A beautiful young girl is found dead, blood all over her face, wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. A mill goes up in flames, trapping two people who were lured there by the killer who hopes they burn to cinders. The bullet-ridden body of a detective lies on the floor, the deed done by a mysterious killer. A purported drug dealer is strangled to death; his body flailing and contorted with pain. Two people commit a brutal rape and leave the victim for dead. Why the fascination with violence?
The Amount of Violence on Television According to the renowned psychiatrist Karl Menninger, " We not only tolerate violence it is part of our life. Why over one third of our television programs use it for amusement. There are more than 200 million television sets in America. The average American watches over seven hours a day. For many children, this is more time than they spend in school. The world of television has been alternatively called entertainment and a vast wasteland. It serves as a model of the world around us.
What kind of world does it depict? The message is often one of violence. In 1973, the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, devised a "violence profile" to measure the amount of violence shown on television. The analysts watched over 33 hours of entertainment programs in a sample week and monitored specific acts of violence. The results indicated that some violence was contained in 70 percent of the programs! The violence could be categorized into three types:
- Violence for its own sake
- Overtly graphic views of brutality and human suffering
- The portrayal of anti-social behavior
Later studies found that even shows specifically geared towards children have violence in them. Cartoons averaged eight episodes of violence a show.
The Effect of Television Violence on Children What effect does television have? Television acts as a cross-cultural influence cutting across nationalities and class. It gives people with different values and background common information. Because of the immediacy of the message, it is often seen as another member of the family. What a person sees in terms of images is bound to have an impact on their beliefs and attitudes.
Concern about violence on television began in the earliest days of the medium in the late 1940's. Killings and violence were staples of the early television shows, which featured cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, detectives and murders.
If a person were to go and turn on their television, most likely to be playing would be a movie or show filled with violence, weapons, and blood. A popular show in recent years has been Dexter. Dexter is about a serial killer, named Dexter, who murders other serial killers and those who have escaped the justice system. Although he is breaking the law, he is in his own way “good”, because he lives by a moral code; he does not hurt the innocent and he tends to follow the social norms. Before its final season, the series was presented on Showtime, which for the most part is an uncensored channel, so there was quite a bit of goriness. In each of the episodes, the killing is quite explicit, Dexter’s preferred method of dealing with his victims is to surgically cut them into sections while they are still alive and dump their bodies into the waters near his Miami home. There is constantly blood everywhere: splattered on the walls, covering parking lots, or even flowing out of bathtubs. For some reason, people seem to be attracted to the darkness that this show is based on, this is due to the fact that we get to see Dexter act on his impulses and deepest desires without any consequences or being looked down on by those around him; whatever the reason we cannot officially conclude that Dexter or any media similar to it, have any influence over the violence in our modern day society as a whole.
Leo, John. "The Amount of Violence on Television Has Been Exaggerated." Media Violence: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1999.
Longitudinal, cross-sectional, and experimental studies have all confirmed this correlation. Televised violence and the presence of television in American households have increased steadily over the years. In 1950, only 10% of American homes had a television. Today 99% of homes have televisions. In fact, more families have televisions than telephones. Over half of all children have a television set in their bedrooms. This gives a greater opportunity for children to view programs without parental supervision. Studies reveal that children watch approximately 28 hours of television a week, more time than they spend in school. The typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18. Television programs display 812 violent acts per hour; children's programming, particularly cartoons, displays up to 20 violent acts
There is a "general consensus among social scientists that television violence increases the propensity to real-life aggression among some viewers," and yet, paradoxically, "there is presently little evidence indicating that violence enhances program popularity" (Diener & DeFour, 1978). Top government studies insist, "violent material is popular" (Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior, 1972). Differing conclusions may be viable. One leading social psychologist flatly states, "evidence suggests that violence on television is potentially dangerous, in that it serves as a model for behavior -- especially for children" ...
Television plays a big role on violence. Most of us watch television daily. And what do we see daily on television? The news, about our world surrounded by violence? Movies, that only show shootings, death, and more violence? Even cartoons are violent, like the Simpsons, south park, and even Tom and Jerry, shows specially for our young audience. ...
When we think of violence, we automatically picture guns and knives being used to kill people. Although this is a part of violence, it’s not the only way a violent situation can arise. Violence can be any harm done to a person through physical contact. Along with guns and knives, this can include one’s own bare hands or any object within proximity. On television, we see every type of violence carried out, whether it be a simple punch or a serial killer who finds pleasure in the violence he causes. Any form of a violent situation that you can think of has most likely been acted out on a television series or movie. TV is written to blow scenarios out of proportion and create unrealistic versions of different scenarios. Instead of a decent conversation to solve a problem, a punch is thrown or a gun is pulled. By portraying these types of solutions, television is promoting violent behavior. The characters in the action, crime or horror shows are actively encouraging these types of behavior. Although these scenes are needed to produce a captivating plot, there needs to be awareness as to the fact that these scenes are being idolized to the wrong audience.
Children spend more time learning about life through media than in any other manner. The average child spends approximately twenty-eight hours a week watching television, which is twice as much time as they spend in school (Dietz, 75). According to the American Psychological Association, the average American child views 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence before finishing elementary school. In
Television with its far reaching influence spreads across the globe. Its most important role is that of reporting the news and maintaining communication between people around the world. Television's most influential, yet most serious aspect is its shows for entertainment. Violent children's shows like Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and adult shows like NYPD Blue and Homicide almost always fail to show human beings being able to resolve their differences in a non-violent manner; instead they show a reckless attitude that promotes violent action first with reflection on the consequences later. Contemporary television creates a seemingly insatiable appetite for amusement of all kinds without regard for social or moral benefits (Schultze 41). Findings over the past twenty years by three Surgeon Generals, the Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence, the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical authorities indicate that televised violence is harmful to all of us, but particularly to the mental health of children (Medved 70-71).
Even though violence is apart of our lives, I think society can limit the amount of violent programs that they watch. If people limit watching violence on television maybe the world wouldn’t be as involved with violence as it is now. Based on this data, I have concluded that Marie Winn is correct about television being a serious addiction.
On average and American child will watch 32 acts of violence per hour on TV. This number has skyrocketed from 20 years ago when it was just 12 acts per hour (Krieg). This being said a child will have watched anywhere from 8,000 to 100,000 acts of violence before they even finish elementary school (Weiss). While adults can watch violence on TV and understand that it is not real, children on the other hand have difficulty differentiating the between what is real and what is make believe.
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.
The American Psychological Association believe television violence affects young children negatively after doing many case studies. They believe children can learn aggressive attitudes and behaviors. Children can become desensitized to real world violent behavior. Young kids can develop a fear of being victimized by violence. The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry believe that television does influence the behavior of children from as young as one years old (Kalin.) These are all seemingly reliable resources to encourage that belief violent cartoons does affect young children.
depict a fantasy world are a lot more interesting to watch. People don't want to
Does violence on television have a negative effect on children and teenagers? The violence shown on television has a surprisingly negative effect. Television violence causes children and teenagers to become less caring, to lose their inhibitions, to become less sensitive, and also may cause violent and aggressive behavior.
Television violence causes destructive behavior in children, however; television can be a powerful influence to young viewers in our society. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming are very violent. Many researchers like scientists, pediatricians, and child researchers in many countries have studied to find out what it is about television violence that makes it such a big affect on the way kids act and behave. Sometimes, children think that is a normal thing in our real life, by watching only a single violent program, which can increase aggressiveness on children and become violent, aggressive, and vicious.