Media Violence Promotes Violent Behavior

Media Violence Promotes Violent Behavior

Abstract

America and media violence have always been a topic for people to discuss. There has never been a definite answer to rather violence in the media is copyed by the public. When people talk about who it effects they are always talking about children.

This research paper will explore both sides of the argument. This topic stops parents from letting their children watch certain shows while other parents believe it has no effect. This paper will show that violence in the media has no direct correlation on the rise or fall of violence by children.

Introduction

Media violence has always been a big topic in America. The debate has never been decided upon. There are multiple studies that say that it does promote violence while others say that it is completely unrelated. Media violence is a form of entertainment that parents believe can effect their children negatively. Even though it is fake in the movies many people believe that children will believe it is cool and want to follow the example. They believe that children will not be able to distinguish between reality and the media. Even though no direct correlation has been made between the two most parents believe that it does but in reality they just do not want their children subjected to violent material. The media has become more daring with the material that they put on television. Over the decades the envelope on what is acceptable has been pushed to the point where there is almost nothing censored and everything is acceptable. Even though there is more violence on TV there is still no clear answer to rather it has promoted violence in children.

Literature Review

Arguments saying that violence does promote violence

Eighty three percent of children under six years old use some form of screen media (Kaiser 2006). That means that almost all children have seen violence on television. Studies show that when children watch violence that they become aggressive which translates into anger which can turn into violence. Short-term exposure increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions (Anderson 2003). Craig Anderson of the department of psychology at Iowa State studies show that even a short amount of time watching violent programs can cause this aggression. So parents that try to limit their child's viewing in reality does nothing to stopping the aggression that could build and cause violence. People believe that children are taught to solve their problems by being violent towards whoever they do not like. Since the nation has greatly advanced in technology and children have so many more options to be entertained such as video games people believe that the violence is a major problem. Video games have become more realistic and violent in recent years. In violent video games players are encouraged to be as aggressive as possible and to kill as many things as they can. People believe that children are becoming numb to violence which could cause them to not understand the real effects that it has when they use aggression in real life situations. No long term effects have been proven though so even though children could be only subjected to a limited amount of violence from these video games the effects are still there. Those effects have been shown to only last for a short time period. Even though the results are non conclusive it is still untimely up to the parents to decide if a television show or video game is suitable for the child or not.

Arguments saying that violence does not promote violence

Even though parents might not like the new fondness of violence in the media the violence rate in America has actually gone down in the past years. The overall story is that homicide rates declined substantially (as did rates of interpersonal violence of all sorts)(Blumstein 2000). In a graph by Blumstein he shows that the America homicide rate has dropped signifitely in the past fifteen years. Even though America is more violent then most other countries our nation has personally improved the violence rate. This shows that there is no correlation in the recent violence explosion in the media and real life violence in the nation. So even though adults believe that their children are becoming more violent there is no proof of this. The surgeon general released a report in 2001 on youth violence stating that the types of crimes such as aggravated assault and robbery have gone down as well. Children are more likely to be involved in these minor