The Effects of Violence in Entertainment

Violent media comes in all shapes and sizes. Kids and teens are exposed to violence every day of their life. Through music, gaming, tv shows, and the internet. “Prolonged exposure to such media portrayals results in increased acceptance of violence as an appropriate means of solving problems and achieving one's goals”( Media Violence). This proves that violence will be a key to achieving an objective. This is a negative effect on an exposure with violent media, having kids believe that you can get what you want through violence. This also proves that if a child would see themselves as the good guy, everyone that disagrees with this child must be a bad guy, which can cause a problem in an everyday life. “Children in grades 4 through 8 preferentially choose video games that award points for violence against others, and 7 of 10 children in grades 4 through 12 report playing M-rated (mature) games, with 78% of boys reporting owning M-rated games”( Media Violence). With this exposure at hand, and rewarding kids to commit violent acts toward others is a shoddy misuse of the media. This proves that at young minds are shaped towards violence, which can cause problems when they get older.

Some scholars argue however that violence in television, films and video games has in fact the opposite effect. As individuals become ‘saturated’ with violence, it can lead to a catharsis where videogames, television and films become a safe outlet to for aggressive feelings and emotions; as a result, individuals become less violent. Naturally, this argument goes against the idea that children are highly influenced by modelled behaviour as they try to replicate what they see (Freedman 2001). The influence of video games is therefore highly complex to resolve. Poole (2000) therefore argues that videogames may simply be part of many factors that lead to violent behaviour. Videogames as films and television may influence real life violence by having a particular style that is imitated. Pool argues that it is possible that the teenage murderers in America may have imitated the way in which people are killed in the video game Doom, however it is not possible to say that without playing the game they would not have killed their classmates. Research conducted in America reiterates this statement,

This leads to lack of sympathy for victims of violence, notably in children. The surgeon general, National Health Institute and other professional medical organizations such as the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association have linked exposure to media violence to societal violence. The author argues that these studies may not be of considerable importance to claim that media violence is a public health risk. There other factors that are of more concern for societal violence such as being male or female, socioeconomic status, and intelligence. More research needs to be done before arguing media violence has a role in societal violence. I chose this article because it associates societal violence with the film industry. We see how different members of the film industry respond after a violent school shooting committed by an adolescent male. It shows opposing views of whether or not media violence affects behaviour, stating that the general public doesn’t believe it plays a role in

Violence has been a part of society ever since the days of the caves men, but only recently has television lifted its ban on the graphic depiction of violence. American children and adolescents are being exposed to increasing amounts of media violence, especially in television, movies, video games, and youth-oriented music. Video game violence, children's cartoons, and music lyrics have become increasingly graphic. In movies, action films depict vivid precise murders, rapes, and assaults; with each sequel, the number of deaths increases dramatically. Although media violence is not the only cause of violence in American society, it is the single most easily remediable contributing factor. It is these social networks

For many year the media, politicians, and society have been pointing the finger at music, television, and video games as a reason people have committed tragic acts of violence against others. Society has always needed to know why someone would commit such a horrible crime. It is human nature to try to determine why something has happened, and even more so when people’s lives have been lost because of it. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to make sense of a senseless tragedy when there is no way to pinpoint exactly what has caused the person to do it. Rather than the person’s metal health being the cause for the crime politicians, media, and society turn to entertainment as the reason behind the persons actions. At the beginning of most tragedies movies, music, or video games are the factor that pushed the person to commit the crimes, however the persons psychological health is the reason the crimes have been committed.

In the United States, there has been an increasing amount of mass shootings and similar violent crimes every year. Within the last decade, the rate of violent crimes has spiralled too far out of control for the people to understand why. This sudden increase in violent crimes has left everyone stumbling for a cause or a reason for the spike in the trend. As of late, many have turned the blame to guns, to education, and lastly to violent media. Since the early 2000’s violent media has become far more popular than before. In fact, many say that now is the epoch of violent video games, and that the violent movie industry is just growing. Because of the correlation between the increased popularity

In the article by Christian L, Lyon (2014) violence intensifies the debate weather pervasive violence in movies or televisions or music and video games influences young people’s behavior. Teenagers spend a certain amount of time watching television, or playing video games it makes them wonder if the actions they

Since the beginning of time, there has been violence. However, recently society has been putting the blame on media such as movies, television, literature, video-games and music. This blame placing became very relevant in 1985 when Parents Music Resource Center was founded as a way to ban, restrict or censor media that was found to not only be inappropriate, but was also apparently the cause of violence in America’s youth. While some still agree that media is the sole reason behind the increase in drug usage, suicide and murder, that is not the case.

“Young people are especially in Jeopardy of the negative effects of television violence because many young children cannot discriminate what they see and what is real reports the American Academy of pediatrics.” (American Academy of Pediatrics) My topic is does the media affect children’s minds. I honestly agree 100 % with this topic because I remember as a kid tv had brainwashed me. I will be discussing 5 major points Grand Theft Auto, Relating back to myself, they become immune or numb to the horror of violence, and they begin to accept violence as a way to solve problems and lastly a rebudle. “A three year National television study, reported by the AAP, found that children shows had the most violence of all television programing. Statistics read that some cartoons average twenty acts of violence in one hour, and that by the age of 18 children will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence on television.”

The industry’s success has been plagued by many critics and sociology experts all whom criticize the library of violent video games stating that its detrimental to the overall health of its user, especially the adolescents, and that exposure to violent video games lead to real-life violence. Studies by various psychiatrists have been conducted in order to find the correlation between violent video games and real-life acts of violence and the majorities of the studies were inconclusive and are often inconsistent in their findings. According to N, Carnagey. , C, Anderson & B, Bushman (2007) “A study conducted by US Surgeon General on whether violent video games desensitizes people to real-life violence”(Para. 5). Unfortunately there has not been any published research on the topic however; many studies suggest that repeated exposure to violence in video games desensitize the individual to real violence but all the studies fail to provide solid proof. This matter is understandable, continuous exposure to violence in any type of media should have the same effect more or less not just video games.

For many years, the issue of violence in the media has been an extremely popular topic. Today, it is next to impossible to prevent one from seeing or experiencing violence. With violence being omnipresent in today’s society, people begin to question what kind of effect violence has on people, specifically considering violence in video games. The most popular

Television, movies, and video games are a big part of children’s lives in today’s technologically advanced society. However, there is a big controversy questioning the effects of these media outlets on children. Much of society claims to have proof for the belief that media violence affects children negatively. However, I am skeptical of the evidence that is stated to prove that claim. I feel that society has placed the blame on these mediums for the violent acts, however serious or trivial, that children commit way too easily, before they even begin to examine the parenting of today’s society.

Violent behavior is something that is innate to the human brain. It has been an instinct of humans since the beginning of our creation or our evolution from a primal state in order to primarily survive and maintain our supremacy atop the hierarchy of all living organisms. We are naturally violent creatures, and this natural tendency for us to exhibit violent behavior isn’t helped by the extreme lack of shelter from and glorification of violent actions through mainstream or alternative news outlets as well as depictions of such actions through other forms of media such as: movies, entertainment television, cartoons, and video games. According to the professing of multiple studies the violence in today’s massive multimedia culture is to be blamed for much of the violence of which we witness on a daily basis within our country. The professing of these studies is reflective of the drastic increase in societal violence in the United States during 1965. A year that marked the first time a generation raised on television would come of the average age of committing violent crimes. (Bushman, 2001, Media Violence and the American Public, pg. 478) These copious amounts of violence that are depicted in our cultures mass media outlets have negative effects on both adults and children. While we exercise our naturally violent minds through seeing and hearing such acts of violence on a daily basis, not only do we

The rampant pervasiveness of societal violence has been ascribed to the dynamic fluctuations within the modern world, one of which is the media's extensive use of violence. Media violence and its influence on society's operation has inspired fierce debates for countless of years, since the broad use of television from the mid-1900s through the flourishing industry of new technology that are accessible today. Several independent individuals, institutions, and peace advocates claim that the graphic and the boundless depiction of violence in movies, television programs, video games, social media, and other various sources is motivating violent behavior among today’s individuals. The continual bombardment of adolescent minds with clear and

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.