Violence in the Media and how it Affects Society
The effect of media is profound and far-reaching. All over the world, the media influences our values and intrudes upon our deep-seated ideologies and beliefs. Indeed the media has been a powerful force in influencing people’s perceptions, and more importantly, their behavior as well. Business, politicians, and showbiz personalities pay huge sums of money to media firms in order create an image or change an existing one. Politics in particular, has been making use of the media to generate public support for their campaigns and support for certain policies and legislations.
Indeed, the power of the media to affect our behavior has long been proven. Among the most pressing
…show more content…
from the National Institute on Media and the Family).
▪ Children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend more time exposed to various forms of media (TV, computer, game consoles, music, etc) than any other activity in their lifetime. (Kaiser Family Foundation qtd. from the National Institute on Media and the Family).
▪ Of over a thousand studies that have been done on the effects of violence in television and movies, majority of them conclude that individuals, especially children who spend significant time watching violence on TV and movies are more likely to display aggressive or violent behavior, attitudes and values. (Senate Committee; Congressional Public Health Summit qtd. from the National Institute on Media and the Family)
According to these figures, the younger the age of the individual, the more susceptible they become to the adverse effects of exposure to media violence. (Trend 93) The aggressiveness are often latent and presents later in life which is adds to the difficulty of measuring the actual effects of media violence. (Freedman 137)
Women who spend long hours watching TV violence are more likely to respond violently towards their spouses. There is an increase in physicality among women with higher media violence exposure. (Partenheimer) In the same vein, men who
In Brad Bushman’s and Rowell Huesmann’s Article Short-term and Long-term Effects of Violent Media on Aggression in Children and Adults from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine journal, they believe the violent media in video games, tv shows, music, and movies, are affecting behavior in children and adults. Bushman and Huesmann believe that all the violence that has made a more popular appearance in today’s culture is causing for adults and children to be more prone to aggression. They hypothesized that the long-term effects would be greater in children and the short-term effects would be greater in adults, and discovered their hypotheses to be correct. Other articles, such as Beth Stein’s If Violent Video Games are Harmless Fun,
Many people still have several questions they want answered, such as, is media violence actually affecting children or are children already prone to violence drawn to media violence? Some experts have shown short and long-term negative effects occur in children from watching violent media; however another group of experts have shown that media violence is only one of many risk factors leading to aggression developed in children. These two groups need to continue more research and go beyond that to find true solutions. Nevertheless, no sources were found to say that media violence has no influence on the increase in modern culture’s violent actions. The key to discovering the true correlation between violence in children and media violence is to continue research until a solution is
Regardless of this limitation, one of the many strengths of this study was that at the end of the study knowing that their hypothesis wasn’t right they agree and went more deep to support the results. “…but rather with the need for a more general conceptualization of the effects of exposure to TV violence, one that takes into account personality differences, ethnic
Does the violence occurring in media exhibit aggressive and violent behaviors in older children and adolescents? This is a big controversial issue that everyone debates on. However, many researchers have found that violence in television, video games, and media reveals that media violence increases likelihood of aggression and violent behaviors in adolescents. Although, negative experiences in families and peer groups have an important role in the development of violent behavior, children may develop that mentality to view the world full of conflicts and violence. I will be arguing how media violence does exhibit aggressive behavior a adolescents’ life. Therefore, many researchers believe that a violent behavior in adolescents is a learned behavior rather than an innate behavior.
Media plays an enormous role on people’s lives. For the good or for the bad, people tend to believe what they constantly see on the internet, television, newspapers and magazines. What the media wants to do is to make an affect on someone. It can literally be anything. As long as something that is said in the media creates or makes an impact on that particular person, the media has done
For years now, researches have been studying the correlation between violent media and the aggression in children. Undoubtedly the conclusion is that violent media does indeed increase the aggressive nature in kids.
Concrete evidence suggests exposure to violent media can “trigger short-term aggressive behaviour” which usually lasts a couple hours or days . Charlton et al. (2000) carried out a research study called “St. Helena Study” aimed to investigate the effects of television on children’s behaviour. His findings however hardly suggest an impact of televisions on children’s behaviour. Thus, far more research needs to be undertaken before drawing a conclusion on media related violence.
"The evidence is overwhelming. To argue against it, the link between media violence and teen violence is like arguing against gravity," said Jeffrey McIntyre, legislative and federal affairs officer for the American Psychological Association. As children are exposed to acts of violence in the media through television, video games, music, movies, etc. alarming results are occurring. The main negative effect being an increase in aggression among youth who are regularly exposed to the media and an increase in violent patterns as they mature into adulthood. If not resolved this problem of violence in the media will continue to push children, youth and adults to acts of aggression such as verbal and physical abuse and other more serious
The majority of these studies reach the same conclusion: television and film violence leads to real-world violence" (Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 1999). Many of the studies I researched reported similar statistics with more emphasis on male adolescents.
Hypothesis: Extensive viewing of television violence causes children to behave in aggressive or harmful ways to others.
It would be best to test college age students, as they know right from wrong. Researchers, pediatricians and parents have all found that exposure to media violence can increase aggression (Bushman, Gollwitzer, & Cruz. (2014). Bushman, Gollwitzer, and Cruz stated most parents and educators “learn about violent media effects from new reports rather than scientific reports” (p. 7). It is because of this that parents so blindly believe that media so harshly youth. This study will help to make the effects of media violence more concrete and apparent instead of
Popular opinion credits media with great power to shape not only what the average individual thinks about, but also how they think about those subjects. Recent research in the fields of Political Science, Psychology, Economics, and Communications supports this opinion.
According to E.F Dubow and L.S Miller, authors of Television Violence and Aggressive Behavior: Social Science Perspectives on Television, “Ignoring consequences of violence (including the pain of victims, the victims’ families, and the families of perpetrators) or depicting the consequences unreasonably sets in motion a destructive encoding process.” There could be found a direct correlation between aggressive behavior and violence witnessed on television. The more violence watched, the more desensitized a viewer would become. Dubow and Miller further state “viewers become [fearful] and begin to identify with the aggressors and the aggressors’ solutions to various problems.” It is this identification that causes violent behaviors to become encoded in the person’s mind when exposed to repeated violent acts. The person may then come to see the world as a bleak and sinister place. Along with this
As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the
Due to violence on television, children become less sensitive to that pain and suffering of others or to become more aggressive to others. It also makes children more fearful to the world around them. (Abelard 1) Viewing habits of children observed for many decades deduced that violence on TV is associated with aggressive behavior, more than poverty, race, or parental behavior. It also reported that a TV show contains about 20 acts of violence an hour.