Television Violence Essay, Research Paper

Violence in today’s society is greatly increased by visions of violence

on television. Children are among those who are influenced the most by

violence they see on many television programs. "TV violence

desensitizes you to other people’s humanity," say psychologist Madeline

Levine. 57 percent of all shows contain violence, in these shows,

violence is portrayed as harmless in that nothing happens to the

victims. There are also no long term repercussions and the perpetrator

usually goes unpunished. I feel that it is not responsible to let

children see this sort of unrealistic violence portrayed on TV. If

children must see violence on TV, let it teach them that there are

consequences for their actions. Many people have tried to change this.

The Children’s Television Act of 1990 was passed, in order to "ensure

that the educational and information needs of children are met by the

broadcast industry." This law simply doesn’t work. All it does is

encourage broadcasters top do the right thing. The V-chip would also

help parents monitor their children’s television watching, but it is

only a matter of time until children figure out how to bypass the V-chip

system entirely. It has been proven that children who watch a lot of

violence on TV are more aggressive, fearful and pessimistic, then those

who don’t. They are also less kind and sensitive, and they are less

likely to help other kids get out of violent situations. A vivid

example of what TV violence can do, comes from the movie "Born

Innocent." In that movie, a 14 year old is raped with a broom handle in

a juvenile detention center. It was aired on NBC, and soon afterwards a

young girl was raped in the same way. The young girls parents sued NBC,

and the FCC was told to do something about TV violence. So they came up

with "the family hour," which said that violence should not air at

8 pm

when most kids are watching. This idea worked for awhile and then

began to fall apart. We need a much more permanent solution to this

problem. America needs to wake up and realize that we need to start

eliminating TV violence directed at children. We need to empower people

with knowledge, not guns and knives.