The Effects Of Violence On The Media

In Book I of the Republic after trying not to intervene in the discussion between Socrates and Polemarchus, Thrasymachus abruptly inserts himself into the conversation to offer his definition of justice. He defines justice as “the advantage of the stronger” (Plato 338c). Thrasymachus goes on to elaborate that the advantageous are the rulers of cities and that it is the ruling element in each city that makes the laws has the power. He claims that each ruler makes laws to its own advantage declaring the laws to be just for their subjects and will punish anyone who disobeys the laws as lawless and unjust. While Socrates agrees that justice is some sort of advantage he has a few objections to Thrasymachus’ definition. With respect to Thrasymachus’ view of justice this paper will reveal one of Socrates main objections to it, the strengths and weaknesses of the objection and presume any possible responses Thrasymachus may have to Socrates objection.

Violent media has been proven time and time again over the past 60 years to cause increased aggression in children and young adults. The long term and short term exposure to violent media has been shown to cause “increased feelings of hostility, expectations that others will behave aggressively, desensitization to the pain of others, and increased likelihood of interacting and responding to others with violence” (Committee on Public Education). One of the most famous experiments done on the subject was done in 1961 by the psychologist Albert Bandura at Stanford University. In this experiment children between the ages of three and six were put in a playroom containing a many activities and toys (Cherry). One of those toys was a bobo doll; a 5 foot tall inflatable doll. An adult would enter and either play with the child from a complete ten minutes, the control group, or at some point during those ten minutes begin beating up the doll, the experimental group. They would also say things such as “pow” and “he keeps coming back for more” while attacking it (Cherry).

The interdisciplinary problem I am investigating is Overexposure violence in our entertainment is creating a psychological desensitization in people. The research that will be completed in this study will reflect how violence negatively impact human behavior. The research will also show the impact of long term exposure and how that will impact behavioral patterns Over exposure to violence and the psychological impacts will fall across many disciplines due to the nature of how it impacts our society on an individual and corporate level. It is important to solve this issue because the very nature of this overexposure can desensitize humans. The desensitization can cause people to have a stunted ability to place value on human life and have a greater capacity to act violently in society.

In an article, Dave Grossman argues that “Operant conditioning teaches you to kill, but classical conditioning is a subtle, but powerful mechanism that teaches you to like it” (qtd. in Lavers). Countless observations of the killer’s actions paired with some positive emotions toward the character, leads to an association of acceptance of the crime. This is marked in how, during the segments of vicious brutality in movie houses, Lavers asserts that “the young people laugh and cheer and keep right on eating popcorn and drinking soda” (3). Lavers also claims that violent behavior becomes linked with pleasure that results in a correlation between earlier exposure [to violence] and later aggressiveness (4). The outcomes of these situations effect are the rise of vicious moves, especially when after the television was presented in America, the amounts of brutality proliferated. Also, the arrival of greater numbers of vicious feminine idols as well as male killers like Sylar and Bateman in broadcast programming has corresponded with an increase in a destructive amount of crimes for females and males particularly from 1992 and 2002. The ever-growing predominance of brutality in the media exclusively delivers to persist this course, which will not stop to occur, if personalities like Bateman and Sylar stay well-known in current

(Blout 2) i) Using sexism to change power of already violent deprived men gives those men fabricated theories, leading to explosive tendencies. b) Resourcing onscreen violence as causation, “continual exposure to violence and racism for women are similar to post-traumatic stress…depression, anxiety and anger…long term…allostasis, the physiological consequence of chronic exposure…” (Blount 2) i) Society had not just a mental change but a physical one as well, the causation of societies desensitization is from perpetual brutality onscreen. c) In Linda Blount’s article , Michael Denzel Smith says, “Rape sexual assault, and beatings are all results of the hyper masculine culture Lee is critiquing.”

Long-term exposure to media violence could cause violent images/scenes to trigger aggressive thoughts and feelings and will influence behaviour. The primed nodes associated with the violent behaviour will make the behaviour more likely to be enacted because the image/scene is a stimulus to the behaviour. Desensitization is the repeated experience which reduces cognitive, emotional, physiological & behavioural responses to a stimulus. Cline, Croft & Courier (1973) found in their study that heavy television-viewers were desensitized to the media

Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have examined how violent programming on TV affects children and young people. While a direct "cause and effect" link is difficult to establish, there is a growing consensus that some children may be vulnerable to violent images and messages.

In a study done by L. Rowell Huesmann, (Psychology Professor at the University of Michigan) a longitudinal experiment was performed to see if violence in media had a lasting effect in children through their teenage years. The experiment involved two separate sessions, one began in 1977 and the other in 1992, fifteen years later when the children became adults. In the first session the children were asked to choose their favorite programs from eight lists with ten programs on each list. Each list included violent programs and non-violent programs. Then the children were asked of the shows chosen how often they had watched them using different amounts including; “every time it’s on”, “a lot, but not always,” or once in a while”. The violence level in this experiment was rated 1-5,”5” being very violent. In the follow up experiment done in 1992 the test subjects were brought back in (of which 329 could be found) and asked the same questions about which shows they prefer and how often they watched violent programs using the same 1-5 scale. The researchers then spoke with three non-family members about the participant’s level of aggression. The results showed that the adults who rated with “every time it’s on” with more violent shows (4-5) when they were younger proved to show more aggressive physical behavior towards their spouses and friends than children that were at the opposite end of the spectrum. This experiment shows

Using violent or nonviolent content that are statistically controlled for their nonviolent aspects, the participants used an “emotion-related physiological indicator” to serve as a dependent variable, and lastly used real violence to study the participant’s emotions. The participants in the study were 257 college students, 124 men and 133 women, who received extra credit for their participation. The participants after completing their preferences for the video games and their traits of aggressiveness, for 20 minutes thereafter, played either a violent or non-violent video game. They then watched a ten minute film which contained real-life violent content whilst their heart rates and their galvanic skin responses were monitored. The participants then rated the video games on different levels. The results indicated that exposure to violent video games can cause people to be desensitized to real violence. At the same time, those who played the violent video games had lower HR and GSR when they watched the ten minute film of real violence. After detailing the research, Carnagey et al. (2007) argued how being desensitized to

Violence in the media tends to be compelling to people across America. The average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders, on television by age eighteen. Often, the media plays a pivotal role in the way violence is portrayed to citizens. The media can decide which pieces of information to include or expunge from a broadcast. People soak up the incidents that are happening in other neighborhoods across the United States because it does not affect them personally. Violence shown on television can often be manipulated to fit one side of the story, and is tolerated by the public because emotional detachment is simpler when the violence occurs halfway across America from one’s home.

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

Our digital-minded world has brought about much change and advancement to our daily lives. There are better, newer video games, televisions, and gaming systems on the market each year. As is such, a concern has been raised within our society as to these games and programs becoming increasingly violent and whether this will lead to heightened violence and aggression by those exposed to such material. Others claim that society has been viewing violent images for decades without problems and that giving individuals the excuse that one could be brainwashed into committing a crime by mass media leaves the door wide open for crimes without fear of consequence. This hotly debated topic has been the muse for much research and study over the

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

This article reviews evidence of the media impact on interpersonal violence internationally. Media violence always is a controversial topic. There are several factors that demonstrate this impact: (1) A recognition that electronic media use now dominates most of young people’s time; (2) Evidence demonstrating violent media has multiple harmful effects on children, adolescents, and young adults; (3) The growing impact of media violence on the media economy and media regulation; (4) Other factors, such as new technology, globalization, and regulation influence the media violence; and (5) broad economic and social impacts of the media violence. The following analysis of these factors can provide further insight into this topic and potentially define some actions to reduce the impact to society.

Television programming today can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior (Bee, 1998: 261-262). Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. For instance, the level of violence during Saturday morning cartoons is higher than the level of violence during prime time. There are about six to eight violent acts per hour during prime time, versus twenty to thirty violent acts per hour on Saturday morning cartoons ("Killing Screens," 1994). Also, well before children finish their grade school, they will witness up to 8,000 murders and 100,000 violent acts on television (Levine, 1995: 143).