media violence 2
In today's modern world, children have access to many different forms of stimuli. Some of which are positive and some are negative. Television is a vary persuasive presence in children's lives. They spend many hours every week watching it, although patterns of viewing and program tastes changes as children grow older. Children often learn through observation and a large part of this process is learned while watching television. Because, much of the content on television is violent children's behavioral patterns are becoming more and more aggressive. In the western society up to 98 per cent of homes have a television set, and children are dedicated consumers of television. On average children spend about 25-35 hours per week watching television. ( Hodge, 1986 ) As a result they express what they have learned through their behavior and many times duplicating what they see on the screen. This behavior is often seen in the school yard while observing young boys interacting with one another. We are able to see them play fighting and when asked who they are trying to imitate, they often respond with the words " Power Rangers" . Many television programs contain violence portrayed in ironic contexts. For example heroic
imitate or model aggressive behaviors. For example, one of the most well known studies of modeling aggressive behavior and to determine if children imitate violent acts observed on television is an experiment done by Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross and Sheila A. Ross. To test their hypothesis, the subjects were divided into three experimental groups and one control group. The first group observed real life aggression, the second group observed the same models but on film and the third group watched an aggressive cartoon. The groups were also subdivided into male and female subjects so that half the subjects were exposed to the same sex models, while the other half viewed models of the opposite sex. After the subjects were exposed to aggression, they were tested for the amount of imitation and non imitation aggression. As a result, the boys were significantly more aggressive than the girls. Gender was also positively correlated with imitative aggression and the subjects tended to imitate the same sex models more than the opposite sex. If we allow this violence to continue on the television, we are allowing it to happen in our homes, community and schools. By not doing anything to stop it we are basically giving the message that it acceptable. We have to show the children that this is not acceptable by any means. By eliminating the violence they see everyday on the screen, we will make them more aware of the violence that is around them. Their minds will not be warped into the mindset that violence is a way of like, but rather they will be able to see it for dangerous, and not a good form of constructive of problem solving. Shaw Communication Inc. have taken the first step and it is up to society to enforce the restrictions on our children in order for them to learn that there are better ways of resolving conflicts. "good-guy" characters commit aggression, consequences of violence are unseen, and aggression goes unpunished or seems justified. For example, one cartoon featured four heroes who used their superior strength to beat up villains who were trying to freeze the world. The villains escape unscathed. The heroes congratulated each other. Young children are unable to distinguish the difference between what is reality and what is fantasy. Thus, the children saw attractive perpetrators of aggression use violence that seemed justified on victims who suffered minimal consequences, with the aggressors showing no remorse in the process. In an incident in Norway, two children beat another child by jumping and kicking the child in the head and other parts of the body numerous times. As a result, the child died from being left in the cold because she was not able to move due to her injuries. ( Centerwall, 1993) After an investigation officials had discovered that the incident occurred because the children had watched a show called " Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" . The children thought that the girl would later get up because in the show the characters never seem to be seriously injured. Consequently, the show was canceled throughout Norway. There are reasons for concern about the impact of television violence. Social scientists have studied and discussed this issue for almost 40 years. During this period, hundreds of studies and numerous national reviews and reports have confirmed the potential harmful effects of televised violence. The question still remains how do we solve the problem? The Shaw Communication Inc. have already taken the first steps. In front of the Canadian Radio- Television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) Public Hearing on television violence; Shaw gave an interesting and somewhat disturbing presentation about the facts of television violence. In its presentation, Shaw discussed three initiatives that it has made to control television violence. These three initiatives: increasing the production of quality children's programming, providing customers with a direct means
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2699
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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