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The Media is not to Blame for the Violence in Society
People are quick to blame violence in our society on television, movies or video games because they are simple believable targets. We have to look beyond this disinformation and attack the real causes for the violence in our society. Violence in television programs, movies, or video games will not make a person kill someone else. People watch violent images all the time, and only a very small percent of them actually commit violent crimes. Research on the subject does not necessarily support the argument, but they do not counteract it either. The research is too often inconclusive and to base our opinions on this matter without concrete evidence is foolish. Violence on television, movies and video games is not the problem. The problem is that we wrongfully blame these media sources for violent crimes, rather than put the blame where it rightfully belongs. And if we can do away with all the disinformation on this topic, if we can stop fooling ourselves into thinking that, by cleansing the media we can also cleanse the society, we can then start to solve the real issues in our society.
But the hordes of concerned citizens that cry out for government regulation will not admit that the source for society's ills may be their own. What they want is a scapegoat. A simple, plausible scapegoat. Something that will appease their conscience. And the media has provided just that. But, if you dig deeper you might just find the answer buried deep within this maze of half-truths.
Crime and violence might be the result of a mental condition. But more often than not, it is the result of a child growing up in a violent family, a troubled childhood, or simply bad parenting. After all, wh...
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... together. It was to be a voice of the people, for the people. This is still true in a way; it has become a voice for the richest men with the loudest voices. Ironically today, it is some of these same voices that are causing the loudest uproar over the use of the media.
Television, movies and video games hold great power. But I believe that people single out television, movies and video games as an explanation for violent crimes simply because it is the simplest easiest explanation. But the media are not at fault for the violence present in modern society. The blame rests primarily with society itself. If we want to be a better community, perhaps even world, we must address the real problems, rather than the trappings of media. Not only would we have less violence and crime, as a result, but children may learn that the world is a nice place in which to live.
There are a lot of people who either wonder or believe that violent media is bad for people and mostly children. Not all violent media is bad. Sometimes when people have a stressful day they will play video games to let off steam. A few people like watching horror movies because of the thrill of being scared. But if you’re a kid with no friends or you are alone most of the time, you might enjoy comic books. They are filled with action and heroes. Doing any of these can give off a sense of adventure, thrill, and excitement. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to go off and start hurting people because of it. There is a lot of evidence that states the media affects viewers by encouraging violent behavior and weakening their creative ability. The question is whether the media is truly the problem, or is it the parental role that is the problem.
According to John Davidson's essay Menace to Society, "three-quarters of Americans surveyed [are] convinced that movies, television and music spur young people to violence." While public opinion is strong, the results of research are divided on the effects of media violence on the youth in this country. Davidson wrote that most experts agree that some correlation between media violence and actual violent acts exists, yet the results are contradictory and researchers quibble about how the effects are to be measured (271). Moreover, Davidson is not convinced that the media is the sole problem of violence, or even a primary problem. He points out that other factors, such as "poverty, the easy accessibility of guns, domestic abuse, [and] social instability" may have a greater impact on a child becoming violent than the influence of the media (277). Even though other forces may be stronger, media violence does have some adverse effects on the members of society. If senseless violence on television and in movies had no effect, it would not be such a hotly debated topic. What type of effects and whom they affect are the most argued aspects of the discussion.
People have always been looking for a reason why horrible things happen. The media is quick to blame video games as the target and cause of many shootings that have occurred, ever since Columbine and Quake. People have been blaming video games for violence for years now, ever since violent video games have been made. News reports blame video games more and more for each shooting, telling the public how this person played video games for x amount of hours a day, and that video games caused him or her to shoot people, and how video games encourage and reward violence. Anti-video game lobbyists have been campaigning to have violence removed from video games, citing resources that they themselves have created as reasons for such, poorly done studies where they confirm that kids are more aggressive through how much hot sauce they put on someone’s fries. While unbiased studies of video games and their links to violence are hard to come by, recent research has shown that video games do not in fact have a casual link to violence, and may even have the opposite effect. Violent video games have nearly no link to violence in teens or adults.
The entertainment that television is now portraying is not exactly what the younger society of America needs to be exposed to, but unfortunately in today's economy that is the only kind of entertainment that sells. There is so much unnecessary exposure to violence, aggressive behavior, and sexual acts now being broadcasted daily on television, movies, music, and even the news. The broadcasting systems are now targeting younger children and teens. The crime rates have skyrocketed due to delinquent juvenile behavior over the past ten years. The whole viewing society is now becoming very tolerant and at ease with sex and violence. Youth and children are picking up on these behaviors daily. Studies have shown that by the age of 18, the average American teen will have viewed around 200,000 acts of violence on television. The violence and sexual content that television and music are now portraying has negatively influenced younger children and teens to commit murder, exhibit aggressive behavior, and become tolerant of violence and sex.
People have to suffer many difference social pressures so they need a way to relax the pressures. Watching violent films, images and playing violent games is a quick and easy way to relax their pressures; for this reason, there are more and more people like to see violent things from media, and as long as there is a demand for this violent information, the financial incentive for media companies will be there. In general, media violence can affects people in three different ways. The first one is leading people to solve their problem through violent means. People always can see many incidents of violence happening in media, and media always embellish the violent means to be a cool way to solve a problem. As time gone on, when they are put in bind in their social life, they will do the violence way to solve their problem. The second effect is imitation. Sometime people will copy the plots of what they like in media to make it happen. The third effect cause people having wrong perception of the world. Overmuch, media violence cause people believe violence is everywhere and lead them to do violent behaviors. Now, media is needful for people’s society; however, media is full of violence, many empirical studies have demonstrated that media violence indirectly instigates violent and aggressive behavior and aggressive thoughts. Media violence affects negative, and it cause many severe problem to people’s society.
One of the culprits of criminal behavior is T.V. violence. Violent programs may have a negative influence on those individuals who are already violence-prone, or children who are living through vulnerable periods of their development. Adult violent offenders tend to have shown certain personality features as children, ?one being they tended to have viewed violence on television.? The amount of violence on television continues to grow. ?A typical child watched on television one thousand murders and twenty five thousand acts of violence before finishing elementary school.? When displayed this often, how can people not become desensitized to criminal acts? ?By allowing this type of material to be openly exposed to the public we are endangering safety and society?s values.? Without control of what material is delivered to the masses, we cannot expect people to have a proper sense of right and wrong as they will constantly see the horrific things that happen in the false reality of the media and become immune to feelings of disgust toward such atrocious deeds in real life. Controlling what is viewed on television is the responsibility of the government in order to decrease violence in the real world.
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.
Markowitz, F. E. (2011). Mental illness, crime, and violence: Risk, context, and social control. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 36-44.
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...
In fairy tales, children are pushed into ovens, have their hands chopped off, are forced to sleep in coal bins, and must contend with wolves who've eaten their grandmother. In myths, rape, incest, all manner of gruesome bloodshed, child abandonment, and total debauchery are standard fare. We see more of the same in Bible stories, accentuated with dire predictions of terrors and abominations in an end of the world apocalypse that is more horrifying than the human imagination can even grasp.
Silver, Eric. 2006. “Understanding the Relationship between Mental Disorder and Violence: The Need for a Criminological Perspective.” Law and Human Behavior 30(6):685-706.
Domestic abuse and child abuse have widespread social and emotional costs. Family violence affects all segments of the family. The impact of violence on childrens' lives appears to be far more substantial than the impact on adults lives(Family, Pg. 1). In most cases of family violence the family has conformed to a pattern in which the line of family violence started generations ago. This pattern must be broken before more children growup and live in a family that resorts to violence. But there are also children who live in loving families who do not resort to violence and as these children mature they start resorting to violence to help solve and deal with their problems. Studies show that physical punishment could cause aggression in children, but other studies show that even abusive parental violence does not always lead to an increase in children's aggression. Only by recognizing and addressing the multifactorial roots of violence in our society can we move closer to living in peace.
Some people believe that violent video games can cause behavioral problems. This is not true; it is only their opinion. They may say people that play violent video games start having behavioral problems, and what was that cause? It is only people and it has no effect on them, only their own action and their weak mental health issues. The violent video games for computers and consoles’ sale rate went up but violent crime offense went down. Video games are for players to have fun without causing any harm while they are playing. Why do they believe that behavior problems were caused by violent video games? They do not seem to realize that television and movies also have violent scenes. Some examples of popular violent movies include First Blood, Expendables, Dark Knight, Spiderman, and Superman. All action movies have shooting, explosions, and fighting. Horror movies are filled with violence as well, such as Halloween, Scream, and Saw. Horror shows and movie are showing stabbings and serious harm. Even Television shows, like the Three Stooges, Cops, wrestling and America's Funniest Videos! Children's cartoons have violence as well; Disney animated films, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Watership Down.
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.
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.