Is the TV Industry Really to Blame?
Of course television violence is considered inappropriate for children. However, the larger question at hand is really whether or not it actually perpetuates violent behavior. Such a question may be even easier to answer if it didn't raise inquiries of its own. What is violence? Is there good violence? Should cartoons be viewed as violent? Where should the line be drawn? Although seemingly confusing, the truth is much simpler than we think. In fact, there is much that can be done to relieve this issue. The act of censoring television is not the answer in preventing children from mimicking violent behavior, the parents are. There are additional contributory factors that may lead to violence in children more so than violence on television. Bad parenting covers a wide array of factors that influence violent behavior in children. Domestic violence and drug/alcohol abuse is obviously more likely to be more influential on children than the violent content of television. Not to say that these crimes aren't fought against, its just that along with leaving children unattended, there are many other factors that contribute to aggressive behavior. Those in favor of television censorship often
argue that a large percentage of children watch television for up to five hours or more a day unsupervised (Hollings,718). This is usually due to working parents unable to be at home when their children come home from school. Sadly, the parents who leave their children unsupervised should know that there are far more threatening concerns than television content. Certainly the issues deepen in unsupervised environments, and the television should not be the blame for bad behavior when the root of the problem stems from the parent leaving, not the television. Televisions are meant to be viewed, entertainment and news sources only. This is an understanding that parents should make with their children, if parents have such a hard time, they shouldn't own a television. Its hard to imagine that fifty years ago television would only show Elvis Presley from his waist up (obviously the industry has come a long way since then)! Still, that doesn't mean that the television industry shouldn't receive credit for the efforts that have been implemented to improve its quality over the last decade. Parents should understand the nature of certain shows that are available to their children, intended or not. For that reason, it seems that the TV Parental Guidelines appear to be an honest guide that parents can follow in order to make their own decisions about what is appropriate for their children. This rating system is designed to help parents decide which television shows are appropriate for their children. In conjunction with a V-Chip, which blocks out unwanted programming, the rating system can help parents screen out inappropriate television shows from children. The ratings are broken up into two parts, an age-based rating and a content-based rating that tells if a show has higher levels of violence, sex, or adult language (http://www.mpaa.org/tv/). Violence on television is an incredibly debatable issue because it is often
Some common words found in the essay are:
TV Industry, Parental Guidelines, Tommy Joey, Wylie Coyote, NYPD Blue, Elvis Presley, violent behavior, violent content, violence television, violent behavior children, appropriate children, television industry, behavior children, children viewing, help parents, Comedy Central's, weren't aloud watch, children exposed violence, censoring television, children watching, censoring television answer, exposed violence television,
Approximate Word count = 1307
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
