Violent Media By Gerard Jones Analysis

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According to Gerard Jones, violent media can actually have positive effects on young people because children will feel rage and anger just like anyone else. He explains that children need to experience anger so that they can learn to understand and control it. Jones also believes that violent media are a positive influence on children because it can make the child braver. Jones explains how violent media can help a child view the problems around them and help motivate them to fix it, just like a superhero would. Jones makes some good points. For example, he brings up the quote of Melanie Moore, an urban teen psychologist, who said, “Children need violent entertainment in order to explore inescapable feelings that they’ve been taught to deny, …show more content…

Using his essay to argue about the benefits of violent media is pointless, because this generation’s form of violent media has become too realistic. Video games have become too close to reality, to the point that virtual reality has now become accessible to everyone. Virtual reality adds another layer of depth to violent media, because now the violent video games are just as immersive as ever. A person can actually fire a gun in the virtual world, and it could feel like firing a gun in real life. Another reason why Jones’ essay is not completely valid is because of the differences in censorship between the 1990s and today. Violent movies and games could show whatever they’d like if their age rating is for adults. However, kids still manage to gain these titles because of their parent’s permission, and are then exposed to brutal murders, sexual abuse, and torture. A perfect example of this is the vastly popular, Grand Theft Auto: V. This game is filled with drug abuse, violent murders, torturing, sexual abuse, theft, etc. Lastly, the increase of violent school shootings or massacres has been linked to violent video games. This was not seen in Jones’ time, except in the Columbine school shooting, where both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot up the Columbine High School. Both were heavily invested in violent video games, specifically a video game called, Doom (a violent video game created in the 1990’s that involves shooting …show more content…

He agrees that violent media has inspired real world events. This is not something to agree on, because it shows the blatant truth of violent media. In today’s world, kids are exposed to violent media on an hourly basis. Any parent will tell you that kids will copy anything the parent does. Why is that? It’s because children learn from their surroundings. When they are surrounded by violence, they will grow up to be violent. When they are surrounded by peace, they will grow up to be peaceful, too. This imitation in kids has been proven by Albert Bandura, a famous 1960’s psychologist. Bandura conducted an experiment that is now known as the Bobo Doll Experiment. Bandura’s goal was to see how social behaviors, such as aggression, could be gained by observing and imitating others. To sum up the experiment, Bandura had the kids watch an adult beat up a doll, while another group was shown playing with the doll. The results showed that the children in both groups imitated the adults; the kids who watched the doll get beat up repeated what they had seen, and the ones who watched the doll get played with did the same, as well. This experiment changed the way people act in front of their children, because of the chance they will imitate

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