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Role of media and impact on youth
The influence of media on youth
Role of media and impact on youth
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Despite the fact that American society places a tremendous emphasis on television and other forms of visual media, literature still remains a ubiquitous inspiration in the minds of adolescent children. These works of fiction, like the rest of America’s violence-oriented culture, largely contain material based on aggression and warfare. However, not all young adult novels are about overtly violent behavior; some examples of nonviolent children’s and young adult literature are The Shadow Children Series by Margret Peterson Hadix, the Delirium Trilogy by Lauren Oliver, and Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale. Each of these books contains situations in which large-scale acts of violence would typically be used as conflict resolution strategy. Nonviolence remains prevalent and influential in children’s and young adult literature, though its methods may encourage ideas that are against the basic idea of Satyagraha. To understand the methods used in each book, they must first be put into context. In Meg Cabot’s series, The Shadow Children, the situation is this: Luke lives with his parents and older brothers in a society where each family is only permitted two children each, making him a fugitive from the law. The Population Police, the authority of a tyrannical government, could put him to death for simply existing, so Luke is content to spend the rest of his life in hiding. However, one day he meets another third child, like himself, and joins the covert movement to liberate the unwanted children through mainly nonviolent means (Haddix 1). The Delirium Trilogy focuses more on social reform than political, when the main character, Lena, rebels against her society’s custom to surgically alter the brain so it can no lo... ... middle of paper ... ... 1998. Print. Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Among the Enemy. New York: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2005. Print. Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Among the Free. New York: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2006. Print. Hale, Shannon. Princess Academy: Palace of Stone. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. Print. Hale, Shannon. "Palace of Stone." The Official Site of Shannon Hale. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. . Oliver, Lauren. Delirium. New York: Harper, 2011. Print. Oliver, Lauren. Pandemonium. New York: Harper, 2012. Print Oliver, Lauren. "Delirium." Lauren Oliver Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. . Wheadon, Carrie R. "Delirium." Book Review. Common Sense Media, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. .
Violent Media is Good for Kids, by Gerard Jones, is an article which makes many claims to support the argument in which a controlled amount of violence could be beneficial for a young, developing child. Even though the topic of this article can be controversial, the claims serve to support the argument in many noteworthy ways. It is written in such a way that it tells a story, starting when the author was a child and works its way to his adulthood. In this case the author uses, what I believe to be just the correct amount of each rhetorical strategy, and fulfills his goal for writing the article. This argument is interesting and at the same time, effective. Throughout the analyzing process logos, ethos, and pathos are searched for and scrutinized.
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
In “Violent Media is Good for Kids” Gerard Jones introduces us to his fearful and lonesome childhood. He lived in a world where he was taught to be the violence fearing, and passive boy his parents wanted him to be. But, when one of his mother’s students gave him a Marvel comic book, his fearfulness was transformed into inspiration. He found a way to escape these discouraging feelings through the “stifled rage and desire for power” (Jones 285) that he had newly found. The popular comic book hero “The Hulk” freed him from his passive and lonely persona. Throughout the article he cites his testimonies and the testimonies of others as examples; and shows how they used violence as a positive realm for “overcoming powerlessness.” (Jones 287) Ultimately, Jones is trying to convey the message that violent media can provide kids with psychological tools for coping with the problems that they face as they grow. Although there are slight hints of biased evidence, “Violent Media is Good for Kids” should be considered for the top prize for persuasive essays.
Kellerman, Jonathan. Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999. Print.
In “Violent Media Is Good for Kids,” Gerard Jones states that violence is good for children. Even with all the bad things people have said about the media and the effect of violence on kids, it has helped many kids reveal their feelings and their fears. In Jones article, he uses his own experience as an example of himself when he was a kid. Also, he uses his son and other kids experience as an example. Most kids use their imagination to pretend to be a protagonist they like. From reading this article it has helped me understand more that not all media violence are harmful for children. Violent media have helped kids express their feelings in a good way. With my own experience as a kid, I can relate to Jones experience. In his essay he uses diction, tone, organization and examples.
The problem of youth violence is not an unsolvable one. Although fictional, American History X provides an accurate example of how youths can make the transition from violent behavior. We must work to seek out the blind and the lost boys to help them find their vision in a world that is so often covered in darkness.
Our society incorporates violence into nearly every aspect of its existence. We pick up the newspaper or turn on the television and find details of the latest violent crimes. More often these crimes involve children. Recently two young boys murdered a young girl for her bicycle. They valued a material object more than a human life. At some point in their lives they learned it was okay to harm another individual. No one provoked them and they were not defending themselves. They acted out of pure selfishness. Sadly this scenario has become all too familiar over the last few years. In the past two decades violent crime among juveniles ages 14-17 has increased tremendously. Between 1983 and 1992 juvenile arrests increased 117% (U.S. Department of Justice, 12). This suggests an increase in the growing involvement of young people in violent crimes. To relieve this problem nationally and globally, we need to adapt the use of nonviolence into our culture. We can do this by understanding the basic principles of nonviolence our peace leaders have practiced and develop strategies for their incorporation into our daily lives.
The video hosted by Bill Moyer that we watched in class on March 4th involved violence in the mass media and the effects that it may have on children in modern day society. Video games sometimes display graphic violence as well as violent verbal messages that often convey a message of appeal to children. Movies often combine humor, violence, and/or sex in order to be more appealing to the audience. Usually two or more of these factors are used. Whether it is through these sources or as something as simple as the evening news, violence is everywhere in the media today and displays messages of approval that American society may not realize.
In Bradbury’s dystopian classic, Fahrenheit 451, Clarisse says “ ‘I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other’ ” (Bradbury 27). Bradbury claims through Fahrenheit 451 that our society is becoming increasingly violent in youth’s culture. Furthermore, common sense seems to dictate that as technology advances violence, increases as well. Although schools are considered to be the safest places for children, media, behavioral problems, and influences inside and outside the home has increased the violence in our society.
This line is spoken by a character played by Steven Segal in the movie Hard to Kill, a movie remarkably similar to every other motion picture Segal has ever touched, and depressingly reflective of a larger cultural trend. In Segal’s movies, characters with names like “Orin Boyd” and “Nico Toscani” boast body counts and a shared insatiable thirst for vengeance. Death becomes a prop employed to dispatch central characters, and a cycle of one-upmanship ensues – we saw Segal rip someone’s throat out in Under Siege, so the next movie has to be more ridiculous in its sheer level of violence to be marketable. In 1999, it came as no real shock to viewers when Segal’s character stabbed a Nazi sympathizer in the neck with a broken wine glass. The reality is that technology gives us the means to transmit images and messages of unparalleled intensity, and as we do that, reality is recursively recreated. As artists and media moguls say less, they attempt to compensate through force, resulting in a constant barrage of deafening sound that amounts to nothing more than noise or visuals so gaudy and exaggerated that the thin shreds of meaning behind them are utterly lost. In this context, death is watered down until it becomes comfortably palpable. Theatres full of families cheer when the hero shoots the bad guy in an action movie, but it never crosses a single mind that a murder has taken place. Viewers wear expressions of smug satisfaction when a crooked lawyer is double-crossed, but the underlying web of lies fazes nobody. In this context, authors have to shout over the noise to communicate the true evils that float between humans. There is no longer ...
As a culture, again with religious fundamentalist and perhaps politically-correct feminist exceptions, we pretty much take these literary forms for granted in terms of their violent and seemingly antisocial content. Parents lovingly read their children to sleep with images of forced drudgery, painful mutilations, and vengeful retribution. Teachers and preachers alike use these quasi-historical and metaphorical tales of aggression and hostility to inspire and enlighten. Little thought, if any, is given to the possibility that we are putting dangerous ideas into the heads of our youth that will result in violent displays of antisocial mayhem. And, in fact, there seems to be little evidence that this true. For the most part, our children seem to have a healthy relationship to these stories in which the violence and sexuality does tend to help th...
Young children are exposed to violence every day. In TV shows, books, games, cartoons, movies, and the internet, violence is a part of everyone’s lives, but especially those of young kids. For example, recently Paramount Pictures released Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a weapon slinging twist on a classic fairy tale (McKay). In the movie they have people blow their own heads off with a shotgun. In retrospect this movie isn’t meant for children 13 and below, although kids would want to see a “fairy tale” like this. Young 10 year olds, today even ...
The main recurring theme in Flannery O’Connor’s stories is the use of violence towards characters in order to give them an eye-opening moment in which they finally realize their true self in relation to the rest of society and openly accept insight into how they should act or think. This theme of violence can clearly be seen in three works by Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good Country People, and Everything That Rises Must Converge.
Levine, Madeline. "Media Violence Harms Children." Media Violence. Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. 28-36.
Today’s youth is heavily influenced by the media. Video games, television, and movies make up a large part of the lives of children in America. These easily accessible forms of entertainment are lightly regulated by parents and the government; children and adolescents are exposed to extremely violent media everyday. “By the time the average American child reaches seventh grade, he or she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. Some people say so much violence on television makes American society- including its children- more violent” (“Causes of School Violence” 1). Among the violent media, video games are the current trend. Although video games are rated by ESRB (the entertainment sof...