Violence In The Media And Its Effects On Society

VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA & IT’S EFFECTS ON SOCIETY Introduction This assignment discusses the effects of violence in the media and how it effects our society. First a definition of media and violence will be presented. Then an explanation about who violence can effect and what effects of violence are evident in our society today. Finally, various ways of prevention are explored and a discussion of whether these paths are just or appropriate in our present day society. Violence in the media has been proven to be an ongoing problem in our society. The more relaxed nature that the mass media has been moving toward has caused great disturbances in the minds of the people in our society. In order to understand this problem, if there is one, we must first define what exactly the mass media and violence are. Next, we must see how it effects the people that watch it and examine the statistics to back this up. Then, we will see why our society is attracted to violence. Finally, we should look to see if the ways that we are addressing this problem are actually helping to resolve it. Definition of Violence Violence takes many forms and is understood differently in different countries and among different cultures. While there is no universally accepted definition of violence, following are some of the definitions. The World Health Organization has proposed the following as a working definition of violence: “Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”. According to Mckechnie.(1976), “Violence is defined as to assault; to injure; also, to bring by violence; to force” This means any type of fighting, blood, gore, or killing would constitute as violence. Definition of Mass Media According to Mckechnie.(1976) “mass media is defined as those means of communication that reach and influence large numbers of peoples, especially newspapers, popular magazines, radio, and television”

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This means violence is not only found on television and in movies, but also in other forms of media such as music videos, cartoons, and video games. Media violence is the movie industry making movies that show extreme and unnecessary violence. Media violence is the news channel broadcasting all the murders, kidnappings, and robberies that occurred that day at a time that allows children to view them. Problems and effects of Mass Media Now I will discuss those problems and their effects on society. The one major problem that has been brought forward by the many studies done on the effects of violence on society, is the “monkey see, monkey do” factor. This means that if a person, a child in particular, sees something on television, they will imitate it. Whether this is done because of curiosity, because they don’t think it is wrong, or because they think it looks “fun”, most of the time they don’t know what the after effects are because they are not shown by the media. The reason this is a problem is because there are murders every year that have definite connections to programs on television, movies, and comic books. Some of the murders were connected to the movie. Another reason that we have problems with the violence is the fact that we are numbed to what we are actually seeing. Repeated exposure to media violence, especially when found on television, is directly responsible for the increase in aggression and desensitization in our children. The fact that a person is being killed right before our eyes is not offensive, and anymore we may not even notice it. This is the effect of too much violence, bloodshed, and gore in our everyday lives. One of the main reasons that children are so susceptible to violence in the media, especially on television, is because they are so impressionable and the television has become like a third parent to them. In the busy lives of parents today, it is much easier for them to just put their child in front of the television while they get some work done. Many times cartoons have become very dangerous situations and the “real life” consequences are not shown. Even though the parent may be monitoring the show that their child is watching, many times there will be previews for shows which will be aired at a later time that have violence in them. One of the reasons that acts of violence are imitated from television is because of the easiness in which they are presented. Characters that possess qualities, which make them attractive role models, initiate forty percent of all incidents on television that involve violence. At least forty percent of the violent scenes on television include humor. Many times these characters feature physical aggressions that would be lethal if they were to occur in real life. The way violence is portrayed is a problem and the amount of violent scenes in television should be looked at. “The average prime-time show has five violent acts per hour.” “Cartoons have an alarming average of twenty-five violent acts per hour.” It is also said that by the time children have reached adolescence, they have seen more than eight thousand killings and over one hundred thousand other acts of violence.

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Who effects ? The mass media can be educational and entertaining, but it can also have a bad influence, especially on children. The dramas and films involve a lot of violence. In certain dramas or films, violence may be portrayed as the method to solve problems. Violent characters may also be portrayed to be heroic. This may lead to encourage violence in the society. It is believed that children do imitate those scenes. They may also be misled into believing that violence solves everything, or thinking that violent people are popular, and always winning. Today TV violence has become the most debatable topic among the TV programme producers, broadcasters and psychologists. TV broadcasters might say that, TV programmes are not real. It is designed to explain the situation and conditions of our communities. However, psychologists and psychoanalysts say that those violent programmes lead aggressive behaviour in children and it is one of the reasons why the crime rates are increase in our societies. Psychologists have studied the effects of violent and aggressive programmes for several decades. In spite of accumulated evidence, broadcasters and psychologists continue to debate the link between the viewing of TV violence and children's aggressive behaviour. Some broadcasters believe that there are no enough evidence to prove that TV violence is harmful. But the psychologists who have studied this issue say there is a direct link between TV violence and aggression. This issue undeniably affects virtually everyone, considering that almost everyone takes part in viewing some aspect of the media everyday. Although this does effect everyone, we should focus on children because it seems that they are the most impressionable viewers. It seems that younger and younger children are committing more and more serious crimes, and that these children are exposed to more and more violence in the media. Whether it is an eight-year-old child or a fourteen-year-old watching a R rated movie, it watching Power Rangers seems that our major problem lies in the younger generation. Does Media Violence Really Influence Human Behavior? Children's greatest exposure to violence comes from television. TV shows, movies edited for television, and video games expose young children to a level of violence unimaginable just a few years ago. The average child watches 8,000 televised murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school. That number more than doubles by the time he or she reaches age 18. The violent content of TV includes more than just the 22 minute programs sent down by the networks. At a very young age, children are seeing a level of violence and mayhem that in the past may have only been witnessed by a few police officers and military personnel. TV brings hitting, kicking, stabbings, shootings, and dismemberment right into homes on a daily basis. The impact on behavior is predictable.

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University of Illinois psychologist Leonard Eron studied children at age eight and then again at eighteen. He found that television habits established at the age of eight influenced aggressive behavior through childhood and adolescent years. The more violent the programs preferred by boys in the third grade, the more aggressive their behavior, both at that time and ten years later. He therefore concluded that "the effect of television violence on aggression is cumulative." Twenty years later Eron and Rowell Huesmann found the pattern continued. He and his researchers found that children who watched significant amounts of TV violence at the age of 8 were consistently more likely to commit violent crimes or engage in child or spouse abuse at 30. They concluded "that heavy exposure to televised violence is one of the causes of aggressive behavior, crime and violence in society. Television violence affects youngsters of all ages, of both genders, at all socioeconomic levels and all levels of intelligence." Since their report in the 1980s, MTV has come on the scene with even more troubling images. Adolescents already listen to an estimated 10,500 hours of rock music between the 7th and 12th grades. Now they also spend countless hours in front of MTV seeing the visual images of rock songs that depict violence, rebellion, sadomasochism, the occult, drug abuse, and promiscuity. MTV reaches 57 million cable households, and its video images are even more lurid than the ones shown on regular TV. Music videos filled with sex, rape, murder, and other images of mayhem assault the senses. And MTV cartoons like Beavis and "the other guy" assault the sensibilities while enticing young people to start fires and commit other acts of violence. Critics count 18 acts of violence in each hour of MTV videos. Violent images on television and in the movies do contribute to greater violence in society. Sociological studies along with common sense dictate that we do something to reduce the violence in the media before it further damages society. Television Promotes not only violence but fear as well. Children see thousands of TV murders every year. And the impact on behavior is predictable. Various reports by the Surgeon General in the last two decades link violence on television and aggressive behavior in children and teenagers. In addition, the National Institute of Mental Health issued a 94page report entitled, "Television and Behavior: Ten Years of Scientific Progress and Implications for the Eighties." They found "overwhelming" scientific evidence that "excessive" violence on television spills over into the playground and the streets. In one fiveyear study of 732 children, "several kinds of aggression (such as conflicts with parents, fighting and delinquency) were all positively correlated with the total amount of television viewing." Confronted with such statistics, many parents respond that their children aren't allowed to watch violent programs. Such action is commendable, but some of the greatest dangers of television are more subtle and insidious. It now appears that simply watching television for long periods can manipulate your view of the world-- whether the content is particularly violent or not. George Gerbner and Larry Gross working at the Annenberg School of Communications in the 1970s found that heavy TV viewers live in a scary world. "We have found that people who watch a lot of TV see the real world as more dangerous and frightening than those who watch very little. Heavy viewers are less trustful of their fellow citizens, and more fearful of the real world."

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So heavy viewers were less trustful and more fearful than the average citizen. But what constitutes a heavy viewer. Gerber and Gross defined heavy viewers as those adults who watch an average of four or more hours of television a day. Approximately one-third of all American adults fit that category. They found that violence on prime-time TV exaggerated heavy viewers' fears about the threat of danger in the real world. Heavy viewers, for example, were less likely to trust someone than light viewers. Heavy viewers also tended to overestimate their likelihood of being involved in a violent crime. And if this is true of adults, imagine how much TV violence affects children's perception of the world. Gerbner and Gross say, "Imagine spending six hours a day at the local movie house when you were 12 years old. No parent would have permitted it. Yet, in our sample of children, nearly half the 12-year-olds watch an average of six or more hours of television per day." This would mean that a large portion of young people fit into the category of heavy viewers. Their view of the world must be profoundly shaped by TV. Gerbner and Gross therefore conclude: "If adults can be so accepting of the reality of television, imagine its effect on children. By the time the average American child reaches public school, he has already spent several years in an electronic nursery school." Television violence affects both adults and children in subtle ways. While we may not personally feel or observe the effects of TV violence, we should not ignore the growing body of data that suggests that televised imagery does affect our perception and behavior. Obviously something must be done. Parents, programmers, and general citizens must take responsible actions to prevent the increasing violence in our society. Violent homes, violence on television, violence in the movies, violence in the schools all contribute to the increasingly violent society we live in. We have a responsibility to make a difference and apply the appropriate principles in order to help stem the tide of violence in our society.

How violence in the media can be prevented? There are many debates over whether television should be regulated. If it should be regulated, then how much control should the government have over it? There are many ways in which this can be done and each one has its own repercussions. The V-chip The V-chip is a new technology that would allow parents to block television programs that have violent or sexual context from their children. It does this through a computerized chip that receives the rating that the government has given the program, and then if there is a R rating, the program is not displayed. This has brought about a concern because when the government has a direct interaction into what we see, people see it as controlling. The other downside of this is that, like all policies that involve the family, the guardians of the children should have a more interactive role in what they are watching and not rely on the chip to do the work. Our society must learn to teach our children how to deal with violence, instead of just blocking it out completely. The Rating System There has been a rating system implemented in our television programming within the past few years. The rating system works just like the Movie Theater 5

rating system. Many people would agree that this is the most sensible plan of prevention. This way leads the family to decide what should be seen and not the government. Although this would not physically prevent them from seeing the program, it would allow them to decide whether the child is old enough to watch the program or not. Regulatory acts There have been a number of acts that the U.S. Senate has tried to pass on regulating what is allowed to be posted on television. The reason that people don’t like this method goes along the same lines of the V-chip. They do not want government intervention (Barbour 1994). Conclusion In order to address a problem as controversial as violence in the media, you must understand both sides of the story. The effects of the violence can be very harmful to our society. Though there are ways in which violence is needed to be shown, it does not need to be shown to the extent that we see through the mass media. There are many ways in which we can prevent violence from being seen and our society must agree on one for it to be extremely effective. But whatever way we decide, it is obvious that the family needs to be stronger and violence must be addressed at a younger age and not just learned from the television. Some Suggestions for Dealing with Violence in the Media We must address this issue of violence in our society. Here are a number of specific suggestions for dealing with violence. Learn about the impact of violence in our society. Share this material with your pastor,

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deacons, and all members. Help them understand how important this issue is to them and their community. Create a safe environment. Families live in the midst of violence. We must make our homes safe for our families. A child should feel that his or her world is safe. Providing care and protection are obvious first steps. But parents must also establish limits, provide emotional security, and teach values and virtue in the home. Parents should limit the amount of media exposure in their homes. The average young person sees entirely too much violence on TV and at the movies. Set limits to what a child watches, and evaluate both the quantity and quality of their media input. Focus on what is pure, beautiful, true, right, honorable, excellent, and praiseworthy . Watch TV with children. Obviously we should limit the amount of TV our children watch. But when they watch television, we should try to watch it with them. We can encourage discussion with children during the programs. The plots and actions of the programs provides a natural context for discussion 6

and teach important principles about relationships and violence. The discussion could focus on how cartoon characters or TV actors could solve their problems without resorting to violence. TV often ignores the consequences of violence. What are the consequences in real life? Develop children's faith and trust in God. Children at an early age instinctively trust their parents. As the children grow, parents should work to develop their child's trust in God. God is sovereign and omnipotent. Children should learn to trust him in their lives and depend upon him to watch over them and keep them safe. Discuss the reasons for pain and suffering in the world. We live in the fallen world and even those who follow God will encounter pain, suffering, and violence. Bad things do happen to good people. Teach vigilance without hysteria. By talking about the dangers in society, some parents have instilled fear, even terror, in their children. We need to balance our discussions with them and not make them hysterical. Kids have been known to become hysterical if a car comes down their street or if someone looks at them. Work to establish broadcaster guidelines. No TV or movie producer wants to unilaterally disarm all the actors on their screens out of fear that viewers will watch other programs and movies. Yet many of these same TV and movie producers would like to tone down the violence, but they don't want to be the first to do so. National standards would be able to achieve what individuals would not do by themselves in a competitive market. Violence is the scourge of our society, but we can make a difference. We must educate ourselves about its influence and impact on our lives. Conclusion I believe that community’s attitudes towards television programmes are not happy in the globalised world. I also believe that the violence in television programmes leads aggressive behaviour in children and the amount of violence in TV is too much and it is harmful for the children. I believe that the council should be given the power and authority to prevent such programmes and should include parents, teachers, psychologists, social scientists and members from NGOs who fight for children’s’ rights. If it would be done then we would have a much better environment at home in moulding our children even in their leisure time.

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