Term paper on Violence In The Media

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Public attention to violence in television has been evident since the early 1950's. Since then, some have come to feel that the portrayal of violence on television is an example of the moral breakdown of our once-great nation. Although, various scholars have clearly shown that violence has been a part of the human society's system of communication. And today, television plays a huge role in our system of mass communication. Unfortunately, television is thought to have an impact on the beliefs and actions of viewers, especially of children and teenagers. Most boys and girls who see violent acts performed on television are more likely to become violent and aggressive in their own lives. Two Chicago doctors, Leonard Eron, and Rowell Huesmann followed the viewing habits of a group of children for twenty-two years. They concluded that watching violence on television encourages violent and aggressive behavior. Programs, advertisements, and even the news is giving the public a warped view of reality. Since most people have little experience with crime and violent acts, they are more likely to believe what they see on television. By distorting reality, television has caused the increase of violence because of learned behaviors, sex roles and other stereotypical attitudes, and the desensitization of children.

One of the main reasons television creates a fair amount of violence in society is the fact that children learn the specific behaviors they observe. It has been established above all that children watch television to keep themselves occupied and for amusement. Television has and informative and social function. Children have said from television they get ideas, learn about good and evil, and get an idea of reality. Dr. George Camshich's analysis on the effects of television is the "vicarious socialization that television conveys our values and norms to maturing individuals in a way that could affect how they function in society" (Williams, 161). In order for a child to be influenced significantly by a particular program, they must find the programs credible. The child then develops opinions through different sources(parents, teachers, peers), and then the child will have their own experiences, relating what they saw on television with the similar situation they have encountered in their own lives. It is true that the programs that have the greatest influence are the ones that deal in matters we have no knowledge of. An example of this is the scenario of a child who has no experience with death, but is confronted with it on television. When he or she is told that their Grandmother has died, the child asks, "Who shot her?" (Van Der Voort, 72). This proves that television will fill the gaps in a child's immediate experience, therefore altering the way they think about and understand certain situations, causing them to act a certain way based on what the television program has taught them. Young audiences exposed to mass media portrayals of violence learn how to perform violent acts. Audiences who have learned violent behavior from television are likely to exhibit that learning, (or engage in acts of violence), if they encounter a situation similar to the portrayal situation, and expect to be rewarded for that violent behavior. Lab experiments performed on children and aggression have been done where children are randomly picked and observed alone after watching a violent film, a non-violent film, or no film. The children are then given the same toys as in the film and observed on their behavior. The results of this experiment clearly state that children who watch aggressive behaviors imitate the behaviors and are more aggressive than the children who watched non-violent films or none at all. Another experiment done by Streuer, Applefield and Smith in 1971 consisted of five pairs of preschool children. One child from each pair watched a ten-minute aggressive cartoon each day for eleven days. The other child watched non-aggressive cartoons. The children that had watched the aggression behaved that way during free play. In another naturalistic experiment(done in a natural setting), the behaviors of children were examined on the basis of how much television they watch, and the results support the conclusions of the lab and field experiments. "Television viewing is positively related to aggressive behavior" (Williams, 307). Stanley and Riera in 1977 have documented incidents in which violent acts seen on television have been imitated in real life. These experiments prove that aggression is learned behavior, and television is a main source of learning available to children today.

The establishment of sex-roles that television has made is...