The Effects Of Violent Media On Individuals

In today’s society, music controls the way we live our lives. The influence that music has on society has broadened throughout the years and with social media being one of the world’s top priority, the fan base and spectrum for music in general has expanded significantly. Music is used to express feelings, moods, circumstances, experiences, knowledge, and so much more. With this being the case, the lyrics of any song can be interpreted differently by each and every listener. Many song lyrics give positive messages, promoting well-being, whiles others give negative messages, promoting violence, criminal behaviors, sexual contents, and disrespect towards others. With this being said, music reflects what the public demands, and in many cases the negative messages are often times what sells more than those music giving positive messages.

Media has dramatically changed over time from black white to coloured screens, from newspaper to having information on fingertips. Media has also become more violet in comparison to what it was over the past generations, as now video games and movies are action packed. The studies conducted by research scientist show various results from harmful to neutral effects of media, all these studies were children and teenage based it was not highly focused on adults.

Music can be a reflection of our life experiences. Each genre of music invokes different emotions and reactions in its listeners. Rap has become a very popular genre of music. As its popularity has increased, some people have questioned whether it can trigger violence in teens. While some rap songs do have violent lyrics, there is no direct evidence that rap music provokes violence in teenagers.

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.

However, the lyrics and the message in a song can affect how a young person feels. Some poems can positively impact a person and other lyrics can have negative words and can be harmful or damaging. Some music tells an entire story and allows a person to experience something through another person’s eyes. Music can affect a person through the lyrics, the overall message and the music itself. Lots of songs talk about love.

Musicians may feel that the only way to increase sales is to make their lyrics as graphic as possible. It seems as though the lyrics to songs are giving permission to listeners to do wrong and immoral things (Tanner). As stated in the article “How Much Are Violent Lyrics to Blame?” by Emily Tanner, “Music is important in today’s society and when music becomes corrupt in its meaning then society may in turn become corrupt and immoral.”

In society today, it is highly noticed that the role of rap music messages and video images of violence causes an increase in negative emotions, thoughts and behaviors which could lead to violence amongst youth. Rap music has been at the center of concern in regards to the potential harmful effect of violent media on social behavior amongst youth. This potential behavior could be seen in the music video titled “Kim” by Eminem. In this music video, the storyline, language and sound encourages hostile thoughts and feelings amongst its audience. In the music video, Kim husband catches her cheating on him in their home with another man, while he is away. However, when Marshall gets home and finds out that his wife is cheating on him, he gets upset, angry, and abusive and becomes violent towards his wife Kim. He screams at her saying that, if she moves again, he will “beat the shit out of her” (Line 11). Violence in rap music has increased in response to the complex interplay of changing social conditions such as the elevated levels of youth violence in the changing commercial practices within the music industry. Hence, the media influences violence in four negative ways, which contributes immensely to anger amongst youth which leads to aggressive behavior such as social violence, substance abuse, domestic violence, and negative perceptions of women.

A violent and angry lyric filled heavy metal rock song comes on the radio as someone is driving home from work. The person begins to get into the song and the next thing they know they are feeling angry. Is that heavy metal rock song going to be the reason that person snaps and decides to rob or possibly kill someone? Most people believe that is the case and that music is to blame for violent acts that are committed. Does music really have this power to trigger people to commit violent acts or are there various underlying factors that coincide with the committing of violent acts?

Mr. Carter, a regional chaplain for Ontario and an instructor at Queen’s University, expresses his strong opinion about music do not influence violence. The author believes that there are circumstances or factors that can lead to commit violent crimes, but music is not the source of committing crimes. The author describes that people are just using music influence as excuse when people commit crimes. Mr. Carter mentions that although he grew up listening to the music that contains inappropriate lyrics, he never hat the urge act upon it. The author blames the newspaper that in attempt to make money; the newspaper targets songs with violent lyrics because it increases their sales.

Research at Florida International University and Western Connecticut State University have both proven that people who listen to music with violent, profane, and/or sexualized lyrics are more likely engaged to adapting these aspects to their behavior and are also more likely to endorse it in their peers. This demonstrates the effect hip hops songs has on its audience, making it important to control the liberty of the right to listen to these type of songs. And if not, to control the kind of songs that are publicly played.

In life, music affects everything many people look at all the different stories of teenagers committing violent acts and have begun to wonder can violent songs make teens violent? With all the violent acts that music glorifies as of recently many psychologists and parents alike have begun to wonder why certain types of music cause their children and teenagers to become so violent. Because of the questions that violent songs raise and why teenagers have started to gravitate towards violent songs more than ever before. Some factors that could be reasons as to why violent songs have such a powerful effect on teenagers could be that: teenagers learn violence from their surroundings, teenagers can have a history of violence, and violent songs give teens a place to vent their frustrations at,

The subject interest me because as a "violent" music listener I am often categorised as a violent person, but anyone knowing me would say that I am everything but violent, I do not understand why there is such stereotypes as most of my friends do listen to "violent" music genres such as rap, rock, metal and aren’t for the most part violent.

     Hamerlinck supports his article with random songs that have to do with violence and love, in hopes of proving that music has an impact on it’s listeners. Lonnie Johnson sang a 1920’s song called “Careless Love,” in which he promises to shoot his lover numerous times and then stand over her until she is finished dying (241). A song like Little Walter’s “Boom, Boom, Out go the Lights” has a harsh and frightening image (241). The listener may not be aware of the destructive words in the songs because of the snappy, up-beat rhythms the artists’ create. I disagree with this statement because if this is the case, how can the listeners really not know what the

Violent music; many people have different opinions about it. Can music create violence or can it not? Is is non harmful or is it destroying the youth of the world? Should it be banned for being violent and provoking violent behavior or it should not? No matter the opinion, recent studies have shown that violent music can create violence. Violence in all types of media can create violence. Music should stop provoking violence with their harmful lyrics. Instead of writing about guns, drugs, alcohol, and women, music artists should start writing about less violent and R-rated topics.

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.