Professor Lucca
May 3rd, 2010
HUC 130
Imagine one day you lost your television. You lost your favorite talk show, your CNN, your favorite cartoon and all of your connections to the whole world. Throughout decades, media have become one of the most powerful weapons in the world. As time passed, more and more varieties of media were shown, like television, magazines, and internet. From reporting the news to persuading us to buy certain products, media became the only connection between people and the world. But violence in media is shown everywhere, it is hard to turn on your media source and not find violence displayed on the screen, no matter its television, internet, print media, or even radio. Eventually, media became a contributing factor to violent and aggressive behavior of youngsters, especially teenagers. In a book entitled SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance? authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen Dubner discuss their position on the effect of media violence on children. Media violence has caused many negative effects in society. The main reasons for the unstoppable growth of media violence are because of the continue disregard of this matter, the demand for violence from the audience, and the effects it has on youngsters.
The amount of violence shown in the media has posed a lot of controversy. Many video games, television programs, adverts, films and music lyrics depict different forms of violence. Some people feel that there is too much violence exposed in the media. Many studies have made the claim that the media is responsible for much of the violence seen in the world we live in. However, people have choices and responsibilities we cannot allow ourselves to blame it on other things such as the media. The violence seen in our media has an impact on both adults and children. Since children are also exposed to various forms of media, there has been additional concern for how they process and think about the violence they see, read or hear. Excessive exposure to media violence can also affect people in many ways as they can become disturbed and develop serious fears of being victimized in real life.
The media is almost everywhere in our day to day lives. From television to movies, to videogames, it is a very large source of entertainment in our culture and thus has a vast impact on our lives. With the large impact that the media has on us the content of them are very important as well. When obscene violence is depicted on television and our other forms of entertainment it will be seen by many, including our children. The effects I speak of are vast, numerous, and too much to be ignored. But are these effects enough for us to get rid of this genre of entertainment all together just to protect our children? This type of entertainment does tend to sell very, very well, and is a large part of many entertainment companies revenue. To simply get rid of them will hurt the entertainment business to a very large degree, possibly destroying some companies with the current economy being what it is. In this extended argument paper I will discuss the general topic of how big of a part the media plays in our day to day life, and the influence it has on our personalities. I will then proceed to narrow the topic of media down to when violence is portrayed, and the negative effects that its viewing has on us. I will narrow even farther and describe the influence portrayed by from the youth of our country. I will then go into depth on media rating systems that are in place to prevent those too young to few it, from viewing it. Given the importance of social learning in contributing to violent behavior, we should pay careful attention to the kinds of role models we provide to one another. A powerful source of role models is located in almost every home: the television. Television is the source of more knowledge in the past several decades than any other type of knowledge distributor, such as books and news papers. It is by far the most influential invention of the twentieth century and has established more role models than radio or magazines combined. But to some the role models that are established through the media and television are not upstanding citizens like Ronald Reagan or Larry King, but instead psycopath murderers and serial killers such as David Koresh, Timmothy McVeigh and Charles Manson. Not only are people mesmerized by the media attention that these types of people receive but they are also taken away by the movies that portray the bad guys as tough fighters who can kill people with the snap of a finger.
What has our society come to these days? Everywhere we look, violence is present; in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. Even if one might be a pacifist, violence will seep its way into our homes through the television. Some children that see violence on television are pulled into its harmful deceptions of problem solving. Scientists have tried to explain why children are so amused by a big glowing box and the action that takes place within it. Research shows that television is a major source of violence for children. This research shows us that violence appeals to every audience, including children. The effects have been seen in a number of cases. One example, from Alabama, was when a nine-year-old boy received a bad report card from his teacher. He suggested to one of his friends that he send the teacher poisoned candy as revenge. He had seen the same scenario on television the night before. In California, a 7 year old boy sprinkled ground-up glass into the lamb stew the family was to eat for dinner. When asked why he did it he replied that he wanted to see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television (Howe 72). Some people might not accept a child’s diversion of blame, but it must be pointed out that all of children claimed to have seen a similar act on television. We should not hold television directly responsible for these acts, but understand that it is television that plants a violent seed in the minds of these children.
Some psychologists and psychiatrists feel that continued exposure to such violence might unnaturally speed up the impact of the adult world on the child. This can force the child into a kind of premature maturity. As the child matures into an adult, he can become bewildered, have a greater distrust towards others, a superficial approach to adult problems, and even an unwillingness to become an adult (Carter 14). Others see television as an unhealthy imposition into a child’s learning process, substituting easy pictures for the discipline of reading and concentrating and transforming the young viewer into a hypnotized non-thinker (Langone 48). As you can see, television violence can disrupt a child’s learning and thinking ability, which will cause life long problems. The television violence can cause actual violence in a number of ways. As explained above, after viewing television violence the world becomes bland in comparison. The child needs to create violence to keep himself satisfied (Dorr 127). Another reason why television violence causes violence in children is apparent in the big cities. Aggressive behavior was more acceptable in the city, where a child’s popularity rating with classmates was not hampered by his or her aggression (Huesmann 166). Scientists have all found one thing in common; violence in the media does have an effect on its viewers. Such results have been obtained in a survey of London schoolchildren in 1975. Greensberg found a significant relationship between violence viewing and aggression (Dorr 160), Children who had just seen commercial violence accepted much higher levels of aggression than other children. The results were published in a report. A Surgeon General’s report found some preliminary indications of a casual relationship between television viewing and aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50).
In other research among U.S. children it was discovered that aggression, academic problems, unpopularity with peers and violence feed off each other. This promotes violent behavior in the children (Huesmann 166). The child watches violence which causes aggression. The combination of aggression and continued television viewing lead to poor academic standings. In yet another piece of research children who watch a lot of violent television were compared to children who don’t. The results were that the children who watched more violent television were more likely to agree that it’s okay to hit someone if you’re mad at them for a good reason. The other group learned that problems can be solved passively, through discussion and authority (Cheyney 46). Perhaps the most important way to prevent children from watching television violence is to stop it where it starts. The parents should step in and turn the set off when a violent program comes on. The parents are the child’s role models from which he learns. If he can learn at an early age that violence on television is appalling, then he can turn the set off for himself when he is older. Education should start in the home. One of the main reasons television creates a fair amount of violence in society is the fact that children learn the specific behaviors they observe. It has been established above all that children watch television to keep themselves occupied and for amusement. Television has and informative and social function. Children have said from television they get ideas, learn about good and evil, and get an idea of reality. Dr. George Camshich's analysis on the effects of television is the "vicarious socialization that television conveys our values and norms to maturing individuals in a way that could affect how they function in society" (Williams, 161). In order for a child to be influenced significantly by a particular program, they must find the programs credible. The child then develops opinions through different sources(parents, teachers, peers), and then the child will have their own experiences, relating what they saw on television with the similar situation they have encountered in their own lives. It is true that the programs that have the greatest influence are the ones that deal in matters we have no knowledge of. An example of this is the scenario of a child who has no experience with death, but is confronted with it on television. When he or she is told that their Grandmother has died, the child asks, "Who shot her?" (Van Der Voort, 72). This proves that television will fill the gaps in a child's immediate experience, therefore altering the way they think about and understand certain situations, causing them to act a certain way based on what the television program has taught them. Young audiences exposed to mass media portrayals of violence learn how to perform violent acts. Audiences who have learned violent behavior from television are likely to exhibit that learning, (or engage in acts of violence), if they encounter a situation similar to the portrayal situation, and expect to be rewarded for that violent behavior. Lab experiments performed on children and aggression have been done where children are randomly picked and observed alone after watching a violent film, a non-violent film, or no film. The children are then given the same toys as in the film and observed on their behavior. The results of this experiment clearly state that children who watch aggressive behaviors imitate the behaviors and are more aggressive than the children who watched non-violent films or none at all. Another experiment done by Streuer, Applefield and Smith in 1971 consisted of five pairs of preschool children. One child from each pair watched a ten-minute aggressive cartoon each day for eleven days. The other child watched non-aggressive cartoons. The children that had watched the aggression behaved that way during free play. In another naturalistic experiment(done in a natural setting), the behaviors of children were examined on the basis of how much television they watch, and the results support the conclusions of the lab and field experiments. "Television viewing is positively related to aggressive behavior" (Williams, 307). Stanley and Riera in 1977 have documented incidents in which violent acts seen on television have been imitated in real life. These experiments prove that aggression is learned behavior, and television is a main source of learning available to children today.
The establishment of sex-roles that television has made is another important contributing factor to increased violence. It seems as though the barriers between male and female roles on television have been well embedded, and this distorts reality further, and therefore has a profound effect on the child who is viewing. Male characters outnumber female characters by seventy percent on both adult and children's programs. When women have leading roles, they usually appear in comedic roles more often than crime or drama programs. They are employed primarily in clerical, nursing, and entertainment positions, while men are employed as professionals such as doctors and lawyers. "Television confirms if not exaggerates these biases by portraying markedly more males than females in programs, by showing males in dominant roles, by having women more often victims of violence, and with only a few exceptions, by showing that the career world is primarily a male one" (LaRose, 26). The fact that women are often times victimized on television demonstrates violence as a social power. Surveys taken show that females occupy one-third of prime-time roles, and less than one-third percent of roles on Saturday morning television. In PBS programming, the network responsible for some of the most popular children's shows, the ratio of male to female roles is two to one. Children who watch this get the message the programs are sending out: men are always in the professional, powerful roles, while women are in marital, romantic, and family roles. "Despite the vitality of the women's movement throughout the early 1970's, there is no evidence that this has been reflected in changing sex-roles on television" (Williams, 29). As a result, the effects on television portrayals of sex-role attitudes range from ages kindergarten to the sixth grade. The children in this age group that watched a lot of television were more likely to give more stereotyped answers to questions about sex-roles than light television watchers. The same experiment but this time reversed was conducted by Davidson, Yascha, and Tuser. They concluded that when sex-roles were reversed(when women had more power), after children viewed these programs they were less likely to answer questions from a stereotypical standpoint. Clearly, this shows the influence television has on the viewpoints of children. These viewpoints will eventually lead to beliefs which may bring out hostility in the individual when met with opposition. The belief that women are inferior to men is a belief that does not express reality, only the fake reality seen on the television. However, women are not the only group that is victimized in a way by television. It also creates a distorted view of ethnic minorities. Hispanic characters are often portrayed as unskilled and semi-skilled laborers. Usually they are cast as comic characters or in law-breaking or law enforcing roles. Since children are usually unfamiliar with different minority groups, it is likely that television will influence their views of these groups. The establishment of sex-roles and other stereotypical attitudes on television is a contributor to increased violence. If women and non-whites are frequent victims of violence on television, the viewer gets the impression that these groups are made for the role of the victim, therefore, increasing discrimination and violent acts directed towards therse groups. Before graduating from high school, the average American child will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence on television. This overwhelming presentation of violence to society can only mean one thing: violence sells, and sells big. But we must ask at what cost?
Since violence in the media has long been analyzed and discussed by researchers and media, several measures have since been implemented to stop or reduce violence on television. But even with the recent measures, such as the V-chip and a television ratings system, we must question why television violence continues and the purpose it serves. A 1999 Communication Research article reported that several studies have been conducted to reveal some of the effects television violence can have on our youth and on society in general. The results of these studies have consistently found a correlation between viewing television violence and the viewer's aggressive behavior and lack of emotions after the viewing. In 1996, President Bill Clinton commended the television industry's implementation of a television ratings system as a step in the right direction.
"The actions of the television industry show us what can happen when visionary business leaders make a commitment to values and the common good," he said.
However, his comments are contradictory. As Clinton compliments the industry for its movements to regulate the amount of media violence, he improperly supports industry leaders for making "a commitment to values and the common good." Certainly repeated violence on television does not expose society to important values and lessons. Joanne Cantor, professor of Communication Arts at UW-Madison and author of the book "Mommy, I'm Scared," discussed the media's presentation of violence. "Television and movies, by their very nature, have the ability to introduce children to frightening images, events and ideas, many of which they would not encounter in their entire lives without the mass media," Cantor said. Professor Joanne Cantor speaks on violence in the media, with society's continued exposure to these disturbing images, recent measures have done little to affect the number of violent programs produced. Since money is a fundamental driver and serves as an incentive for people to work not only for themselves, but to better society, certain fundamental steps, both money related, would provoke production companies to create more innovative and thought-provoking programs.
As a result of television violence, two forms of action must be taken by society to compel the television industry to reexamine the violent content in their programs and potentially lead producers to divert from their exploitations of violence. The first would entail a national boycott by advertisers sponsoring violent programs. If such a movement could gain support and momentum, then producers would ultimately need to seriously abolish their violent programs for without the financial investment of sponsors their programs could not gain national exposure and survive. The second form of action concerns the network sponsors who have the final say over what gets aired. Network sponsors could refuse to air any programs that are violence-oriented. However, such a move could lead to a lengthy court case featuring production companies arguing over their first amendment rights to produce such material. Once network and advertising sponsors reevaluate these programs, examine what they truly have to offer and then boycott sponsoring such programs, the television industry may too be forced to review their current standing and return to programs that exemplify a "commitment to values."
Works Cited
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DeLuca, Lisa. "Effects of Media Violence on Children: News Reports of Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart and Other Kidnappings." Phobias/Anxiety. Suite 101. Web. 1 May 2010.
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Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner. Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. New York: William Morrow, 2009. Print.
Carter, Douglass. T.V. Violence and the Child. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1977.
Cheyney, Glenn Alan. Television in American Society. New York: Franklin Watts Co., 1983.
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Howe, Michael J. A. Television and Children. London: New University Education, 1977.
Husemann, L. Rowell. ÒSocial Channels Tune T.V.Õs effects.Ó Science News 14 Sept. 1985: 166.
Langone, John. Violence. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1984.
