Media Violence Paper

Submitted By drayton2
Words: 1003
Pages: 5

Media Violence In today’s society our knowledge comes from many sources. One of the main sources is the media, including the local news channel, Twitter, Instagram, or the national news. These media sites provide us with new information and influence the decisions we make as people in our everyday lives. With children being exposed to the media, video games, and other technology, it begins to have an effect on them as well. As violence grows in our society, the media exposes the acts of violence happening every day and promotes the idea that violence is a resolution to society’s conflicts. The controversy is whether the media has a negative influence on children and contribute to juvenile crime. Research has proven that 60% of middle school boys who have watched shows with physical aggression or played a mature rated game have hit or physically hurt someone (Rhodes). Violence in media video games contributes to juvenile crimes. The influence of media violence on youth will be critical in the future. Violence is an increasing problem in modern society. Society must restrain the influences to violence, and begin with the media. Research has proven that there is a strong relationship between televised violence and violent behavior among youth.
“While the causes of youth violence are multifactorial and include such variables as poverty, family psychopathology, child abuse, exposure to domestic violence and community violence, substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders, the research literature is quite compelling that children’s exposure to media violence plays and important role in etiology of violent behavior” (Beresin).
One cause of violent behavior is aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior is to have threatening behavior or actions. You can find aggressive behavior through all media and nearly on every channel on TV. Young children will imitate aggressive acts in the media with their peers. Repeated exposure to aggression in the media poses a risk for children. “Experiments have shown that exposure to media violence can increase aggressive thinking, aggressive emotions, and tolerance for aggression, all known risk factors for later aggressive and violent behavior” (Wilson). In movies and television shows, the hero battles the villain because of a motive that led to an aggressive act and a violent resolution. Children learn from what their role models do and say. Ultimately, violence in movies and television shows conveys an improper model of conflict resolution. Children try to use violence as a resolution to their conflicts.
Society has come a long way with technology from one television set in household to having up to one in almost every bedroom today. This gives youth the ability to watch television with no parental supervision. Youth seem to show interest in action/adventure and crime/drama on television shows. “Television programs display 812 violent acts per hour; children’s programming, particularly cartoons, displays up to 20 violent acts hourly” (Beresin). “By age 18 an American child will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence” (Hatch). The violent acts seen on television and other media catch the attention of viewers. People of America live for the entertainment, the adrenaline, and the excitement. Viewing simulated violence influences one to act or imitate what they see. Often this occurs in video games.
Video games are seen as most influential to juvenile crimes. They have become very sophisticated and realistic. Though all video games are not bad and actually are educational, some games take violence to an extreme level. Many of the popular games emphasize negative themes and promote the killing of the people or animals, the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol, criminal behavior, disrespect for authority and the law, sexual exploitation and violence toward women, racial, sexual, and gender stereotypes and foul language, obscenities and obscene gestures (Collins). Youth