“By the time the average U.S. child starts elementary school he or she will have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on TV.” –New Scientist, 2007. In examining the question whereas TV contributes to violence in our society we have to take into consideration many factors such as research, data and history of the TV. It is evident that this issue has been debated for decades while during that time some 2,500 books and articles have been written on the effects of TV and film violence on human behavior. The time when growing up, used to be less traumatic was just a few decades ago. Children back then worried about such things as a flat tire on their Schwinns and hoped that their teacher wouldn't give too much homework. Unfortunately, life has changed the last decades dramatically. A 1994 poll found more than half the children questioned said they were afraid of violent crime against them or a family member. Are these kids just paranoid, or is there a real problem? Children under 18 were 244 percent more likely to be killed by guns in 1993 than they were in 1986. Violent crime has increased by more than 560 percent since 1960. The innocence of childhood has been replaced by the very real threat of violence. Moreover, kids in school try to avoid fights in the hall, walk home in fear, and sometimes sleep in bathtubs in order to protect themselves from stray bullets fired during drive-by shootings. Even families living in so-called "safe" neighborhoods are concerned. They may feel safe today, but there is always a reminder that violence can intrude at any moment.
Well, it turns out this is not some irrational fear based upon a false perception of danger. Life has indeed become more violent and more dangerous for children. Consider the following statistics: One in six youths between the ages of 10 and 17 has seen or knows someone who has been shot. The estimated number of child abuse victims increased 40 percent between 1985 and 1991. And TV is indeed one of the factors that lead to violence. Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who view TV shows, in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or left unpunished, are more likely to imitate what they see. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in a child’s behavior or may surface years later, and young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence. However, this does not mean that violence on television is the only source for aggressive or violent behavior, but it is a significant contributor. Television is being blamed for children becoming violent in later life because it is an easy scapegoat. In many families, television has become an electronic baby-sitter; a replacement for quality time with parents. Children who spend their after school time alone because parents work will find themselves learning behaviors not from their parents, but from television.
We all know that television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and behavior in children. Unfortunately, much of today’s television programming is violent. Several studies conducted by UCLA "have found that children may become ‘immune’ to the horror of violence; gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems; imitate the violence they observe on television; and identify with certain characters, victims and/or victimizers". For my part, I will try to summarize some the latest thinking on this subject.
At this point we have to consider the following questions: Do all the violence acts that children view on television cause them to commit crimes in their later lives? Are the effects of watching TV violence brief or lasting? Is TV as important a factor in fostering societal violence as economic poverty, bad schools and broken homes? Is it really possible or desirable to manage kids’ exposure to a cultural environment that can never be entirely beneficial or benign?
But in order to determine the effects of TV violence, one need took look at the research that has been done. Though it may be difficult to offer definitive answers, in the last three years alone, there have been four widely publicized studies on the effects of violence on television, each looking at a different aspect. One of the studies was conducted by four universities and financed by the cable industry. It found that of nearly 2,700 shows analyzed in a 20 week survey of 23 channels, 57% were said to contain at least some violence (Zoglin, "Chips" 58). However, the names of the channels were not mentioned and it should be pointed out that many cable systems now have over 100 channels. Another study was done in 1995 by UCLA which was financed by the networks. It found "promising signs" that levels of network violence are declining (Zoglin, "Chips" 58).
In a third study about TV violence, L. Rowel Huesmann and Leonard Eron surveyed every 8 year old in a typical American city in 1960. It did follow up studies with the same subjects in 1971, 1981 and 1994. They found some shocking results. "The correlation between violence-viewing at age 8 and how aggressive the individual was at 19 was higher than the correlation between watching violence at age 8 and behaving aggressively at age 8" says Eron (Mortimer 17). Eron estimates that TV is responsible for only 10 percent of the violent behavior in this country. "But," he says, "If we could reduce violence by 10 percent, that would be a great achievement" (Mortimer 19).
The fourth study showing the effects of TV violence conducted was The National Television Violence Study. A broad coalition of researchers, media executives and mental health experts from several universities, including the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina and the University of California at Santa Barbara, took part in the study, which was assembled by Mediascope, a nonprofit organization hired by the National Cable Television Association in 1995 (Carter C11). It billed itself as the "most thorough scientific survey of violence ever undertaken." The study made some damning observations about the way violence is presented. According to the survey, 47% of the violent acts shown resulted in no observable harm to the victim; only 16% of violent shows contained a message about the long term negative repercussions of violence; and in a whopping 73% of all violent scenes, the perpetrator went unpunished (Zoglin, "Chips" 60). These figures, however, were based on some excessively strict guidelines. Unlike some earlier studies, comic injuries were not considered violence. Kramer hitting his head on a door on Seinfield and accident prone Tim Taylor on Home Improvement were not considered violent. Also in the survey, perpetrators of violence must be punished in the same scene as the violent act. By that measure, most of Shakespeare’s tragedies would be frowned upon; Macbeth, after all, does not get his comeuppance until the end of the play.
The study found 44% of the shows on network
stations contained at least some violence, compared with 59% on basic cable and 85% on premium channels like HBO and Showtime. The study referred to network stations, meaning that syndicated shows such as
Hard Copy would have been included because it airs in the Chicagoland area on a
CBS affiliate (WBBM-2 Chicago).
"Someone would have to have a lobotomy to believe that 44% of programs on network television are violent. Since I’ve been here, I can’t think of a program that glorified violence, that hasn’t shown the pain of violence and attempted to show there are other ways to resolve conflicts," responds Don Ohlmeyer,
NBC West Coast president (Zoglin, "Chips" 60). However, according to a survey conducted by US News and the
University of
California at
Los Angeles with many top-level
Hollywood figures found that 63% of the Hollywood Elite say the industry glorifies violence (Guttman 39).
More importantly, we have to mention the results of one of the most extensive studies ever done on the subject of violence and TV were released in 2003. Researchers followed 329 subjects over 15 years. They found that those who as children were exposed to violent TV shows were much more likely to later be convicted of crime. Researchers said that, "Media violence can affect any child from any family," regardless of social class or parenting. Girls who watched more than an average amount of violence tended to throw things at their husbands. Boys who grew up watching violent TV shows were more likely to be violent with their wives. Researchers concluded in Developmental Psychology that, "Every violent TV show increases a little-bit the likelihood of a child growing up to behave more aggressively."
Furthermore, a number of studies done in the United States and Canada have shown a positive relationship between early exposure to TV violence and physical aggressiveness in later life. But, a clear cause-effect relationship is complicated by the fact that children are typically exposed to many stimuli as they grow up, many of which could play a role in later behavior. For example, during a child's life we can't discount the role of such things as violent video games, the social values of parents and peers, or general living conditions. “If you eat something that you have not tried before and immediately get sick, you will probably assume there's a direct relationship between the two.” No rocket science here, just clear cause and effect. Unfortunately, the cause and effect in many other areas of life are not as readily apparent just like the cause and effect of TV and violence. In the same way, after looking at years of accumulated data-we're now recognizing a relationship between violence in the media and social problems. A summary of much of the research and its consequences can be found in the book, Visual Intelligence-Perception, Image, and Manipulation in Visual Communication, by Ann Marie Seward Barry. The results of a study released in March, 2002 that tracked 700 male and female youths over a seventeen-year period showed a definite relationship between TV viewing habits and acts of aggression and crime in the later life. All other possible contributing environmental elements, such as poverty, living in a violent neighborhood, and neglect, were factored out of this study. According to one of the authors of the study, the findings help cement the link between TV and violence.
It's well known that TV violence holds an attraction for most viewers and this attraction translates into ratings and profits. Because of this most media executives have been reluctant to admit that media violence is in any way responsible for violence in our society. If it weren't for the ratings and profits involved, producers would undoubtedly be much more willing to acknowledge the harm in TV and film violence and do something about it. Instead, we have such things as the American Medical Association finding that shows that in homes with premium cable channels. It is estimated that “children typically witness 32,000 murders and 40,000 attempted murders by the time they reach the age of 18”. This by itself shows how harm can TV do to the innocence of a child.
In 1992, TV Guide commissioned a study of a typical 18-hour TV broadcast day to determine levels of violence. The networks and the more popular cable channels were monitored for "purposeful, overt, deliberate behavior involving physical force or weapons against other individuals."
There were 1,846 acts of violence that broke down this way.
cartoons |
| 471 |
| promos for TV shows |
| 265 |
movies |
| 221 | toy commercials |
| 188 |
music videos |
| 123 | commercials for films |
| 121 |
TV dramas |
| 69 | news |
| 62 |
tabloid reality shows |
| 58 | sitcoms |
| 52 |
soap operas |
| 34 |
|
There are many problems in linking media violence to violence in society. First, as we've suggested, only a small percent of those who watch violence are responsible for violent acts. Of course, most of us are seemingly unaffected by it. But although we can't establish a simple, direct, cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and violence in our society, we can draw some conclusions from the data. Studies show that people who watch a lot of TV violence not only behave more aggressively, but are more prone to hold attitudes that favor violence and aggression as a way of solving conflicts. These viewers also tend to be less trusting of people and more prone to see the world as a hostile place. An extensive study in five Massachusetts communities found a relationship between viewing media violence and the acceptance of sexual assault, social violence, and even alcohol use. Studies also show that media violence also has a desensitizing effect on viewers. As a result, specific levels of violence become more acceptable over time. It then takes more and more graphic violence to shock (and hold) an audience as day by day they become immune to violence.Even history gives us many examples. To cite just one, the famous Roman Circuses started out being a rather tame form of entertainment. But in an effort to excite audiences, violence and rape were introduced in the arena settings. Subsequently, as audiences got used to seeing these things, they then demanded more and more, until the circuses eventually became violent, bloody and grotesque, and hundreds, if not thousands, of hapless people died in the process of providing "entertainment."
To conclude, it is certainly true that television violence does not account for all the causes of children's aggression, and it is also true that some children are a great deal more likely to be affected by television violence than others, and that it is these children who are likely to be potentially more aggressive anyway. But the effect of television violence leads these "at-risk" children to be even more aggressive than they would otherwise be. And although the group especially at risk might be a minority of viewers, they are likely to be the majority of aggressors. This fact makes them, and the violent content of television, worthy of our attention. We are now living in a violent world and the disheartening part of it is there are a lot of violent cases which involve youngsters-they are the masterminds of all this evil doing or they are the victims themselves. Should media violence be responsible on that? No doubt, media violence has affected children's mindsets negatively to certain extent and it is a problem. We all know that children are more vulnerable towards all kind of information from various sources. Additional to that, they like to imitate what they see, hear and so on. Therefore, I am of the opinion that media violence can desensitize them to violence.
Works Cited
Carter, Bill. "A New Report Becomes a Weapon In Debate on Censoring TV Violence."
The New York Times February 7, 1996: C11, C16.
Diamant, Anita. "Media Violence."
Parents Octobers 1994: 40-41, 45.
Donahue, J. Christopher. "What’s Right With Television"
America October 8, 1994: 25.
Guttman, Monika. "A Kinder, Gentler
Hollywood."
U.S. News And World Report May 9, 1994: 39-44.
Neifert, Marianne. "TV: How much is too much?"
McCall’s June 1995: 52.
Mortimer, Jeffery. "How TV Violence Hits Kids."
The Education Digest October 1994: 16-19.
Rich, Frank. "The Idiot Chip"
The New York Times February 10, 1996: 23.
Seppa, Nathan. "TV displays violence without the mess."
APA Monitor April 1996: 1-2.
"TV Ratings."
http://www.USNews.com/usnews/nycu/TVHIGH.HTM January 3, 1997.
"TV Violence."
http://www.cep.org/tvviolence.html October 10, 1996.
"VideoFreedom: Chronology of Action on TV Violence."
http://www.videofreedom.com/chrono.html
Zoglin, Richard. "Chips Ahoy."
Time February 19, 1996: 58-61.
---. "Rating Wars."
Time December 23, 1996:
http://pathfinder.com/@@CuAywAQAlm%E2%80%A6bestof1996/nation.rating_wars.html
We, therefore, need to expose our kids to the kinds of violence that exists in order to make them realize the dangerous world outside and learn how to protect themselves. We cannot let them living in ignorance as this will in turn put their own safety at stake.
The question now is what ways we can use to expose our kids to violent world outside by not pushing them to become villains themselves. And censorship itself certainly cannot solve the problem.
