Violence On Television And The V-chip

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Violence on Television and the V-chip

Television programs that generate a great deal of concern among parent and educators are those that contain violence. The questionable violence, sex and language on television have caused the nation to find methods of censoring these problems. Due to television violence, censorship should reduce the ability for children to view violent content.
Children have an easy access to violence on television from violent programs through movie channels. The public’s concern has been reflected in congressional hearings and massive studies on the effect of TV violence, especially on children. Dr. James C. Dobson from the Focus on the Family Newsletter says:
If you have any doubt about the influence MTV wishes to exert on today’s adolescents, watch their popular program Beavis and Butthead…They use crude words, fondle themselves, do horribly cruel things to animals, and sit around watching heavy-metal videos as bright green stuff runs from their noses…Beavis and Butthead took a trip to a rifle range where they accidentally shot down a plane. They had difficulty opening the door of the wrecked plane, so they left women and children to die inside. This is the fare served up to preteens and adolescents by the company that seek to shape an entire generation (Hendershot 13)
In 1994 a small child burned down his trailer house, killing his baby sister. His mother responded to the accident by saying that he learned to do so by watching Beavis and Butthead. Instead of legal issues, MTV responded by moving the program to a later time. (Hendershot 14)
There are many reasons to be concerned about violence. Television violence is more frequent then real violence. Television violence spares the views the suffering of the victim and the disorder of the killer. By the time a child is the age of 18, they will see 115,000 violent acts on television. (Hefzallah 88) An eleven-year-old child reported, “I was scared when I saw Friday the 13th. Whenever the girl went into the water and Jason stuck a knife in her and all this blood was in the water-I got real scared.” (Abelman 28) Robert Singer voiced:
Working-class children, minority children, unpopular children and children doing poorly in school seem to be the ones more susceptible to imitating the aggression that they see on television. This may be partly because they watch more hours and are exposed to more television violence…Television may or may not contribute to their aggressive behavior, but their aggressive nature does play a major role in what they choose to watch.

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