TV shows and movies typically inform and entertain viewers, and try to persuade them to buy products. However, while entertaining viewers, they routinely depict violence, a common staple used in delivering media's message. The appalling fact is that these violent shows are impacting youth and endangering society.

Youth violence has increasingly become an apparent part of modern living. Today there are more juvenile homicides, youths carrying weapons, and youth gang members than any other time during our history. This increase in violence is originating from somewhere, and one possible source may be the Television industry (Barbour S).

Violence on TV and in the movies are inspiring people to set their wives on fire, lie down in the middle of the road, rape, steal, murder, and commit shootings. More than 1,000 studies have suggested that me

It is up to the parents and the television stations to monitor television more closely and restrict violence from children. In today's society there is enough violence in every day living that television violence is not necessary. Eighty percent of Americans feel that television violence is harmful to our society and there is too much of it in our entertainment. (Caron)

Many things can be done to control television violence. It has been proven that "program warnings on prime-time movies lower viewership by children 2-11 by approximately 14%. They have no net impact on the viewership of adults, perhaps because viewers drawn to violent programs are likely to know the content without the addition of a warning label" (Hamilton 164).

More recently government officials such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman have become more involved in an effort to find out why there is such an increase in violence in movies. The movie industry tries to explain the fact that viewers are increasingly hungry for films with more violence. It is true that some of the top grossing films are very violent but the majority of the top grossing films have little or no violence. These facts have the government to believe that violence is used to attract younger audiences to the theaters while the non-violent films attract the older and more populous crowd.

Over one thousand studies have been published worldwide on violent entertainment and most experts now agree that the impact on viewers is largely negative. Violence has long lasting effects on children behavior. According to the Journal of American Medicine, at least 10 percent of all violent behavior in America's society is a result of viewing violence in movies and on television. (Rhodes) A study was compiled in 1984 on 145 boys ages 12-17 all who had never committed a crime. (Rhodes) They were exposed to television violence for six months. Their violent behavior was measured by asking the boys if they had committed any violent crimes in the last five months. The study showed that a little over half of the boys had committed a crime or had some sort of violent behavior.

The movie industry knows that "the average moviegoer is rather juvenile in his needs and interests. These needs and interests include: voyeurism, sadomasochism, sentimentality, levity, romance, comedy, and adventure, respectively." (Jowett 31) This is why more often than not movies will have these type of themes including violence to draw more movie goers to the theater and draw more money.

The blame for the increase in violence in society does not sit squarely on the shoulders of the media, but a large portion of the problem is their fault. As long as the media industry can make money off of violence, the pattern of increased violence broadcast to the public will continue. This is big business, and business is good!

Today it is difficult to find a children's cartoon that does not show some type of violence. The violence on shows is not the problem though. It is what they do not show. They never show what happens to the offenders of these harmful acts. There never appear to be any consequences. This happens a great deal in cartoons, toy commercials, and music videos. Children often do not realize that it hurts to hit someone else because they routinely see it on TV. Everyday in cartoons a character is beat up or killed, then the characters come back in the next cartoon appearing to be just fine. It is understandable why this may lead children to think that they can do the same thing to someone else and expect them to come back tomorrow.

TV violence is especially damaging to young children ages 8 and under. They cannot tell the difference between the fantasy presented by television and real life. In fact, some images on TV and in the movies may seem so real to them that it could cause them to be traumatized. Even with all of the television violence on shows, there have been no meaningful changes by the television industry to

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