Premium Essay

Violent Media Isn’t All Bad

In:

Submitted By jamsreiw
Words 1245
Pages 5
Violent Media Isn’t All Bad A question that has been asked many times since the uprising of violence in media is this: is violence in media responsible for violent behavior in adolescence? But before we can even begin to answer that question, we have to establish some basic principles. By violent media, I mean television shows, movies, video games, etc. that contain violent material. While much of this content has warning signs and parental supervision recommended labels all over it, we all know that much of the time kids will get their hands (or in this case, feast their eyes) on all of this violent content regardless of said precautions. Now I’m going to come out right away and say that not only is that not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a good thing. I for one know that violent media played a big role in my life and really helped mold me into who I am today and helped me develop friendships and relationships with people because of how the violent media brought us together, as well as reliving our everlasting thirst for violence as young boys growing up. And so while I definitely think that violent media can have an impact on impressionable kids and young adults, I definitely do not think that it is a main catalyst for violence. Violent media is not the main cause for violence because violent media is entertainment that relieves violence by letting people take out their aggression on the game rather than people in real life. Violence in media from when I was a kid is what helped bring me together with people who to this day are still some of my best friends. In my case, it was right around the time when the newer trilogy of Star Wars movies was coming out, which was also about the same time that I moved away from the only home that I had ever known. I loved all of the light saber fights and just general fighting and action scenes throughout the movie

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Media Violence

...Media Violence Essay Media Violence has been around for many years. Shakespeare wrote detailed gruesome plays but they were beautiful and entertaining. Media Violence has been said to have been persuading our society, but mainly the children to commit violent acts in the world. Many people are concerned because they believe that violent media is the main factor that is making people commit violent crimes, like killing other people. An example of violent media persuading a child to commit a murder would be in the recent theater shooting in Colorado, it was reported that the young man who committed the murders was persuaded by a character in the infamous Batman show called the joker. Therefore the media has been attacked by angry viewers so, the ACLU has been steadily defending the media because they deserve the freedom of speech and also the freedom to create anything they feel would be entertaining to their audience as long as it doesn’t immediately make the audience to actually want to commit the crime. The media which has violence in it, has been fighting many lawsuits because people believe the violent media is a main cause why violence is being created in this world, even though our violence rate isn’t increasing. It doesn’t make sense to blame the violent media yet the parents are the main ones responsible for having control over what their own kids get to actually watch. People can’t control the media but they have control of how to raise their kids and how to teach children...

Words: 1944 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Violence: If We Were To Play Madden NFL

...watching an action movie on Netflix. We live our daily lives in a violent society.But is violence a fruit bearing tree? Does our exposure to it everyday cause us to re create it? No. I would have to disagree with that statement. If we were to play Madden NFL, does that make me a threat to Peyton Manning’s career? No because just because I played a NFL superstar, that doesn’t make me a pro footballer.Marcus Brigstocke said: If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music. The same principle applies to frogger, playing Frogger doesn’t give me the urge to jump out into traffic. The only possible...

Words: 1066 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Gun Control In Schools

...Schools have been labeled as a safe place where children can go and learn but in all actuality, it’s just as dangerous as any other place. Violence in schools has increased over the years and it’s steadily becoming a problem that needs more attention. Hornsby Elementary School in Augusta, Georgia, Sparks Middle School in Sparks, Nevada and Taft Union High School in Taft, California are only three examples of school shootings that have taken place in schools across the United States. If gun laws become more restricting and hinder the availability for people to obtain weapons, if schools began to reinforce and toughen security, and if mental health care facilities strengthen and improve their programs and institutions to accommodate to those...

Words: 1383 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Violence in the Media

...like so many others in the countless school shootings that have occurred. Flared by uncontrollable violent emotions and encouraged by violent media, the violent killers have struck, taking many lives. Now, everyone will pay. In the Columbine shooting, the dangerous effects of the tons of violent media plastered everywhere is evident. The two horrible killers played countless hours of violent video games, leading them to the dreadful plotting of their extremely devastating shooting. When shooting occurred, it was clear from the guns they used to the strategies of killing they used where they obtained their inspiration from Their violent video games. Clearly, violence in the media does contribute to the violence in society. Since celebrities are very commonly idolized, it is very likely people will imitate their idols, even to the point of acting out violently. Mary Gavin admits, "Many violent acts are perpetrated by the "good guys" whom kids have been taught to emulate. Even though kids are taught by their parents that it isn't right to hit, television says it's okay to bite, kick, or hit if you're the "good guy."" Like Mary states, these violent acts are usually directed at the "bad guy," it is very easy to apply the "good guy's" solution to their own lives. When the solution that the "good guy" uses involves violent material, media consumers are encouraged to commit these violent acts themselves just because their role models say it is okay to. This greatly affects the role of...

Words: 1543 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Independent Media Project: Negative Effects Of Video Games On Children

...Independent Media Project Essay Rough Draft There has been a lot of negative attention in the media towards video games. Enough that most parents don't want their young children being subjected to the violence and aggression that most video games have. While there are many arguments that oppose video games, they are also many that claim the opposite. In fact, science has proven that video games are actually beneficial to the cognitive development of human beings. There are many studies that show an enhanced development in children who play video games. In the United States, an astounding 97% of all children play video games for an hour a day. While that may seem counterproductive to their social development, it's actually helping them...

Words: 1090 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Gov vs Video Games

...Government vs. Video Games Michael Winchester Governments are strongly against kids playing video games and the government is wrong. The government thinks if kids are play video games that have graphic violence, sex, violent scenes, gory scenes, partial nudity, full nudity, portrayal of criminal behavior they will become criminals. There is a wide assortment of games out there and not all of them are bad. The games that those people think are bad are rated for adults only, not for kids and it’s the parents fault for letting kids play them. Video games are for fun, they’re not a reference for how to be a violent person. Parents should be monitoring their kids more often. I am a very firm believer in the thought that video games are meant to be for fun and do not affect how violent a person may become. The Government looks at video games completely the wrong way. One of their thoughts is that when someone plays to many video games it can make them violent and can make them into criminals. Looking at the classic game of "Cops and Robbers" and "Cowboys and Indians": children pretend to rob banks and shoot cops dead; toy guns or imaginary weapons are aimed at opponents; losers are supposed to "play dead." Fast-forward to the present and the debate over video game regulation. (Thierer, 2003) The recently introduced bill H.R. 669 by Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA), "The Protect Children from Video Game Sex and Violence Act of 2003." This bill would impose fines on anyone who sells or rents...

Words: 2659 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Negative Effects Of MPAA On Teenagers

...content isn’t just done unconsciously by the ratings staff, it is actually mandated in their rules. According to the media-related authors and professors - Wilson, Linz and Randall, in the rules of the MPAA, “any depiction of sexuality will automatically render a film an R rating, and explicit sex will earn an X rating. In contrast, a film can contain violence and still be given a G, PG, or PG-13 rating” (448). What the MPAA considers sexuality to be isn’t just limited to visually having sexual intercourse, which would automatically warrant a NC-17 rating. Sexuality can actually be categorized into different degrees of nudity and sexual profanity. In fact, the MPAA currently treats consensual intercourse on screen exactly the same as rape as long as both have comparable levels of sexual content (Wilson, Linz, Randall 448). Violence on the other...

Words: 3395 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Written Analysis Project Part 3

...Written Analysis January 9, 2015 Abstract It is said that video game makers advertise their violent games, to young children and that that leads to violence among the youth. I believe that companies market their games in general, and when it comes to ones deemed violent, they are careful not to market to children. I also believe the games cannot be blamed for the children being violent. I play violent video games and so does my son, and we are the least violent people you will ever meet. At some point we as parents have to stop blaming games, movies, TV, or any other type of media for the violent actions of our kids. Marketing is everywhere, and no matter how well you control it, kids will see it, especially in this day and age of information. My son and I play video games all the time and some of our favorite are the ones considered violent. The Grand Theft Auto series of games are some of the best if you like video games. It isn’t the best because of the violence but because the content of the game and what you’re allowed to do. You can roam free in this world and explore things and basically do things as you want or you can do specific missions. We will continue to play these games and if they are violent then so be it. We are with the majority of people who understand these are just games and they do not makes us any more violent then we already want to be. The truth is we give our kids access to the internet by phones, computers, tablets, and...

Words: 3192 - Pages: 13

Premium Essay

Banning Books Portraying Violence

...October 2012 Banning Books Portraying Violence How much can a book that portrays violence affect a high school student? It can affect a student in many ways. In fact, it has more impact when a student reads a book that portrays violence than violent video games or movies. Rebecca Dawkins’s essay “Why Banning Books Isn’t Always Bad” discusses how many “concerned group of parents regularly pressure school boards to keep controversial classics out of the classroom” because of the violence and immoral values they portray for underage students. Books like “Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (about three young women who abuse drugs to escape the pressures of show business); The Godfather by Mario Puzo (about the Italian-American mafia); and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (about two real-life mass murderers)” are what should be kept out of high schools because those types of books for students who are exposed to the everyday dangers of drugs, gangs, and violence in schools make it seem okay in these books. Dawkins goes further on explaining how many high school teachers, including herself, agree with parents in the sense that these books are not age appropriate to be taught in a high school classroom especially in a setting where all of these issues are present everyday. I totally agree with Rebecca Dawkins that high school students would not relate to most characters in controversial books, teachers have no time to teach long controversial books, and books such as Capote’s...

Words: 860 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Bloody Pixels

...that are not being accounted for when determining the cause of a child's violence. Factors such as abuse, depression, and environmental influences have more of an effect on children then actual video games. Violence in video games is not the reason children become violent. Said violence comes from the abuse, depression, and other environmental factors. My support for this claim is for many of reasons, but the big one being that I myself have played many violent video games as a child yet I have grown to be caring and refrain from violence towards other people. I have not committed a violent crime or acted aggressively towards another in any way. A major argument that comes up is that children act based on what they see. With today's advanced technology video games have become so clear and graphic that one could get lost into the "gaming world". Albert Bandura, a famous psychologist, did a study on children and aggression. The study showed that children who witnessed a bobo doll being abused by an adult also committed those same actions, sometimes worse and sometimes less when encountered with the bobo doll. However children that didn’t see any violence done to the bobo doll also committed some types of violent acts. In his study Bandura states, " There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those children who has observed aggressive behavior, although the difference for non-imitative aggression was small" The study goes to show that children do what they are...

Words: 1627 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Essay On Straight Outta Scenario

...Plenty of rappers try to help with their community. When rappers say get out of the ‘’hood’’ they do not mean leave the community in danger. All rappers rap to speak the truth, not to say that they are a threat. They speak about their background and where they are coming from.The words they use means something, and most of the time it’s positive. Rap causes teens to do violent activities such as gangs, guns, and rob to rob people Parents should prevent kids to listen to rap and plenty of topics in rap. Kids all across the U.S. have committed crimes and there first response is ‘’such and such said this is cool,so i did it’’. Kids who know better would not get themselves into that type of predicament. The kids who were raised around terrible homes and terrible surroundings are causing that kid to act out. Civilians and kids are gonna listen to rap no matter what, and there's billionaires such as white people who listen to some rap. Don’t let the focus on the lyrics of rap keep you from enjoying perfectly good...

Words: 878 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

T.V Bad

...Is television a Bad Influence On Children? What has the world come to these days? It often seems like everywhere one looks, violence rears its ugly head. We see it in the streets, school, and even at home. The last of these is a major source of violence. In many peoples living rooms there sits an outlet for violence that often goes unnoticed. It is the television, and the children who view it are often pulled into its realistic world of violence scenes with sometimes devastating results. Much research has gone into showing why children are so mesmerized by this big glowing box and the action that takes place within it. Research shows that it is definitely a major source of violent behavior in children. The research proves time and time again that aggression and television viewing do go hand in hand. Violence on television is bad for children because it causes lifelong aggressiveness, trauma and desensitization. The truth about television violence and children has been shown. Some are trying to fight this problem. Others are ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Still others don't even seem to care. However, the facts are undeniable. The studies have been carried out and all the results point to one conclusion: Television violence causes children to be aggressive and the effects can be life-long. The information can't be ignored. Violent television viewing does affect children. The effects have been seen in a number of cases. In New York, a 16-year-old boy...

Words: 1670 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Religion

...movies." | | "The question whether movie violence should be regulated or not is a difficult and complicated matter." Although many people criticize violent movies, if there is a movie which does not contain sex and violence, who will go to see that movie? Most major movies, such as "Lethal Weapon", "Die Hard", and "Independence Day", were really popular in spite of the fact that the "good guy" killed more people than the "bad guy" did. In my opinion, Hollywood tends to produce few kinds of movies--action, panic, love story, and comedy. Whenever I watch a movie or a video, there is at least one murder in each movie. The biggest number of deaths are in the panic movies, in my opinion. Action movies with violence take heat from adults who blame them for real life violence because they are closer to reality than other movies. For example, in "Natural Born Killers" we can see around 50 deaths, whereas in "Independence Day" thousands of people die. In both movies, tons of people are killed, though the ways to kill are different. The big difference between them is about reality. |[pic] | |PHOTO BY THOMAS PETERS | |"Although many people criticize violent movies, if there is | |a movie which does not contain sex and violence, who will go| |to see that movie?" | Children might imitate behavior they see...

Words: 20424 - Pages: 82

Free Essay

Fear of Crime

...what effects the mind has on crime, and crime within schools. It will also mention different theories and how they affect the thoughts that people have on the amount of crime around them. Crime is a topic in today's society that cast immense fear into the mind and thoughts of many people, putting hindrance on what many people do in their lives. It is depicted in abundance on television, radio, books, and other entertainment sources of today's day and age, therefore causing more people to focus in on crime. Due to the added attention on the topic, fear of crime, the physical, social, economic, and emotional vulnerability as a result of the stress from crime, is more common than it used to be. Fake court cases and exaggerated crimes are all over reality television, in turn, taking minuscule fears and making them extraordinary with every hour they sit observing them in front of their television a daily basis, one show after another. Mind over matter is a theory that is mentioned when discussing the fear of crime, suggesting that the subject may hear about crimes in an overly thought out way. The everyday streets are being haunted by shadows and criminals that aren't really there, or so their mind makes them think. It is said that knowing there is a problem around someone's environment will cause them to believe that the problem is now theirs to deal or cope with, therefore,...

Words: 1112 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Stereotypes In Ruth Park's The Harp In The South

..."They are not a nation of snobs like the English or of extravagant boasters like the Americans or of reckless profligates like the French, they are simply a nation of drunkards." Marcus Clarke. Is it true or is it just a big stereotype? I’m Australian and I’ve grown up in an Australian family, an Australian family who’s number one priority isn’t drinking and getting drunk, what? Australians are depicted as drunkards worldwide through text, film, and media, but are we really all drunkards? The famous novel ‘The Harp in the South’ would say yes, so would the film ‘Red Dog’ and every alcohol advertisement. I can confidently say that this stereotype is very exaggerated but still has some truth and by the end of this article, you will most definitely...

Words: 705 - Pages: 3