Hum/114 University of Phoenix Material Essay

The media has the potential to yield many negative effects in the development of a child. Media violence can lead to aggression in children. As mentioned earlier, an average person has viewed approximately 15,000 hours of television by the time they graduate high school. In that time, it is said that almost 18,000 acts of violence including murders, robbery, beating, bombing, and assault will be viewed. With the extent of this data, there is a definite correlation between the media and aggression in youth. The more violence students watch on television or are exposed to from different media sources, the more prone they are to be violent and aggressive as they get older, especially during adulthood. Studies have shown that even small exposure

"The evidence is overwhelming. To argue against it, the link between media violence and teen violence is like arguing against gravity," said Jeffrey McIntyre, legislative and federal affairs officer for the American Psychological Association. As children are exposed to acts of violence in the media through television, video games, music, movies, etc. alarming results are occurring. The main negative effect being an increase in aggression among youth who are regularly exposed to the media and an increase in violent patterns as they mature into adulthood. If not resolved this problem of violence in the media will continue to push children, youth and adults to acts of aggression such as verbal and physical abuse and other more serious

This essay aims to discuss whether violence in media contributes to the violence in the society. The essay will first define who the society is and what constitutes as violence in both the media and in society. It will then discuss audience reception studies and the uses and gratifications theory as to how the audiences receive the media and what they do with it. With evidence from supporting articles and a survey done, this essay will argue that violence in the media does not contribute to the violence in society.

         My research led me to form some new hypotheses on the correlation of violence in the media, namely television, movies, and video games, to the rise in violent behavior in adolescents. For this essay, I will focus on male adolescents. I will use multiple lenses for my research to (1) establish the increase in violent acts by adolescents in the past two decades; (2) use proven research to show the impact of media violence on the individual; and (3) to illustrate my "recipe for disaster," four correlations that contribute to the effects of media violence on male adolescents.

Gentile and Bushman (2012) hypothesized that not only exposure to the media violence, but also other risk factors exclusively and mutually increases the risk of aggression in children.

Robert Peters may have gone to prestigious schools and may work for a big company that are working to make the world a better place, but with the argument that there is too much violence in media, he

Television, movies, and video games are a big part of children’s lives in today’s technologically advanced society. However, there is a big controversy questioning the effects of these media outlets on children. Much of society claims to have proof for the belief that media violence affects children negatively. However, I am skeptical of the evidence that is stated to prove that claim. I feel that society has placed the blame on these mediums for the violent acts, however serious or trivial, that children commit way too easily, before they even begin to examine the parenting of today’s society.

Literature Review: The article presents an issue with exposure to media violence. Children ages 2-18 watch an average of twenty-six hours a week of television. Sixty percent of programs being watched display violence. Children exposed to aggressive scenarios are likely to imitate those behaviors. Children

Violent behavior is something that is innate to the human brain. It has been an instinct of humans since the beginning of our creation or our evolution from a primal state in order to primarily survive and maintain our supremacy atop the hierarchy of all living organisms. We are naturally violent creatures, and this natural tendency for us to exhibit violent behavior isn’t helped by the extreme lack of shelter from and glorification of violent actions through mainstream or alternative news outlets as well as depictions of such actions through other forms of media such as: movies, entertainment television, cartoons, and video games. According to the professing of multiple studies the violence in today’s massive multimedia culture is to be blamed for much of the violence of which we witness on a daily basis within our country. The professing of these studies is reflective of the drastic increase in societal violence in the United States during 1965. A year that marked the first time a generation raised on television would come of the average age of committing violent crimes. (Bushman, 2001, Media Violence and the American Public, pg. 478) These copious amounts of violence that are depicted in our cultures mass media outlets have negative effects on both adults and children. While we exercise our naturally violent minds through seeing and hearing such acts of violence on a daily basis, not only do we

Media violence has been tremendously growing and attaining the hazardous extents. Two-thirds of TV shows contain some kind of violence. Most self-involving video games contain some violent matter in it. For example, if you manufacture guns, you do not need to give any advertisement, because it is done by the amusement industry. Aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, hallucinations, and fear of being mishandled were caused by the media violence, was explained in a 2009 Policy Statement on Media Violence, by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The increase in aggressive behavior happens by watching violent video shows on TV, and by playing violent video games.

Over the past one three decades, there have been cases of increased child violence as well as adult conflicts. Many theories have been developed to explain this growing trend in the society. Media violence has been one of the factors considered.

Media Violence is definitely harmful to children as the exposure of media violence can desensitize children (age 6-12) to violence and in the real world; violence becomes enjoyable and does not result in apprehensiveness in the child. There have been several studies and experiments regarding the adverse effects of violence used in video games, television, as well as movies. With both preschool and school-aged children, studies have found that they are more likely to imitate the violence they see on screen if someone they see as a 'good guy ' is using the violence to solve a problem, especially if there are no realistic consequences for the violence. Examples are marvel comic characters such as Spiderman, The Hulk, Batman. These characters appear unhurt after smashing a building; this may lead to young adolescents thinking that violence will solve the problem. The relationship between media violence and children are positively related, if the media content contains violence, it will show in the behavior of the child eventually. Quantity is also another factor that plays an important role in influencing a child. Excessive TV watching in childhood (3+ hours a day) is associated with an increased risk of criminal convictions and anti-social behaviors in young adults. The main claim is to prove that media violence will affect a child’s behavior, using the research and experiments as evidence. One common reaction to television violence is fear, which has received a good deal

Since 1982, the National Institute of Mental Health, along with other reputable health organizations has collected data that connects media violence, with violent acts. Conclusions deduced from this data prove that violent programs on television lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch those programs. Television violence affects young people of all ages, all socio-economic levels, and all levels of intelligence.

A plethora of research has examined the relationship between media violence and the effects on children. Media violence is ubiquitous and comes in many forms, television and film, computer and video games, internet, music and radio and newspapers and magazines. However, the media that dominates the studies are television, then computer/video games and to a lesser degree music. Three types of evidence support the hypothesis that exposure to media violence is harmful to children. First there is anecdotes and case studies, then correlational studies and third the results of numerous experiments (Bernstein et al. 2006). However there are the sceptics that suggest the evidence is not conclusive in anecdotes and case studies, while correlations

This theory that violence portrayed in media somehow brings about violent behavior is baseless however and there have been no peer-reviewed studies proving any negative causal effects violent media has. This highlights a problem