Abstract
We examined the various forms of television violence and domestic violence in America. We provided statistics showing the amounts of violence facts about adolescent exposure. We compared and contrasted the differing effects of both and implemented a study to analyze the similarities. We observed children and gathered data regarding their response to specific kinds of violence and the psychological effects of each. We expected that the effects of television violence and domestic would be strikingly similar to one another and the results of our study prove the similarities and provoke awareness to the differences.
Television Violence and Domestic Violence have Similar Effects on Children
A staggering amount of research has been done over the past several years regarding what is shown on television and how it affects American society. Much of this research has focused on television violence and its effect on a child’s aggression. According to the research that has been done, there seems to be an overwhelming indication that television violence does in fact affect a child’s personality. There has also been a significant amount of research that has been completed, analyzing actual violence, particularly domestic violence. The research has targeted physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in the home and its affect on adults and children. Much of this research has been directed to the effects of domestic violence on children between the ages of 2 and 18.
Even though much research has been done describing these two studies individually, very little research has been done to compare and contrast the effects of both with one another. The purpose of this paper is to outline the effects of television and domestic violence and to try to discover if there are any similarities between the two. Even though there are other forms of multimedia such as video games and the internet we choose to exclude these, not because we think they are irrelevant, but for the sake of narrowing the topic down to a reasonable size.
Much of the research that I have done contains facts about the contents of television and domestic violence. According to the American Psychiatric Association, American children spend an average of 28 hours in front of a television per week. A recent article states, “By the time they reach age 18, they will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 2...
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...ly-functioning human being they have got to have proper influences in their life and preventative measures must be implemented a psychologically healthy individual. If they can be taught how to be aggressive then surely they can be taught how to be sympathetic.
References
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In today’s society, children spend a lot of time in front of the television surfing through channels to find interesting things to watch. George Gerbner, author of Television violence; The Power and Peril, quotes, “Television, the mainstream of the new cultural environment, has brought about a radical change in the way children grew up and learn in our society” (Gebner). Children should be learning new things everyday from school and parents, not from talk shows that represent the domestic violence. Violence affects children a lot more than it would adults because children are easily convinced and more gullible. Since children are easily convinced, it is more likely for them to believe what happens on talk shows is real life and that someone is not staging the show. When watching daytime talk shows, children are watching and learning the social interactions between people who cheat, fight, steal, and are sexually deviant. Over time children could start to believe that these acts of violence are the norm. Landrea Wells a student from the University of Florida studied children and television, she states, “The general concern about violence both then and now includes the fact that there have been consistently high levels of violence throughout much of television history. Children are more vulnerable to violent acts due to the fact that they are in early stages of developing behavior patterns, attitudes, and values about social interaction”( http://iml.
Eron, L.D., Huesmann, L.R., Lefkowitz, M.M. & Walder, L.O. (1972). Does television violence cause aggression? American Psychologist, 27, 253-263.
The controversy over whether or not violence portrayed on television actually affects children or not has been playing itself out for nearly three decades. When some of the first results came out in the 60s and 70s that made the first connections between aggressive behavior and viewing televised violence, the TV and movie industries denied that there was a connection. When studies found the same thing in the 80s, the FCC opposed any regulation (Hepburn). A writer for Direct Ma...
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
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.
The author of “Hollywood, Stop Exposing Our Kids to Violence” claims that filmmakers need to stop producing violent movies. The article argues that many children pick up bad habits from watching violent
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.
When families sit down to watch television, they expect to watch family type of shows. Family type shows meaning rated PG or PG13, sitcoms and movies that do not include weapons, killing, foul language, and non-socially accepted actions. When children killing, they start to believe that it is accepted. Do children think that killing and hurting others and themselves have little meaning to the real life, children can become traumatized. Most killers or violators of the law blame their behavior on the media, and the way that television portrays violators. Longitudinal studies tracking viewing habits and behavior patterns of a single individual found that 8-year-old boys, who viewed the most violent programs growing up, were the most likely to engage in aggressive and delinquent behavior by age 18 and serious criminal behavior by age 30 (Eron, 1). Most types of violence that occur today links to what people see on television, act out in video games or cyberspace games, or hear in music. Media adds to the violence that exists today and in the past few decades. It will continue in the future if it is not recognized as a possible threat to our society. When kids go to a movie, watch television, play video games or even surf the web, they become part of what they see and hear. Soaking violence in their heads long enough becomes a part of the way they think, acts, and live. The line between pretend and reality gets blurred.
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).
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American Psychological Association. "Violence on Television. What Do Children Learn? What Can Parents Do?" APA Online. www.apa.org/publicinfo/violence.html. Accessed October 23, 2001.
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).
Television violence is also a cause of both violent and aggressive behavior in teenage boys. According to the evidence in a study done by Turner, Hesse, and Peterson-Lewis, it was concluded that watching television violence had a long-term increase in aggression in boys (Hough 1). In addition to this study, Dr. William A. Belson evaluated fifteen hundred boys, aged thirteen to sixteen years, and he determined that boys with heavy television exposure are more likely to commit violent acts than other boys (Langone 51). In Belson’s study, he discovered that the effect of each violent act on television was collective, and over time, Belson discovered that the boys engaged in many aggressive acts, including painting graffiti, breaking windows, aggressive play, swearing, and threatening other boys with violence (Kinnear 26).