I read an article that discussed how the violence that young children and teens are viewing on T.V and through playing video games is turning into real violence against other teens. The article gives the statistic that before teens are 18 that they would have viewed 200,000 acts of violence. This is a staggering amount. Now i am not saying for parents to go crazy with parental controls and block any thing and every thing that has violence but what i am saying is to really pay attention to the ratings of the t.v shows and video games that young children are watching. An example is made of a group of young boys age 11 to 13 acting out some thing they saw in an episode of "South Park" which viewed the main characters beating up a kid for being a " ginger". Now i have seen this show and know very well that it is way too mature for an 11 year old to be watching. The article expresses that the episode of the show discussed did in fact attack the issue of how hurtful bullying and violence against others for outward appearances but these messages are often not picked up by young teens and so the only thing that caught there eye was a kid getting beat up for having red hair. SO this is a connection we can make when viewing all of the violence influenced ads and what is does to young children who are not yet able to disconnect what is t.v acting and what is accepted behavior in society. Violence through media such as t.v and video games gives especially young boys an outlet of how they think they should act, it shows them early of how to be powerful, dominating and also violent but in media being these things comes off cool and bad ass. so maybe by removing extremely sexual, extremely violent and dominating images in mainstream media will at least help to assist in giving a better view of how to treat people. This is not just targeting at how men treat women but also how men treat other men. but i say again a big part of this battle is young teens viewing too mature images, video games and shows are given ratings for a reason so this is where it is a parents responsibility to show a child what is ok to watch and what they should watch at their age level. I hear about way too many ten year old boys that play shooting games and graphic violence based video games that really gives them a false view of what is acceptable in the real world because at such a young age it is very difficult for their brains to differentiate between what is fake and what really happens outside a video game.
References: http://www.californiafamilycouncil.org/Media-Violence-Cause-and-Effect
I defiantly see the connection between violence and social issues we have in this culture. I think that the media does create this image of violence that desensitizes society to the actual harm and consequences it brings. I think that the media portrays men as you said dominant and aggressive and want to submit to this idea that we live in a male dominant world. I think that violent video games also are extremely insensitive to victims of violent crimes. By seeing the video games or violence on TV, when real crimes like this happens, it makes society seem insensitive to the issues because they see it, or even perform it in violent video games. I think by having young people play these games or watch violent movies it does not give them the right idea about how treating others with violence is unacceptable. When they play a game where they can just drive around and shoot people and steal things and assault women without consequences is not teaching young men the proper way to behave or treat others in our society.
ReplyDeleteI would agree of your connection to media violence as desensitizing society and allowing this to be a norm that young children are exposed to. I would also like to include the idea of what these TV images and video games mean to their creators. Are they simply supplying to the demand for more mature games and media or are they trying to change they way our young generation grows up and views other groups of people. These form of media can also be connected to horizontal violence in the way of how peers of the same age and even race treat one another. IF the decisions of the creators of media were altered maybe we can alter how youth will view society and where they fit in to it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that media violence impact social issues. I wouldn't say video games would be a large impact that inflicts on men's behaviors to act violent. As a gamer myself and the influence of the boys I live with, they have been playing games every single day for more than 2 hours per day. At times they would get up scream at the T.V and get peeved. But I have never seen them act violence nor have expressive negative behaviors towards one another. I think violence media through T.V is heavily contributed to the largest factor of them all is music. Music of all genres have expressed some sort of violence. Those who are listening will sing it, memorize it, and recite it to the point where it is embedded in the mind. Little boys may go around telling their peers personal record kills on MW3 but older mind developed teens will share music with one another , and spread it's popularity faster then a wild fire. Inflicting the cost of violence.
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