Media Violence Essay, Research Paper

Whenever the thought of how television affects children pops into someone mind,

the first thing that they think about is the amount of violence on television.

Most mass communication scientists, as well as most people in general tend to

feel that more violence a child witnesses on television, the more aggressive he or she becomes.Over 1000 studies have been done to confirm this link.

People believe that essentially, media violence legitimizes and contributes to a culture of violence and the acceptance of violence as an effective solution to problems. The National Coalition on Television Violence have created media violence guidelines which describe violent acts as those that involve an agent and a victim, contain an expression of overt force, and are committed with deliberate and hostile intent. NCTV guidelines do not

include accidents, emotional displays, horseplay, slapstick, treats, and sports activities asacts of violence.

Accepting this definition of media violence, it is said that by age 18, the average American child will have viewed about 200,000 acts of violence on television alone. The level of violence during Saturday morning cartoons is higher than the level of violence during prime time. There are 3 to 5 violent acts per hour in prime time, versus 20 to 25 acts per hour on Saturday morning.

One of the major problems with television violence, especially in cartoons, is that it fails to show the consequences of violence. As a result, children don’t learn the real consequences of violence. Whether or not television violence produces violent people is disputable. Media violence, in my opinion, can not be said to have a direct effect on viewer actions.However, many people share the abundance of violence does have an effect on our mental well being. Such messages reinforce beliefs that the world is a violent and generally unsafe place, violence is an effective solution to problems, and violence is safe, gratifying,glamorous, and again, often have no apparent consequences.

Albert Bandura, a professor at Stanford University, did one of the first experiments that dealt with trying to prove the relationship between violence on television and aggression in children. Bandura showed a clip of a man beating a “bobo” doll to a number of children. He then left the each child alone in a room with a “bobo” doll. At one point the children would start to beat up the doll, reenacting what they had saw being done in the clip.

A case study done by Aletha Huston-Stein and her colleagues assessed the effects of viewing both violent or nonviolent (prosocial) television programming. In this study, about one hundred pre-school aged children enrolled in a nursery school at Penn State University were divided into three groups and were assigned to watch a particular diet of programming. The children watched either a diet of Batman and Superman cartoons, a diet of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, or a diet of neutral programming (programs designed for pre-schoolers that contained neither violence nor prosocial messages).

Huston-Stein and her colleagues observed the youngsters on the playground and in the classroom for two weeks to assess the level of aggressive and helpful behavior displayed by the children. Then the children viewed the program diet one half hour a day, three days a week for four weeks. They watched twelve half-hour episodes of the diet to which they were assigned.

The researched found that the youngsters who watched the Batman and Superman

cartoons were more physically active, both in the classroom and on the playground. Also,they were more likely to get into fights and arguments with each other, play roughly with toys, break toys, snatch toys from others, and get into little altercations. No mass murders broke out, but they were simply more aggressive and had more aggressive encounters. The other group that watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was much more likely to play cooperatively with their toys, spontaneously offer to help the teacher, and engage in what

might be called “positive peer counseling”. In this latter instance, the focus of Mister Rogers’ sessions was similar to peer counseling. That is being kind, being sensitive to others needs, and being concerned about others feelings. For example, Fred Rogers might suggest that if someone looks sad, you could say, “Gee, you look sad today, are you feeling okay? Do you want to go play or do something?”

The group that watched the neutral programming was neither more aggressive nor more helpful. However, what is interesting about this study is that it shows both sides of the coin. What children watch does affect them, both positively, as in the case of the children who watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and negatively, as in the case of the children who watched the Batman and Superman cartoons. (Murray ) There is a wide range of studies similar to the Bandura and Huston-Stein project that addresses the short-term

effects of children viewing violence.

Television can have a positive or negative impact on a child. It all depends on many different levels of variables. These variables can include gender, socioeconomic status, race, religion, age, hair color, or anything else that may make one person different from another. For example, a girl with blond hair may feel that she too may not be so bright after viewing an episode of Married with Children. This example, although a bit far-fetched, demonstrates the idea of how children’ s views of themselves may be effected by television. There are many classic examples that people can use when trying to argue that television can have a negative impact on children. One example that I’m sure most

people are familiar with is the case in which a five-year-old Ohio boy set his trailer home on fire, killing his baby sister. His mother immediately blamed the incident on the animated MTV show Beavis and Butthead, a show that features two teenage boys prone to bouts of pyromania. MTV argued that Beavis and Butthead come on late in the evening, usually after 10 PM. At that time of night, what the child was watching should have been being monitored because most shows that are on that late at night are intended for more mature

audiences.

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