Media Violence And Stereotypes

In 2000, Pulitzer-winning journalist Richard Rhodes published an article titled “The Media Violence Myth,” through the “American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression,” a liberal establishment dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment right to free speech. Despite coming from a background plagued with violence and abuse, Rhodes has studied nuclear history and weapons use for over 20 years and has developed a unique opinion about the media’s effect on public violence. In “The Media Violence Myth,” Rhodes aims to convince his readers that the media does not contribute to violence through its portrayal. He attempts this in discrediting his key opponent, Dave Grossman, through ad hominem, red herrings, and violent diction. These strategies are likely effective for his left-leaning, first amendment-protecting primary audience, which would get caught up in the emotion of the arguments. However, for the more skeptical, moderate audience, these rhetorical devices are likely inefficient.

I chose this topic because I want to be a videogame designer and I wanted to defend my right to create what I want. Unfortunately, after researching this topic it is clear that it is no longer possible to say violent media is completely harmless. Videogames and television do have harmful effects on children and young adults. Research has been done since the 1950’s and almost all studies show clear evidence that media violence does cause increased violent tendencies, desensitization, and antisocial behavior – which is the same as sociopathic and psychopathic behavior, it does not mean introverted.

Since Columbine, in which two students carried out one of the most deadly school shootings in history. Video games, TV, and movies have been a sought-after target for acts of violence. After the Columbine shooting, the media thrust the idea that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s tendency for violent video games, not to mention screamo music and somewhat goth subculture, were partly to blame for the terrible day in history.

In this column piece, the authors discuss recent medical studies about exposure to media violence and current violent events that have been covered by media outlets. After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, actor Jim Carrey publicly boycotted his role in the film Kick-Ass 2, stating he could not support the graphic violence depicted in the film. The creator of the Kick-Ass comics and executive producer of the film, Mark Millar responded to Carrey’s comments, saying he doesn’t believe that fictional violence leads to societal violence. The author goes on to refute Carrey’s claims, and argues that millions of Americans view media violence every day, but few become rampant killers. They then discuss current medical studies that claim media violence can lead to societal violence. Studies on the topic

Assessing potentially violent students is one thing, but determining what is causing these high-risk teens to act out is another. Numerous reasons have been suggested as to why teenagers kill. One possibility could be the media. This includes music, movies, books and video games. Social science research conducted over the past 40 years supports the conclusion that viewing violent television programming has negative consequences for children, and the research suggests three factors in which watching violent television programs can impact young viewers. (Aidman, 1997) These factors say that media violence can encourage children to learn aggressive behavior and attitudes, media violence can cultivate fearful or pessimistic attitudes in children about the non- television world, and media violence can desensitize children to real-world and fantasy violence. One very controversial music artist made headlines when the Columbine massacre occurred. From day one,

The sense of what is right and wrong comes from within and is not influenced by what

There are many examples that Americans commonly associate with growing up and coming of age; getting a driver’s license, seeing an R-rated movie, registering for the draft or to vote, buying guns, killing classmates… Indeed, the dramatic increase in school shootings during the 1990s, in conjunction with the technology boom, drew much attention to mass media violence. Does media violence perpetuate aggressive behavior in its viewers? If so, to what extent? Do viewers retain models of behavior from their exposure to media violence? Do these models resurface later on during their coming of age? These are hard questions that may not have definite answers; however, a clear analysis on many studies reveals that we’ve only begun to scratch the

Since the September 11th, 2001, America, as a whole, has only become more Islamophobic, due to media, politics, and negative stereotypes. This affects not only Muslims but all Americans in a bad way. The hatred leads them to discrimination, harassment, vandalism, arson, and violence. The word Islamophobia means the intense dislike and fear of Islam. It’s a collective social anxiety that resulted in hostility and prejudice towards Islam, Muslims, and people of Arabian descent. This leads to Americans fearing and hating Muslims. Islamophobia-involved hate crimes and discrimination have been around since the 70’s. The rates of then slowly increased until 2001, after the attacks, where the rate increase rapidly. In 2000, the number of hate crime against Muslims was only 354, but in 2001 it rose to 1,501.

In America, violence has always been an integral part of national culture. Crime and bloodshed, euphemized through use of “action” (this has a source) plots, are glorified both on and off screen. The more disturbing the act of violence, the more enthralled the public seems. The most prolific of crimes, those committed by infamous serial killers, inspire the most attention. As said by Jeff Lindsay, creator of the book series that inspired the wildly-popular television program, Dexter, “We’re sickened and disgusted, but we need to know. And the more we know about the scene, the more we really are horrified” (“Sympathy for the Devils”). Violence, especially committed by this special class of felons, is enthralling. News reports play a role in this strange attraction, as it is through the news that people even have knowledge of such killers, but the evolution in the “serial killer genre” (Lindsay, “Sympathy for the Devils”) of film and television helps to desensitize people to the gruesome murders that are committed. This begs the question of whether this disturbing trend should be stopped, lest the American “culture of violence” (this has a source) continues to grow stronger. Through news reports, film, and television, criminals are constantly romanticized through use of sympathetic characterization and gratuitous depictions of their crimes, which lends to peoples’ incr

Representation is understood in relation to realism, which is the extent of which a media text is credible to its audience in terms of experiences, emotions and events as opposed to texts which are simply imaginary. In contemporary society, news programmes and documentaries are assumed to be realistic and reliable in terms of the sources of their information. However, it could be suggested that they convey a version of reality that is unsurprisingly selective and heavily biased towards the people who created them. This could be a reason for the creation of racial stereotypes within different news organisations. This essay will therefore discuss racial stereotypes which are present within the news and also to what extent news organisations perpetuate the notion of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

The images portrayed in the media: spoken, written, or visual all have an effect on social constructions, reality and perceptions of the public, and policies of the criminal justice system (Collins, 2011). In today’s society, the public lives of individuals are inundated with media. At any time there are news stories being introduced to the public audience via television, radio, and new media (Surette, 2015). The new media sources are accessible from anywhere via laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The general public is receiving media stories from posts, tweets, blogs, and news websites. Because of this mass market of competing internet news sources, there has been a decline in the newspaper and television audience, resulting in a decrease of the subject content covered by reporters (Gest, 2010). So what

Escaping the hypothesis, perspective, and explicitly calculated speculation of the media is nearly unfeasible for the average person. A person’s perceptions of an entire demographic are capable of significant influence due to the image portrayed through a single piece of media. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community, LBGT, has been a demographic group of scrutiny, dread, and confusion within the reports of varied media outlets since the 1950s. The highly convincing nature of the media’s influence is deeply rooted as truth within the minds of most Americans. Research depicts that “40% of Americans are said to gain their direct opinion of LBGTs from the images and reports they attain from various media outlets” (Calzo and Ward,

In the United States children watch an average of three to fours hours of television daily (Cantor & Wilson, 1984, p. 28). Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may become insensitive to violence. Consequently, they tend to gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems by imitating the violence they observe on television; and they identify with certain characters, good or bad. Therefore, extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater

In the book Critique of Violence ,author Walter describes Violence as "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, male development, or deprivation .The violence that is portrayed in the media has been debated for decades ,and it has rose a question about how does it influence the youth?. From movies to video games society has been accustom to seeing violence in their everyday entertainment. Since children are easy to be influence by their environment, it is safe to say that violence in the media can and will contribute to violent behavior.

With violent lyrics in music, video games with violent themes, hyper-violent horror and action movies and more, entertainment media has been under the microscope as a primary factor in causing violent behavior in youths for years. Ever since the Columbine shootings in 1999 and the subsequent blame being placed on the video game DOOM and heavy metal artist Marilyn Manson, the news media delights in finding new violent entertainment to link to youth violence, especially if a massacre is involved.