The Effects Of Violence In Tel Essay

, Research Paper

The Effects of Violence in Television and Movies

“Violence on television and in the movies is damaging to children”

(Levine) Well, that just about says it all, huh. Or does it. One thing is for

certain, the link between adolescent violence and the programs on television

is there, the only thing to debate is how strong is that link. Many people

feel there is a huge problem with the violence on television and in the

movies in today’s society, causing all sorts of social chaos, such as school

shootings, massacres, and just about anything else you can thing of. On the

other hand, many people feel less strongly about the topic. They feel that

violence on television and in the movies is a problem, but not as big a

problem as most others make it out to be. But wait, there’s more. There is

one last group; the targeted demographic. The people who actually watch the

shows everyday. They, of course, couldn’t care less about what they watch.

These people can sit through anything basically. If you do care, you’re in one

of the other aforementioned groups. So, we have three groups, all with

varying opinions and ideas. Surprisingly, violence on network television has

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been declining steadily over the past three years, according to a report

released in January by the Center for Communication Policy at the

University of California at Los Angeles (Moret). Also, public perception,

largely the result of media emphasis, is that almost half of all violent crime

is committed by juveniles; when in fact, it’s only 19% (Moret). Yes, that’s

still a lot, but while many people think that the juvenile crime rate has gone

up dramatically, it has always stayed at around 20% for more than one

hundred years (Moret). After a terrifying spike beginning in the 80s, the

murder rate among young people declined 31% between 1993 and 1996,

according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (Marks). We’d like to

think this is getting better, but we really can’t know for sure.

So, we have three groups, all with very different opinions. We’ll start with the most concerned, the ones who think that all violent television and movies are horribly immoral and should be banned. This group believes that any program with violence is unsuitable for viewing by the younger demographic, that it will affect them in the long run. Statistics show, that yes, it does affect younger children. Impressionism starts when a child is very young (Elias), so it would make sense that they feel that young children should not watch violent programs. It would seem, and again studies show,

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that the older one gets, the less likely you are to be influenced by a movie or television program, because older people obviously know it’s wrong to hurt someone. This particular group understands that, and I applaud them for it. They feel a solution to this very serious problem is to simply not let children watch it (Levine). That is, a blocking system, like the V-chip. Also, they are vying for a more tight watch at movie theaters, making sure that children do not even have a chance to see R rated movies, not even if their parents say they can.The second group feels that the issue at hand is not as serious as the first group. They believe that yes, violence influenced by children is a problem, but not life threatening. Many studies of television related violence have determined that adolescent children are not as impressionable as the younger group aforementioned, and the effects are less, but they are still there. For example, one study showed that adolescents have more aggressive feelings when they watch violent movies, but “….people may walk out of a movie such as Natural Born Killer feeling aggressive, but unless they keep replaying the movie, or other angry thoughts associated with the movie in their mind, they are apt to be back to normal in a few minutes” (Levine). So, it doesn’t last unless you dwell on it. The problem, they feel, is that people do tend to dwell on “cool” things. Also, this group feels there is a problem

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with the rating system on television program ratings. At first, it was just PG, TV 14, MA, and a few others. Now they have added L for language, V for violence, and S for a sexual theme. This is all well and good, but group #2 feels it’s too complicated, that people hate complicated things, and that the more complicated the ratings system is, the less people will try to figure it out (Grossman). While this group is not as uptight about television related violence, they basically want the same things as the first group, like a blocking system, closer parental watch, and tighter security at the movies. Now, there’s one last group, the targeted demographic. The people that sit around all day and do nothing but watch television. They feel there isn’t a really big problem to be dealt with. They don’t want their television shows to be taken away because they’re “too violent” or “influential”. While they can’t deny all the facts out there, they don’t feel the problem of television related violence is really as big as some people make it out to be. They believe that yes, children should not see pro

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