teenage male childs will look to wrestling as an illustration of what a adult male should be, and this is a valid point. Teenss and preteens are at the age when they begin to make individualities for themselves. By watching grapplers receive awards and congratulations for prosecuting in Acts of the Apostless of force, kids in bend could believe that this is an appropriate manner to derive credence in society ( Kantrowitz 52 ) .

Finger indicating does non halt at fictional telecasting shows. It besides leads in the way of telecasting intelligence plans. The flushing intelligence that many people watch each dark is non on a regular basis seen as a subscriber to the violent behaviour of immature people. While intelligence plans think that they are making their occupations by supplying uninterrupted coverage of violent calamities such as Columbine, what they do non recognize is that immature people see the celebrity that these existent life slayers receive as a manner of non merely acquiring even with those who have wronged them, but of accomplishing some kind of ill fame in the procedure. Why do we seldom see studies of teenage self-destructions on the intelligence? In the 1970

s, intelligence coverage of local stripling self-destructions was shown to take to constellate self-destructions, or imitator self-destructions by adolescents ( Grossman ) . After these findings were made, telecasting Stationss stopped publicising intelligence of local self-destructions. If it is believed that a publicised act of self-violence could take to similar Acts of the Apostless, so why wouldn t the same clasp true for publicised violent Acts of the Apostless against others?

In 1989 Brandon Centerwall conducted a survey that has been used over the old ages to turn out the effects of media force on society. Centerwall followed the slaying rates of Whites in America and Canada from 1945 to 1974 and compared them to the slaying rate of Whites in South Africa for that same clip period. It must be pointed out here that telecasting broadcast medium in South Africa was banned until 1975. Centerwall reported that while slaying rates remained steady in South Africa, they doubled in Canada and America after telecasting was introduced ( Rhodes 55 ) . His decision was that telecasting was to fault for the addition in slayings.

Centerwall nevertheless, did non describe all of his findings. He neglected to describe that during this same clip span in other states, such as Italy, France, and Germany, slaying rates besides remained steady or even declined as the figure of telecastings per place increased ( Rhodes 56 ) . How can an addition in force be attributed to an addition in telecasting screening when America is one of the few states in which a correlativity between telecasting screening and force can be made?

There is another school of idea that says media is non to fault for increased force, but a deteriorating household construction is. In some instances, it is non that parents do non care what their kids are exposed to ; they are merely uninformed as to what their kids are watching. Parents need to be educated as to the possible impact that telecasting and other signifiers of violent media could hold on their kids ( Grossman ) . There have been suggestions to make a media run which would educate parents on the V-Chip and evaluation systems, every bit good as other tools to forestall kids from being exposed to media force ( Violence and the Media 288 ) .

Whatever the causes of force in kids are, it is clear that this is a job that is non traveling to travel away any clip shortly, nor will it travel off without person taking action. It must be the duty of both the media industry and parents to do certain that kids are non exposed to violent images, and if they are, to do certain that they understand that what they are watching is fiction, non world. Violence is non acceptable.

Plants Cited

Foegen, J.H. Newspapers as Behavior Modifiers? Editor & A ; Publisher 9 Sep. 1996: 52-53. EBSCOhost. CD-ROM. 11 Nov. 2000.

Grossman, Dave. We are Training Our Childs to Kill. Saturday Evening Post Sep./Oct. 1999: 54-59. EBSCOhost. CD-ROM. 11 Nov. 2000.

Kantrowitz, Barbara. Is This Too Raw for Kids? Newsweek 7 Feb. 2000: 52.

Rhodes, Richard. The Media-Violence Myth. Rolling Stone 23 Nov. 2000: 55-58.

Violence and the Media: Influence on American Youth. Congressional Digest Nov. 1999: 266-288.

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