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Media Violence and Violence in Society

Good Essays
“If television causes aggression and violent behavior, assuming that the television programming contains some violence, there should be more and more violent crime after television is available” (Freedman). Many suggest the violence in media is causing violence in society but then how is it that violent crimes are actually decreasing in the United States. The violence that is occurring is actually due from the mentally ill, poor parenting, and the location of where one lives in society. Violence has actually decreased over the decades even though media has more violence than ever before. According to a report done by Lawrence W Reed with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, “by the age of 18 an American child will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence.” These are astounding figures yet crime has hit a “nine-year low” (Frieden). Because of these statistics media is not causing more crime in America. The actual correlation between being exposed to media violence and actually acting violently are not conclusive. According to Jonathan L. Freedman of the University of Toronto, “The Surgeon General’s Report on Youth Violence concluded that exposure to television violence causes a short-term increase in aggression, but when on to say that television violence has little or no role in causing real violence.” Again this is showing that there might be a little aggressive behavior caused by media violence but the long-term effects are not what is causing
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