Media Censorship Will Not Stop the Violence
Violence will be with us forever. We cannot change that. However, we can, and must change the way our children and we relate to it. Leonard Pitts Jr., columnist for the Miami Herald, explains it this way:
Despite the way it seems, carnage did not begin at Columbine. To the contrary, human beings have always had a tremendous capacity to inflict pain on one another, a capacity that reaches far deeper than whatever is on the marquee at the local multiplex. I do not dispute that we live in a violence-besotted culture that has helped anesthetize children -- all of us, really - to the effects of physical aggression. So yes, it is proper and necessary for us to debate the way violence is depicted. But that is not quite the same as saying we can or should be protected from it. (B07)
The focus should be placed on the type of violence we see rather than the amount. According to a new Harvard University study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Walt Disney may be hazardous to children's health. Researchers looked through 74 animated feature films for children released since 1973. Their conclusion: Animated movies subject children to "significant" amounts of violence, frequently fail to explore alternative means of conflict resolution and, therefore, may be unsuitable for small children in the family. According to Harvard, "violence" includes depictions of premeditated murder, as well as, Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff (Pitts). These two acts, both violent, will not conceivably affect children in the same manner.
Professional groups, including the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Chil...
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...wer. "Youth violence is at the same level it was 20 years ago," said Williams, who criticized the explicit news broadcasts of such sensational topics as the O.J. Simpson murder trial and the Rodney King beating. "That was under the guise of news, of justifiable violence. But why do we have to worry about what's on TV when we have a button that says off-on? We do not need V-chips. We need 'p-chips' implanted in the back of parents' heads and making them reassert their responsibility" (Bloom).
Works Cited
Bloom, David. "Celebrities Debate TV Violence." The Plain Dealer 18 August 2000: 5E.
Mestel, Rosie. "The Great Debate." The Gazette (Montreal) 30 September 2000: W7.
Pitts, Leonard Jr. "Not All Media Violence is the Same." The Times-Picayune 4 June 2000: B07.
Wang, Justine. "Kids and Violence: Who's to Blame?" The Plain Dealer 21 September 2000:11B.
By now, you’ve all probably seen a PG-13 movie with violence in it. You could have not even batted an eye at the violence. Violence in movies is common these days. We’re used to it. A recent survey done by professor Brad Bushman, at Ohio State University even found movie violence has doubled since the 50’s and for PG-13 movies gun violence is shown to have tripled since 1985. Some say this is going to have a negative impact on our society and that the MPAA should change their ratings system so that violence is a theme that is only allowed in R-rated movies. Still, their claims have no evidence of media violence harming people in the real world. Violence in movies does not have long-term negative effects on our society proving that the MPAA shouldn’t have to restrict violence in PG-13 movies.
Valenti, Jack. "Violent Movies Do Not Make Children Violent." Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 4 May. 1999. Rpt. in Violence in the Media. Ed. James D. Torr. San Diego: Greenhaven. 2001. 72-74.
Many things should be done to change children's view on television and how much violence should be on the television. Children today act and dress older than they are. The fact remains that they still are children. The children that watch Barney and sing along and have a great time learn to love one another. The children who watch Power Rangers begin to kick each other and fight because that is what they are seeing on television. We should sit down and explain to our kids that the Power Rangers are trained actors and actresses. They are actually not hitting and kicking each other. Watching violence makes children act violently. As long as children see it being done, they are going to do it also. Children imitate everything they see.
Violence presented in the media has been questioned by many for years if there is a strong correlation that produces more violent members of society.According to Kaplan, 2 teenage boys who murdered 12 schoolmates and a teacher and injured 21 others at Columbine High School in Colorado before killing themselves, lived in a pathological environment. Their lives centered around violent video games. This could been avoided if the children didn't have such easy access to violence. Therefore, a step in the right the path would be limiting youths exposure to violence.
Understand that there are more than one cause to juvenile violence. Media and television related violence is only one of the factors. Addressing and trying to correct one issue at a time is going to be the most productive. Take television for example. Lionel Tate was obviously influenced by actions he saw from people, adults, on television. Though not all blame can be put in the hands of the entertainment industry. Other factors including parent control and limitation, and previous behavioral patterns could have prevented Tiffany's death. In the book, Children in a Violent Society, Joy Osofsky makes a strong case about kids and the negative effects of witnessing violence. "Children learn what they see…and they do not learn that violence is bad. Too often, they learn that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict…"(Osofsky, 4). Take a hypothetical situation about Johnny.
Violence in America is a problem, and it is a problem that should be addressed. However,
Violence has been present since the beginning of the medium and in our history: political violence, ethnic violence, class violence. "You go back to the KKK, you have people committing incredible acts of violence on a grand scale. What is different is the reach of the media. You can now put anything on the screen; there's no longer a sense of things being off limits," Eric Foner, Columbia University's DeWitt Clinton Professor of History said(qtd. in Cole). This is very true, broadcasting of the Vietnam War was America's first glimpse at the brutal truth of war. It raised the acceptable threshold of violence on television; the infamous images prepared audiences for the fictional gore later depicted in such television shows as "NYPD Blue" and "ER"(Cole). What about society's responsibility?
Although violence in the United States is a problem that needs a lot of attention, the amount of episodes is and hopefully will remain declining over the years. Teachers, parents and peers all have an impact on each and every child that goes through school systems. As long as they keep teaching violence prevention programs, the numbers will keep dropping. Although this problem will never fully go away, the percentage of violence in schools will be constantly dropping.
This article talks about the effects of media exposure on adolescents and the violence that is can bring. Using the social conflict theory it portrays the media as having a harmful impression on today’s children. The article shows how crime statistics have decreased the arrests for violent crimes committed by youth offenders has not (Fowler, 2002). The article also shows how the APA is teaming up with federal programs to help resolve these harmful effects that the media is portraying. The article shows that media is responsible for the social conflict that these adolescents are dealing with. The APA and other organizations along with the federal government are combating this problem from every angle (Fowler, 2002). While the article does speak of some statistics it may be inflating them by not including a breakdown of what violent crimes are being committed.
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.
Crime is considered commonplace in contemporary Britain; furthermore, many members of society may become a victim of crime at some point in their lives. Durkheim (1938) even suggested that crime is a normal function; it sets boundaries to the rest of society. Many experts have expressed their fascination with crime and their need to understand criminal behaviour; thus, the science of criminology was born. Criminology is fundamental in understanding criminal behaviour and the effect it has on the law and the society in which we live (Williams, 2012). Moreover, the theoretical approaches of criminology play an essential ingredient in the understanding of offending and criminal behaviour. Therefore, this essay will focus on describing two
Criminology is the study of why individuals engage or commit crimes and the reasons as to why they behave in certain ways in different situations (Hagan, 2010). Through understanding the reasons or why an individual commits a crime, one can come up with ways to prevent and control crime or rehabilitate criminals. There exist a large number of criminology theories, some link crime to an individual or person; they believe a person weighs the cons and pros and makes a conscious decision on whether to commit or not commit a felony. Others see the society as having a duty to make sure that its members do not engage in criminal acts by providing a secure and safe living place. Some claim that some people have hidden or dormant characteristics that determine their reaction or behavior when confronted or put in particular negative conditions (Akers & Sellers, 2012). By understanding and studying these theories, together with applying them to people, psychologists and authorities can prevent criminals from committing or repeating crimes and aid in their rehabilitation. As many theories have emerged over time, they continue to be surveyed and explored, both individually and in combination in order for criminologists to develop solutions and eventually reduce the levels and types of crime. The most popular criminology theories emphasize on the individual, positivist and classical traits. This paper will explore the classical theory, which is among the earliest theories in criminology.
Within the last few years, media violence is rapidly becoming a “hot” topic among many researchers and parents. The recent upsurge of violence and shootings in our schools causes us to ask the question, “ Who should we blame for the hostility of our youth?” There are obviously no easy answers to this question, fingers may point to many different reasons. With the many different perspectives in this issue, I will discuss the three most important, blaming the entertainment business, blaming the parents, and within the children themselves.
Senate Committee on the Judiciary. “Media Violence Causes Youth Violence.” Mass Media. Ed. William Dudley. Farmington Hills, MI: Thompson Gale, 2005. 121-130.
Violent media is everywhere, from commercials to billboards, causing parents to question if it is good for their children to be experiencing the violence. Yet, there is violence in everyday life, making it hard for parents to be able to shield their children from it. Educational tools contain items that are considered violent, such as the novel Odyssey by Homer, so video games and violent movies are not the only type of media that introduces violence to children. Still, some believe that violent media has caused school shootings, such as the one that happened at Columbine High School in 1999, but is this really the case?