Media Desensitization Examples

Within our society today, media plays a huge role in everyone’s life - an important role. Media offers entertainment, news, information, and education; however, with these benefits come negatives as well. For example, foul language, drug abuse, and sexual content may be presented to an unsuitable audience, specifically children. It’s easy to see sexual content on tv, hear foul language in songs on the radio, or even hear about the abuse of drugs and alcohol. Children are especially good at mimicking what they see and are easily influenced. So, with all this content being shown openly with no censorship, children think this is a social norm, as well as spending long periods of time watching TV, playing video games, and using the internet. Modern technology has transformed the way children learn and interact within their environment, it is having a negative effect on them in this younger generation with all the easy access to all genera’s of media material for long periods of time.

During these times, once you turn on your television set you are abruptly notified on yet another absurd act that a celebrity had committed the night before. The media becomes engrossed by the despicable behavior and ravages at it as if it was the final grain of rice. Once they have completed a story that is at the right level of crudeness, they deliver it to the public. The vulgar news reaches households all across the world, and then it soon pollutes the minds of innocent and young children. At a young age, boys and girls commonly compare themselves with reference groups of people who occupy the social role to which they desire. The constant negative and sometimes provocative images that are displayed by celebrities are what define

In the media there is a great deal of violence and nobody can really deny that. However, the effects media has on children and young adults have been debated for years. In this paper I will be discussing the effects of media violence, the other factors, and the possible solutions to alleviate this global issue.

Author Jeff Jacoby raises the possibility that it can change our behavior over time. In his article, “A Desensitized Society Drenched in Sleaze,” Jacoby recalls the first time he watched an X-rated movie at age seventeen. “This wasn’t arousing, it was repellent. I was shocked. More than that: I was ashamed. My heart was pounding and my face was burning. I felt dirty. Guilty. I was conscience– stricken” (Jacoby 558). Jacoby mentions that as a child, he attended a religious school and had a strict upbringing. However, as a grown man, Jacoby no longer feels the same effect of guilt while seeing a dirty movie; he has become jaded. “If sex and violence–drenched entertainment can desensitize me, it can desensitize anyone. It can desensitize a whole society. It can drag us to the point where nothing is revolting.” (Jacoby 558). The powerful messages we receive from media may not directly influence us, but they make us jaded to messages that were once shocking. “The point is that when blood and mayhem and sleazy sex drench our popular culture, we get accustomed to blood and mayhem and sleazy sex” (Jacoby 558). After reading many different articles on this topic, it seems that Jeff Jacoby presented the strongest argument by including his own personal experience. Jacoby had no pervious exposure to any sexual content as a child. He explained how repeated sexual images can lose their impact over time. Too much tolerance of sex and violence could be the downfall our ever growing desensitized

Why is it that it takes gruesome violence for people to be entertained by television content? This kind of diversion could be having an effect on the minds of the children that are watching. Citizens of other countries are openly opposed the grisly material broadcast daily on American television. What average Americans can find enjoyment in viewing on television is extremely strange to members of foreign countries. Has it not become clear that constant blasting of savage images is taking effect on people, mainly Americans? Morality in American society is decreasing rapidly, and the best way to curb this social decline is to censor violent and sexual content on American broadcast television.

The rising concern over the potential effect of violent and sexually explicit media on people has become very

Society today creates opinions on people and ideas and slowly puts these opinions in people’s heads without them even noticing. These are portrayed to the people through different ways such as: social media, gender roles, oppression, and authority. Ideas like how people should act or should believe are strongly influenced. Power can be taken out of hand and used in ways it should not be. As a result of this our society is easily influenced with the way it functions.

The cultivation theory address an association of television to violence creating a pervasive impact of our view of the world. These fears, unfortunately, formulated a medium of

Nowadays, it is hard to turn on a television program, catch a movie or buy your younger sibling a video game without encountering a warning for extreme violence. Everyday, our lives are exposed to violence on the screen, whether it is in the latest Sopranos episode or even watching the six o'clock news. For quite a while now, people have been demanding that stricter censorship be placed on the media, especially those programs and video games that can easily be obtained by the youth, due to their feelings that this violence can influence people to "act out". However, this is not a new idea. Back in ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato believed that exposure to the emotions of the arts

In our modern days, the goal is to acquire as many repeated viewers as possible. In order to that, the most shocking and extreme images are usually depicted in these shows. They seem to attract a younger audience. Although these values and norms are overlooked, they are quite offensive and somewhat out of date. These shows typically have the same norms and values regarding gender, sex, age, skin color, origins, etc. three very popular shows were chosen to assess the research: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Wild-N-Out and Family guy. To further expose the gravity of the issue, three episodes of different times were chosen in total. Each show was selected for one of its episodes and the findings were very similar. Each episode would play as it usually would except every demographic, stereotypical, value, norm and behavioural pattern was noted down to compare the base of each show and see where each shows stands on their strategies. These shows have proven to be the perfect example of mainstream media and the basic features of the most successful shows on teevision.

Technologies evolve, but sex and violence have always been and remain hot button issues in the media. The pace of the new technological change can be so great that we can no longer wait on formal media effects research to guide our personal decisions. There have been many changes that have been taken place with media sex and violence today since I was a child. I believe that the media technologies have increased the negative effects of sex and violence on children and adults today. This paper will discuss why and provide examples of how it has an effect on adults and children because it’s not only an adult issue. This paper will also discuss recommendations

Personalized and dramatized news are two ways for the media to engage and gain a viewer’s attention to a story. Instead of informing citizens of events, the news media turns them into an entertaining melodrama. People become disengaged and desensitized to stories that get told over and over with a new spin. American media has set this up with pure intentions of entertaining to gain ratings.

The use of profanity and of deliberate substitutes for profanity on television does not reinforce family values. In fact, it does the opposite by undermining the lesson about not using vulgar language in most families. Families should have the right to determine what kinds of behavior and what kinds of language are appropriate but television can compete with any family values in that regard. By presenting foul language as acceptable for general use, television programs become arbiters of behavior by influencing the culture outside the

"Impact of media use on children and youth” explores the good and bad effects that media can have on a young child’s development both mentally and physically. In the beginning of the article, they provided examples of how watching television can expose young children to violence, sexuality, and offensive language. The author made an interesting point that connected an increase in violent behaviors with children who watch violent

Negative effects of Mass Media for teenagers,  The exposure of sex images and excessive portraits of violence in movies and dramas have instilled negative thoughts and taboos in the mind of these teenagers for they have been consistently getting increased exposure to things which are not suitable for their age.