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Violence censorship in the media
Media promotes violence in society
Media promotes violence in society
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Maria Impastato
Mrs. Sundberg and Mr. Hurley
English 10-Period 2
31 March 2014
Media Violence
By the time a child reaches the age of one, they see about 200,000 acts of violence on television. (Nakaya, 3). The Media has been becoming more and more violent over the years. A poll in an issue of Times Magazine, from 2005, showed that 66 percent of Americans think that there is an abundant amount of graphic acts of violence on televisions (Nakaya, 18). People are exposed to thousands of acts of violence through video games, television, and movies. Many studies show that media violence increases violent behavior in in humans. Studies show, violent video games, and graphic television have physiological effects on children. The government has very few regulations on media violence. Some people believe the government shouldn’t limit content because others might be insulted by its material. Media violence is such a broad topic and has such a large presence in daily lives, so we cannot simple get rid of it. The Federal Communications Commission stipulates, “By the time most children begin the third grade, they will have spent the equivalent of three school years in front of a television set.” Even though the government shouldn’t censor the media, Media violence is becoming a serious issue because it is becoming more violent, it makes people behave violently, and it has little regulations.
The regularity and asperity of media violence has dramatically increased over the years. The Media exists in almost every aspect of people’s lives and exposure to violence in the media is becoming a large concern. People are exposed violent acts in the media everyday between video games, movies, and television. Parents are distressed over the fact tha...
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...nst TV violence; they only regulate language and sexual content (Brown,2). The American television industry and movie industry are very prude regarding sex and language, but very permissive on the topic of violence. Many movies that have brief glimpses of nudity, or more than one use of profane language get rated R, yet action flicks with thousands of killings in them are rated PG-13 (Horn and Zeitchik, 2). Some question if the ratings would be more appropriate if the government established the regulations rather then the voluntary industry. Movies are rated by the Motion Picture Association of America, know also by the acronym MPAA. Television shows are rated by the network or broadcaster, that the show plays on. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rates video games but there are no set laws that prohibits children from buying games rated for adults.
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.
For a long time now the debate has been, and continues to be, as to whether or not violence on television makes children more violent. As with all contentious issues there are both proponents and detractors. This argument has been resurrected in the wake of school shootings, most notably Columbine and Erfurt, Germany; and acts of random violence by teenagers, the murders of two Dartmouth professors. Parents, teachers, pediatricians, child psychiatrists, and FCC Chairmen William Kennard and former Vice President Al Gore say violent TV programming contribute in large part to in violence in young people today. However, broadcasters and major cable TV providers like Cox Communication say that it is the parent’s fault for not making it clear to their kids as what they may or may not watch on TV. The major TV networks and cable providers also state it is the TV industry’s fault as well for not regulating what is shown on TV. So who is the guilty party in this argument of whether or not TV violence influences of the behavior young people in today’s society?
Many Americans feel that the viewing of violence in the media reinforces negative behavior in society, especially among children and young adults. "Three thousand studies have been done since 1955 on the link between television and violence; 2,980 of them found a correlation between the two. We hear little about that because we get most of our news from television" (Peterson). With this much research one must acknowledge that there is a problem in America involving sex and violence in the media. We cannot blame all societal problems on the media and its portrayal of these issues, but we can become educated, ourselves, in order to better facilitate the healthy lives of our children.
addition the average American child will witness over 200,000 acts of violence on television including 16,000 murders before the age of 18 (DuRant, 445). Polls show that three-quarters of the public find television entertainment too violent. When asked to select measures that would reduce violent crime “a lot”, Americans chose restrictions on television violence more often than gun control. Media shows too much violence that is corrupting the minds children, future leaders of our society. In a study of population data for various countries sh...
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.
Does entertainment influence society's attitude towards violent behavior? In order to fully answer this question we must first understand what violence is. Violence is the use of one's powers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another; examples of this would be rape or murder. Violence in entertainment reaches the public by way of television, movies, plays, music, and novels. Through the course of this essay it will be proven that violence in entertainment is a major factor in the escalation of violence in society, once this is proven we will take all of the evidence that has been shown throughout this paper and come to a conclusion as to whether or not violence in entertainment is justified and whether or not it should be censored.
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.
he media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocentguilty and the guilty innocent and that’s power. That’s because they control the minds of themasses. – Malcolm X.Good Morning, Teachers and tudents. The media controls how !
It often seems like everywhere one looks, violence rears its ugly head. It is seen
When a kid commits a violent act, the crime is often blamed on the television program that the child watched, the movies the child saw, or the video game the child just played. But if one were to actually go about censoring television shows, cartoons should be censored first. People will start trying to stop kids from viewing violent images such as shows like the Power Rangers or The Ninja Turtles. I do not think that shows like this should be censored so a kid can’t watch them. I think that by censoring the images it will just make kids want to see them more. Kids are attracted to violence and if they can’t see it on television or in movies, they will easily see it outside when they play at the playground or something. Violent television, movies and especially video games offer a way for kids to see what violence is without actually committing any crimes or hurting anyone. Before humans could see or engage in virtual violence, we watched or committed real violent acts.
Society has been bombarded with violence from the beginning of time. These concerns about violence in the media have been around way before television was even introduced. Nevertheless, there have been numerous studies, research, and conferences done over the years on television, but the issue still remains. Researchers do acknowledge that violence portrayed on television is a potential danger. One issue is clear though, our focus on television violence should not take attention away from other significant causes of violence in our country such as: drugs, inadequate parenting, availability of weapons, unemployment, etc. It is hard to report on how violent television effects society, since television affects different people in different ways. There is a significant problem with violence on television that we as a society are going to have to acknowledge and face.
Summary #1 Television violence, and media violence in general, has been a controversial topic for several years. The argument is whether young children are brainwashed into committing violent real-world crimes because of violent and pugnacious behavior exposed in mass media. In his article “No Real Evidence for TV Violence Causing Real Violence”, Jonathan Freedman, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and author of “Media Violence and Its Effect on Aggression: Assessing the Scientific Evidence”, discusses how television violence, claimed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), does not cause real-world aggression among adolescents. The FCC determined to restrict violent television programming to late night hours only because their “scientific research” proves of increasing aggression among young viewers (Freedman Par. 2).
Throughout the years, violence has become more common in television shows over the years. Today’s television programming, found also in cartoons, portrays quite a bit of violence. Cartoons, such as Loony Toons, show violence in a comical stance and the violence is rather easygoing. Adult programming, such as Family Guy and The Simpsons, represent violence in an adult manner that is not suitable for children. According to Norman Herr (2007), children view 200,000 acts of violence by the age of 18 (Herr, 2007). This from the same resource shows that children watch television about 1500 hours per year (Herr, 2007). Children today watch many hours of television a day, and most shows have some type of violence.
First is government intervention, reduce the content of media violence. From the origin of the media to eliminate negative information, government should make legal view by relevant policies and laws and forcibly remove violence in the media. For example, the Sweden government has the media violence committee, on film, television, video, computer games and computer networks and other media for violence and show any negative effects to pay close attention. Second is Parents ' supervision and guidance, some parents complain that full control over what their children watch and do what is impossible. Although it is difficult to control the child 's media habits, but this does not mean to give up work. Ostrov’s Research shows that parents supervise children 's media usage, for example, restrictions on the use of time, to ensure that the media content health, can reduce a child 's aggression.(Ostrov,2009) Therefore, parents should actively take measures to minimize the influence of media violence on children. And the last but not least is Cognitive change towards violence. Due to the influence of media violence is growing, lack of the mind, right from wrong ability of children, if they are long-term exposure to violence in the media content, they will think that violence is widespread, violence is an effective strategy to solve the problem. Therefore, parents should tell children to limit their use of some type of
With the explosion of technology today, access to the media is at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere, and almost 24/7. Video games, movies, cartoons, daily news, websites, music videos, and even in commercials, violence is everywhere, and it becomes harder and harder to avoid. Violence in the media has been increasing and reaching dangerous proportions. According to Report of the Media Violence Commission, the effects are remarkably consistent regardless of type of medium, age, gender, or where the person lives in the world (336). Many studies and researches reveal the empirical evidence that links violence in movies and television shows to aggressive behavior in children, teenagers, and adults. Increasing aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, and fear are three types of negative effects contributed to by violence in movies and television shows. The article, “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth” emphasizes that violent television shows, films, and music reveal unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood aggressive and violent behavior in both immediately, and in the long term (Anderson, Craig A., 81). Violence now has gone into the mainstream. The Hunger Games, one of the top grossing films in 2013 replete with blood, gore and violence. The Walking Dead was once voted highest-rated entertainment program on TV with horrific violent scenes, killing from stabbing into the heads, bloody corpses, and disturbing, haunting images shown in most of the scenes. CBS’ Criminal Minds is television show with series of scary scenarios showing the violent murders of psychopath people. Worst of all, Silence of the Lambs deals with a psychopath who ...