Television remains the single most influential medium in the lives of young people. However, a three-year National Television Violence Study found: "two-thirds of all programming contains violence; children's programs contain the most violence; the majority of all entertainment programming contains violence; violence is often glamorized; and the majority of perpetrators go unsanctioned" (Muscari 2002).
Television violence is graphic, realistic and involving, shows inequity and domination, and portrays most victims as women, children and the elderly (Muscari 2002). Children tend to focus on the more intense scenes, such as violent moments, rather than story components, and these "aggressive acts lead to a heightened arousal of the viewer's aggressive tendencies, bringing feelings, thoughts and memories to consciousness and can cause outwardly aggressive behavior" (Muscari 2002).
When video games were introduced in the 1970's, they quickly became a favorite pastime for children, and now make up a $10+ billion industry. Today, children average 90 minutes of game time per day, and may experts believe that the "mechanical, interactive quality of 'first-person shooter' games make them potentially more dangerous than television or movies" (Muscari 2002). In fact, many of the young school shooters, including those at Columbine, were obsessed with video games, yet had little or no experience with real guns prior to their shooting sprees (Muscari 2002). For example, the 14-year-old killer in Paducah, Kentucky, never moved his feet as he fired at each of his victims as if they were popping up on a screen, and the Columbine killers "methodically moved from room to room, stalking and killing their victims, laughing; a hallmark of video game, as well as movie and television violence, known as 'funny violence'" (Muscari 2002). Rebecca M. Chory-Assad reports in the December 2005 issue of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media that "not only do video games contain violent material, but higher levels of aggressive thought and behaviors have been observed among individuals who play these types of games" (Chory Assad 2005).
Music plays an important influence on adolescents because it helps to define important social and sub-culture boundaries, and while music...
Media Violence The potential relationship between media violence and actual aggression comes to the forefront of public discussion, but unfortunately this discussion rarely takes into account the science related to the relationship between media violence and aggressive behavior. In particular, there is a widespread assumption that media violence directly causes aggression and aggressive behavior, and this assumption has become so common that even secondary scholarly discussions of the evidence have taken
Media Archaelogy and Videogames In today's world, the rapid development of technology has opened worlds of vast information and entertainment that are instantly accessible at the touch of a button. The relationships created in this way not only involve those we interact with online or via gaming, but also our own perception, the mental imagery we create and the apparatus we use to access these. A researcher who truly wants to
Acceptable forms of behavior need to be modeled and reinforced while unacceptable forms of behavior need not be supported. This all needs to be done before these acts and violent behaviors become imprinted as a part of normal behavior. Individuals are still going through hormonal and physical changes far into their twenties; neuronal connections are also still being developed during this time (Perry 2013). This means that if appropriate
A long list of possibly violent images can be tabulated, as well as their frequency and duration on the screen. What other things would you need to consider in order to make sure that exposure to media violence was the cause of aggressive behavior and not some other factor? In other words, what variables would have to be controlled? The ideal way to control for other variables would be to sanction
Violence in Public Schools The recent violence on school grounds (including elementary, middle school and high school violence) has created a climate of fear in American public schools, and the literature presented in this review relates to that fear and to the difficulty schools face in determining what students might be capable of mass killings on campus. Television coverage of school shootings leave the impression that there is more violence on
The industry knowingly takes advantage of this recent cultural shift in parent-child relationships. And finally, the industry knows that children and youngsters are more likely to be influenced by violent movies, TV shows, and games and are more likely to get addicted to violent imagery, becoming potential customers for future media products and games that glorify violence (Mean world syndrome, 2009). It is fair, therefore, to say that bombardment
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now