influences of the media
In an ideal world, it would be great if all parents could monitor everything their children watch, but realistically speaking it just is not possible. In today's world movies and television has become a major part of society. In fact, studies show that not only does the media entertain but they also have a profound effect on an individual's behavior. The statistics of the amount of violence witnessed by a typical child is shocking. According to the American Psychological Association, the average child sees 8,000 murders and 10,000 act of violence on TV before graduating elementary school (Bushman, 537 & 538). Parents since unable to monitor all of their children's viewing, are very concerned about the effects of viewing these violent acts. It now becomes not only the parent's job, but also society's and the government's. It is apparent that the only way to reduce the amount of violence seen by the public is to regulate of censor those shows containing violence. Therefore, the censorship of violence on public television should be made mandatory. As reasonable as it may sound to censor the violence on TV, the television industry strongly disagrees (Zuckerman, 152). They feel that not only is it unreasonable, but unfair,
and a violation of their First Amendment rights (Minow and Lamay, 120). In fact, the Supreme Court has held, television receives less First Amendment protection than other media because it "has established a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans" and "is uniquely accessible to children" (Gibeaut, 64). According to Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News and World Report, "society must tolerate the relatively small number of offensive creations offered by the entertainment industry in order to ensure freedom of speech. After all, that is what produce equally if not more films portraying prejudice, racism, and other social problems, for example: Natural Born Killers, and Pulp Fiction (Bushman, 537). The media industry feels that although the American population may be irritated by pop culture, they understand that the principal causes of violence lie elsewhere than the entertainment industry (Zuckerman, 153). In fact Zuckerman feels that "children are more affected by the general decline of public morality, the lack of religion, the deterioration of public schools, family breakdown and poor parenting. It is obvious that only a select few will be negatively affected by viewing violence on television. The entertainment industry poses the question "why keep everyone else from the innocent entertainment of a few thrills?" After all, why not be honest and show what real life is all about? Although it may not can be proven that violence on television causes violent behavior in individuals, psychologists who have studied the question of how aggression operates are convinced that eve
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Approximate Word count = 1108
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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