Violence Perception Essay
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TV heroes endorse tanks of noxious,flesh-eating gas The complex age of elaborate laptops, portable color televisions in every room, and pocket radios the size of a basic calculator have all taken their toll on American society. In a furious outburst reflecting the contemporary society in which we live, television has come to represent all that is evil and wicked for our children. Through gruesome, explicit, and often unrealistic portrayals of death and violence, the impressionable clay of our children's minds are being molded into vicious statues incapable of comprehending the gap between what is real and what is injurious. What you see is what you get has taken on an all too terrifying reality. It's not just an escapist ideal, denial, or unavailable evidence that define why people equate violence on TV with the violence in their lives and in other Americans lives. It's a founded and plausible justification. Over 1,000 detailed studies confirm this link. Advanced scientific research illustrates the horrific results we hate to hear: television is bad for kids. Our electronic babysitter has reached the end of her employment - she shoots out too many intensely violent acts in a surprisingly perfunctory way. Leonard Eron, PhD at the University of Illinois, conducted a close study of television viewing from age 5 to age 30. The results hurt our television-loving brains: the more hours of television violence viewed, the more the tendency for aggressive behavior in teenage years becomes as does the likelihood of criminal acts and arrest in later years. Brandon Centerwell, professor at the University of Washington, depicted the doubling of the homicide rate after the introduction of television. Imitation, an austere reality which we are forced to accept, can be seen everywhere. The gory bloodbath at Luby's Cafeteria, which left 21 dead, was rooted in the killer's passion for the movie The Fischer King as was the impact of Stephen King's works that gave inspiration for a 17-year-old boy to shoot his teacher and hold the class hostage. Even the colossal resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's can be associated with media. Children in an ambience of intensive violent media become desensitized to violent acts, clearing a path towards an apathetic stance towards violence as an adult. Also, this milieu of gargantuan helpings of fevered violence leads to profoundly aggressive behavior as an adult and the ghastly fear of the world around them. And unfortunately, it's an indisputable fact that violence sells in the 90's. turn on the television during prime time and right away a throng of gruesome programs amasses you from Extreme Wrestling to CNN news. When's the last time you heard something positive on the news as opposed to civil war in Europe, the death of an inner-city youth by a rival gang, or the brutal rape and murder of a child by their parent? Perhaps the news contributes more than just an insightful knowledge of events. Perhaps Columbine copycats and school bomb threats may never have arisen if the entire world hadn't witnessed the blood-soaked terrors via cable television. An early study performed by Liebert and Baron in 1972 concedes that the willingness of a child to harm another child is increased by the intake of violence-charged television programming. Cartoon superhero contributors of this belligerent behavior include the seemingly unlikely Superman and Batman. Differentiating between fantasy and reality remains especially perplexing for children under the age of 8. Like sponges, they absorb but don't distinguish. We wonder why there exists this bellicose disposition among Americans, a characteristic prevalent more so here than in any other country. Could it be that media violence has evolved into an intricate art where the more money and computer graphics spent on the mind-blowing action exhibitions makes all the difference in profit? Could it be that the artificial death spectacles and mass slaughter of insignificant characters desensitizes us to the finality and reality of what death is actually like? Or could it be that the ultimate human demise in the movies is now more like a choreographed dance number with intricate moves and creative turns than a dramatic conclusiveness of life? When will Americans do something about this horrid and grotesque tragedy and take steps towards curing this vicious social plague? Each person who monitors the inlet of violent television his or her child watches or who stands up against the flourishing climate of extravagant violence makes a difference. A starting point may only be a little beginning, but all great reforms found their origin here.
UNESCO’S GLOBAL MEDIA VIOLENCE SURVEY
The range of media to which children have access has grown rapidly in this generation. Take the books, newspapers,
magazines, films, radio, tapes, records, and broadcast television familiar to children of the previous generation, then add
dozens of cable t.v. channels, thousands of videos and video games, and millions of Internet sites. The result is a dense
electronic bath in which children are immersed daily. This is true not only in the industrialized countries but increasingly in
all societies of the world.
What is the impact of this new environment on children, and what is the particular effect of images of violence in the media?
To address this question, in i996 and i997 UNESCO conducted the Global Media Violence Survey. More than 5,000
12-year-old students in 93 countries participated, representing all regions of the world and a broad variety of cultural, social,
and economic conditions, from countries like Canada andjapan to high-crime neighbourhoods in Brazil and war-ravaged
countries like Angola and Tajikistan. Under the supervision of Drjo Groebel of Utrecht University, the study aimed to
understand the role of media in the lives of children and the relationship between media violence and aggressive behaviour
among children in different settings.
The study found that 93% of students who live in electrified urban or rural areas have regular access to television and watch
it for an average of three hours a day. This is at least So% more than the time spent on any other out-of-school activity,
including homework, being with friends, or reading. There is little doubt that television is the most important medium in the
lives of children almost everywhere in the world.
Television, videos, and video games expose children to high levels of violent images on a daily basis. In many countries,
there is an average of five to ten aggressive acts per hour of television. Does this violence affect children's behaviour? The
study found evidence for a hypothesis called the "compass theory." Depending on a child's existing experiences, values, and
the cultural environment, media content offers an orientation, a frame of reference which determines the direction of the
child's own behaviour. The child does not necessarily adopt the behaviour portrayed, but the media images provide a
model, a standard for what may be considered normal and acceptable.
The study found that aggressive male heroes fascinated boys in all cultures. Arnold Schwarznegger's "Terminator" is known
by 88% of the world's i2-year-olds, whether in India, Brazil, or Japan. Boys chose action heroes as their role models more
frequently than any other category of media image. The trend was especially strong among boys in high-crime
neighbourhoods and war zones. Girls, by contrast, tended to choose pop stars as their role models.
The study found evidence that media images reinforce the experiences of children in their real-life environments. Almost
half (44%) of both boys and girls reported a strong overlap between what they perceive as reality and what they see on the
screen. Many children experience both real and media environments in which violence appears to be natural and the most
effective solution to life's problems. Where violence is not a feature of daily life, media portrayals may make it appear to be
thrilling, especially when presented out of context.
ATTEMPTS TO REGULATE THE MEDIA
The UNESCO study is a major contribution to the growing body of evidence that violence in the media does have a harmful
impact on children, recognizing that this effect can vary by gender and by the kind of surroundings in which children are
living. Many countries of the world have taken steps to introduce regulations, or to pressure the media to adopt forms of
self-regulation, to curb the level and amount of violence to which children are exposed on television. The United States has
made it mandatory that V-chips be included in all new television sets sold in the country. These allow parents to program
their television sets to screen out broadcasts rated above a certain level for violent or erotic material. Canada has introduced
a code of ethics for broadcasters that is now a condition of licensing by the Canadian Ratio-Television and
Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
There are problems with these approaches, however. Government regulations raise concerns about state censorship, and
voluntary codes of ethics are unsatisfactory in a medium driven by ratings and fierce competition for advertising revenue.
Moreover, the V-chip is unlikely to defeat any determined 12-year-old intent on watching a t.v. program when parents are
absent. Among experts, a new consensus has been emerging that emphasizes media education, at home and in school, to
promote critical thinking by youth in relation to all information and images they receive through the media.
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH: FOSTERING CRITICAL USE OF THE MEDIA
Canada's Media Awareness Network provides resources to parents, teachers, community leaders, and students themselves
to promote critical analysis of media content. Teachers can go to its Web site for curriculum materials and lesson plans.
Parents can get advice on teaching their children about media messages and establishing good media entertainment habits.
The site also provides information on classification systems and guidelines for movies, television, video games and the
Internet. There is also a wealth of information about reports, articles, parenting books, pamphlets and handouts to support
media awareness in the home and community.
In May, 1999, the CRTC released a milestone report in which it rejected a strategy of attempting to regulate content on the
Internet and endorsed the approach of the Media Awareness Network to foster critical use of all media. The CRTC
recognized that, in the hands of new media users, "awareness and knowledge can be a powerful tool." Its report cites the
Media Awareness Network as an organization that is "dedicated to media education and media issues affecting children and
youth," and directs users to its Internet site at www.media-awareness.ca.
UNESCO has established the International Clearing House on Children and Violence on the Screen at the University of
Gothenburg in Sweden. Its main task is to provide data of every kind on children and media violence to people who need it:
researchers, decision-makers, media professionals, academics, voluntary agencies, and interested individuals. It gathers and
distributes research findings, teaching materials, positive alternatives to media violence, and information on measures taken
in different countries to limit violence on television, in films, and in the interactive media.
ABUSE OF CHILDREN ON THE INTERNET
A similar network is now taking shape around the issue of sexual abuse of children, child pornography, and paedophilia on
the Internet. It is made up of specialists in child care and child protection, Internet specialists and service providers, media
practitioners, law enforcement agencies, and government representatives. Like the network on children and media violence,
it aims to promote the exchange of information and co-operation among groups concerned with child rights. It plans to
broaden its membership to include parents associations, teachers, and other civic groups.
THE AIM OF EDUCATION IS to make people active and critical thinkers. Are you critical enough in relation to the media surrounding your daily
life? Ultimately, this is the only way that a young person can grow up to be an informed and active citizen in a democratic society.
Children educated to analyze media content learn to recognize the contradiction between their taste for violence on television and their rejection of it in
real life. Media education also allows children to become active producers of media content, to learn the methods and language of the media, and to use
it in a healthy way as a vehicle way as a vehicle for their own self-expression.
RESOURCES
The Web site of the UNESCO International Clearing House on Children and Violence on the Screen is
http://www.nordicom.gu.se/unesco.htm
The killings in the Littleton, Colorado high school have sparked a wave of soul-searching over whether the
entertainment industry is partly responsible for creating a "culture of violence." Predictably, there are also
questions about the meaning of the First Amendment. Can there be too much of a good thing? Does the First
Amendment really protect all the blood and gore that is splattered on our TV and movie screens?
The simple answer is "Yes." Of course the First Amendment protects violent imagery. Otherwise, think of all
the things that would be vulnerable to censorship: the Bible, the Iliad; Agamemnon, Faulkner’s Light in
August, and James Dickey’s Deliverance; films such as Schindler’s List, Paths of Glory, and Apocalypse
Now; art like The Rape of the Sabine Women, Picasso’s Guernica, and most religious art graphically...
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